I left Bozeman on Saturday morning, and drove for about seven hours. I headed south through Ennis, Montana, along the western side of the Madison Range, passing by the Madison Earthquake Site landslide (from the 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake), and then south into Idaho. I went through Island Park, Idaho, site of the caldera of one of the three big recent eruptions of the Yellowstone volcanic center. Then into northern Utah, where I got a glimpse of the Great Salt Lake. I headed up into the Wasatch Range to spend the night, just east (and several thousand feet above) Ogden, Utah. I did some birding on the reservoir there, observing the mating rituals of both the woodcock (amazing humming noise produced during flying dives) and the western grebe (neck bobbing following by synchrnonous running across the water).

The next morning, I headed west from there, into the basin, across a range, into another basin, across another range -- you get the idea. I initially intended to go hunt for trilobite fossils in the Wheeler Shale in the House Range, but the 20-mile dirt road rattled me (quite literally) and I turned around after only four miles. I got spooked: what would happen to me if the Prius broke down out here? It's really quite desolate country. I've only ever had that feeling once before, when my Dad and I drove across the Namib Desert. It's a mix of agoraphobia and anxiety over feeling inept at repairing mechanical things, like Prii and other automobiles. I chickened out -- no trilobites for me. But there was a consolation in Great Basin National Park, which was where I headed that afternoon. I did a short hike there in the Snake Range, and toured Lehman Caverns there (my third guided cave tour in two weeks!). I had my best campsite of the trip at Great Basin: montane forest, with a gurgling stream running fifteen feet from my tent. Lovely.

When I woke up, I packed up the car and coasted downhill for eight miles into the town of Baker, Nevada, where I had a great breakfast and coffee at a little cafe there. Then up and over the Snake Range, and down the next valley to the west, south for 93 miles of some of the most empty country I've ever seen in America. In an hour and a half of driving, I saw only 20 vehicles. I crossed back into Utah, and then made my way south to the edge of the Colorado Plateau, and drove up into Zion National Park. Zion is a great canyon cut into a series of sedimentary rocks. The last time I was here, 13 years ago, I walked up the Narrows, and my first order of business was to repeat that hike. There's a new shuttle system in the park now, so after parking at my campsite, I hopped on a shuttle into the park and rode it to the end. I waded into the Virgin River and shuffled upstream. In the Narrows, the Virgin River has cut down through the Navajo Sandstone, but not quite down into the weaker underlying Kayenta Formation, and so the canyon is deep but narrow. (Downstream, when it gets deep enough to tap into the Kayenta, it undermines the sandstone cliffs, and the valley widens.) "Hiking" here is one of the more unique outdoor experiences I've had. Being immersed in the cool river, surrounded by towering rock walls -- it's magical. The further upriver you hike, the less people there are, and it's like a cathedral. I went up and around several entrenched meanders, and marvelled at the alcoves, cross-bedding, and variety of cobbles in the riverbed.

Today, I'm staying in the park and heading up to Angel's Landing, a legendary hike in its own right. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I'm off to Las Vegas to pick up my Dad and brothers for our Grand Canyon rafting trip. Not sure if I'll be able to post again until after I get out.... late next week.

Labels: birdies, fossils, grand canyon, idaho, montana, national parks, stratigraphy, travel, utah

It's been a busy week for me. I've really enjoyed my first MSSE class of the summer, Dave Lageson's "Northern Rocky Mountain Geology." Dave led us on a series of field trips within driving distance of Bozeman: the Bridger Range, the Paradise Valley, the Spanish Peaks, the Hebgen Lake earthquake scarp and Quake Lake, and today out to Ringing Rocks, the Lahood Conglomerate, and a descent into Lewis and Clark Caverns. It's been a lot of cool geology, as well as a lot of driving! In the evenings, I've been keeping busy with Shakespeare in the Parks, seeing the B Side Players, and socializing with fellow MSSE teachers. All good stuff, but it leaves little time for blogging. Tomorrow morning, I'm off to the south. I'll be on the road for another five days or so, going to Las Vegas to pick up my father and brothers and then we're going rafting down the Grand Canyon starting next Wednesday. Along the way, I hope to visit some sites in Utah, and I hope to post some updates en route. After the Canyon float, I'll head back north, again through Utah and probably western Colorado (Black Canyon of the Gunnison), before returning to Bozeman for another three MSSE classes ("Dinosaur Paleontology of the Hell Creek Formation," "Life in Extreme Environments," and "Wildlife Ecology of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem"). Then back east, hopefully with some Niobrara Chalk and Pierre Shale site visits along the way.

Also, along similar "rock and road" lines, I had an article published in Geotimes this month on the roadtrip I did two years ago from DC up to Alaska and back. You can check it out here.

FYI, I got a new camera for this trip, and haven't been able to download any pictures off it yet (a stupid software issue), so that's the reason for the lack of photos lately. My apologies!

Labels: grand canyon, montana, msse, utah

Sooo.... I've been "delinquent" about posting (if five days off counts as delinquent). But the long and the short of it is that I made it to Bozeman, and started classes, and have settled into life up here. After leaving Denver, I spent a couple days in Fort Collins, Colorado, staying with my undergaduate mentor professor Larry Wiseman. When I was at William and Mary, I forged a strong relationship with Larry, and that persisted even though I defected from biology (he's a developmental biologist, and chair emeritus of the department there) to geology (basically because they had more field trips). Anyhow, he and I would gather once a month or so for coffee and talk about life, the West, Ed Abbey, art, and science.

Now he's retired and pursuing bird rock art and also teaching cell biology at Colorado State University (in Fort Collins). We drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park and toured the various microbreweries and restaurants of Fort Collins (and Lyons). It was, in short, a good time.

Departing there on Saturday morning, I drove north through Wyoming, and camped at the end of the day at Buffalo Bill State Park, on the east flank of Yellowstone. On Sunday morning, I drove through the park, marvelling at six-foot-deep snow on Washburn Pass, and cruising along past tourists and bison galore. I stopped once, to look at the single petrified tree there, and then rocked and rolled on up the Paradise Valley to Livingston, and thence westward on the interstate to Bozeman.

In Bozeman, I'm enrolled in the Master of Science in Science Education program at Montana State University. It's essentially all science educators who are taking graduate coursework to become better science educators. And it's fun! This week, I'm taking Dave Lageson's class on the geology of the northern Rocky Mountains. More on that later, perhaps, but the point for now is that I'm enjoying it, and enjoying interacting with my fellow MSSE educators.

Tonight, I had a bonus, when we had a mini-conference of geobloggers. I guess there's somewhere around 50 geobloggers out there now, but we had four of them sitting at one table in Montana Ale Works, talking rocks and fossils and blogging and whatnot. That's got to be a record for the geoblogosphere. It was a lot of fun. Thanks to Mel, Brian, and Jeannette for making it happen!

Labels: field trips, montana, msse, travel, wyoming, yellowstone

Roadtrip update:

Yesterday was a good one. I started off the day at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas. I was the first one in the door, and had the place essentially to myself. Massive mosasaur skeletons, supercool Uintacrinus slabs, plesiosaurs, and all kinds of other neat stuff. They had some less spectacular mineral displays, but the locally-derived fossils were world class. I was very impressed.

Then, driving. I made good time when the wind wasn't trying to stop me, and listening to Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything on my iPod, I crossed into Colorado. Eastern Colorado looks a lot like Kansas, of course, but before too long had passed, I got my first view of the Rockies in the distance, "rising from the plains." I got to the Denver area around 2pm, which meant I had plenty of time before the 7pm "Geography Goes Digital" event at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (DMNS). So I headed southwest, towards Morrison, Colorado, and "Dinosaur Ridge." Dinosaur Ridge is a hairpin driving loop on/over the Dakota Hogback, showing Mesozoic sedimentary rocks shed off the Laramide Orogeny and into the Western Interior Seaway. There's an excellent display of dinosaur tracks, and lots of cool ripple marks, trace fossils, concretions, and stratigraphy. Looking out over the crisp dry air of the Denver Basin, I really felt like "Aha! I'm finally in the West!" It was a good feeling. After hiking and exploring there, I toodled into Morrison, Colorado, and went the Morrison Museum of Natural History. There, I had the terrific good luck to run into Matt Mossbrucker, who I mentioned reading about in Smithsonian magazine back in April. The museum's volunteers were on vacation, so I had the good fortune to have a personal tour from the director! Matt showed me a wealth of incredible fossils, including the type specimen of Stegosaurus, and footprints of baby Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus -- the latter tracks were the subject of the Smithsonian article. In case you (still) haven't read the article, it looks like these baby sauropods were capable of running on their hind legs like a basilisk lizard. Matt walked me through the logic, pointing at specific pieces of evidence on the massive slab of rock. Then we were out of time, because I had to get over to the DMNS for the "Geography Goes Digital" event.

At the DMNS, I was met by Kirk Johnson, the author of a book I mentioned here a month or so ago: Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway. My friend Michelle knows Kirk, and put us in touch. (Thanks, Michelle!) Kirk has been at the DMNS for more that fifteen years, starting as a curator of paleontology, and now as a vice-president. It was very cool of him to make time to see me. Immediately, Kirk introduced me to Bob Raynolds, the speaker for the "Geography Goes Digital" event. Bob and I talked a bit about geology and teaching, and then we scooted over to the Planetarium for the main event. I took a seat, leaned back and was amazed. It was like Google Earth on steroids; a feeling like looking down from the space station on Earth. Bob led us on an exploration of areas of the world that are showing the strain of coping with climate change. He has an astonishing amount of geographical knowledge (apparently, he has traveled to more than 50 countries to do geology) and it was a real treat to tour the planet with him and 150 of the DMNS's closest friends. Afterwards, Kirk took me and another friend-of-a-friend visitor on a tour of the museum. I saw the world's second-largest gold nugget, a massive crystal of rhodochrosite, and the incredible tour through time exhibit that Kirk put together when he first got to the museum. Starting with the Ediacaran, the exhibit went through time in a series of sub-exhibits. Each started with a diorama, and then showed the fossils that the diorama was based on. There were some INCREDIBLE fossils there -- absolute stunners. Kirk confided that's just how he wanted it -- not a thousand small fossils, but a few massive ones that just knock your socks off. It was very impressive. Around 10pm, I bade Kirk farewell, and left the museum. I drove up to Boulder, Colorado, and holed up in a hotel for the night.

I feel really lucky to have visited three amazing paleontological museums in one day, and to have had personal tours from the elite of Denver paleontology. Many thanks to Matt and Kirk for making time to show me around!

Now I'm off to check out Boulder, and maybe hike in the Flatirons above town. More later.

Labels: colorado, dinosaurs, fossils, kansas, minerals, travel

Howdy folks,

I've been on the road for several days now, and thought it would be time for an update. On my first day, I got up at the crack of dawn and drove from DC out to Winchester, Virginia, where my brother lives, and had breakfast with him and his family. After saying goodbye to my passel of nieces, nephews, and the dogs Cubby and Slick, I hit the road proper. Down the Shenandoah Valley on I-81, then west on I-64 across the wide part of West Virginia. This was the Valley and Ridge province, and it's hell on the gas mileage. I dropped from 54 mpg to 53.5 by the time I got out the Allegheny Plateaus. I also saw the most expensive gas I've seen so far: $4.75 a gallon for regular unleaded. (The lowest I've seen is $3.78.)

After crossing the border into Kentucky, I deviated to the south, and around 8pm EST (7pm CST), I pulled into Mammoth Cave National Park. I got a campsite, set up the tent, and popped a bottle of homebrew. (I brought my last six bottles of Whatchagot Ale with me.) There was a racket coming from the trees: a 17-year cicada emergence was in progress, and the seething insects pulsated as they coordinated their shrill call: positively primordial. For my evening's entertainment, I attended the Park Service's "campfire" program. (Today, "campfire" means "PowerPoint slideshow," which has its advantages and its disadvantages.) It was a hot and humid night's sleep.

The next morning, I got up and made some coffee. After breaking camp, I took a hike down to the "River Styx," an emergent spring where a stream of water flows out of Mammoth Cave and into the Green River (the same Green River, by the way, of John Prine fame). I also passed one of the many entrances to the Mammoth Cave system, and felt an amazing cool breeze oozing out of the hole and flowing down a classic solution valley towards the Green River. At 10am, my tour of the cave began. Mammoth offers multiple tours of different parts of the cave at different activity levels. I signed up for the gnarliest one on offer: the so-called "Wild Cave" tour. (Tuff Cookie presciently recommended this to me, though I had in fact reserved it a couple of weeks ago.) The Wild Cave tour is different from most Mammoth tours because it's real caving, with crawling and mud and tight squeezes, and climbing skills. You've got to be reasonably fit and trim for the Wild Cave tour to work. Joining me where 11 other people with various backgrounds, including seven from the ESPN auto racing circuit. They had a fun, jocular attitude, with a lot of mutual joshing and teasing.

I was struck by a few things about Mammoth: (1) It's really big. But that's why we bother going there, and why it's a national park (it's the longest cave system in the world), so this is no big insight. (2) It's got a lot of gypsum in it. In many places, "flowers" of gypsum crystals sprout from the ceiling and walls. I asked, where's the sulfur coming from? The guides said there was a pyrite rich layer above, which was being leached by rainwater. (3) There's not a lot of stalactites in Mammoth. I've spent a lot of time in caves in West Virginia, and there are many places in them where it's nothing but stalactites. I'm not sure what's up with that, but it was noteworthy to me. (4) There are some HUGE rooms in Mammoth, with ceilings that are easily five or six stories tall. Very impressive; cathedral-like. (5) Mammoth Cave has been a tourist destination for a LONG time. People have been trekking to this destination long before there was a road network to bring them there. Back in the day (late 1700s and early 1800s), people arrived via the river rather than overland. Some of the cave was developed early on to support these visitors. Nowadays, the Park Service continues this tradition with paved walkways, lighting, and even a subterranean cafe in "sacrifice" areas of the cave. My tour passed in and out of these areas throughout our six-hour expedition.

After exiting the cool cave back into the Kentucky afternoon heat, I took a shower (the best $2 I've spent so far on the trip!) and popped into the Prius for some more driving. I headed north again, crossing briefly into Indiana, and then Illinois. I spent the night at a hotel near Mt. Vernon, Illinois. Yesterday morning, I got up and drove west all day, back on I-64 and then on I-70. I crossed the Mississippi River at St. Louis, and then crossed Missouri. Into Kansas after that: it wasn't nearly as flat as I remembered it. Part of the insight into Kansas' topography was courtesy of the Prius, which showed me (via the mpg indicator) when I was going uphill and down. A strong headwind lowered my fuel efficiency significantly, dropping it down to 52.7 mpg by day's end. There's a lot of wind out here! I was also struck by the clouds: such crazy, distinctive forms. I can see how if you were growing up here, you could get into meteorology big time. I saw a massive storm system to my south, and the local NPR affiliate was broadcasting storm warnings and tornado watches all afternoon.

I decided to stop for the night in Hays, Kansas, home of fellow geoblogger Ron Schott. As it turns out, Ron is not actually in town this week, but I may be able to hook up with him for some Kansas chalk scouting on my way back east in late July. But there's a lot to do in Hays. For dinner, I went to the Lb. Brewing Company, a craft brewery and brewpub downtown. I got a sampler of eight (small glasses) of their various beers, and enjoyed them all. Most unusual was a lemon beer which tasted a lot like lemonade. After dinner (reading Oceans of Kansas with my turkey panini), I watched another massive storm system pass to the north, with towering gray clouds and sporadic pulses of lightning. Wow.

This morning, I'm off for a run (need to stretch those legs!) and then to the Sternberg Museum of Natural History here in Hays (an affiliate of Ron's university, Fort Hays State University). The Sternberg has a reputation as having awesome fossils from the area's sedimentary strata laid down in the Western Interior Seaway. Looking forward to it.

Next stop: Denver, hopefully by 7pm so I can attend the "Geography Goes Digital" event at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. More later...

Labels: caves, kansas, kentucky, prius, travel

Folks, I'm heading out on the road today, heading to drive from DC to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky by tonight. I'll update from the road as I can -- planning to be in Colorado by Thursday. Best wishes til then.

Labels: kentucky, travel

I leave this weekend to begin a two-month trip out west (Montana mainly, but also Grand Canyon and points in between). As I'm prepping for the trip, my cat Lola has been sabotaging my efforts to plan. Though I've reassured her that she'll get along great with my subletter, she is still obsessed with blocking my trip-planning progress.

Here she is lying on the roadmap of Colorado:



And here, covering the "explanation" for a geologic map of the states of the stable interior:



I love that my job allows me summer travel time, and I love that, living in DC, I can get a subletter to take over my rent and cat care during the time I'm away. But I will miss this little furball when I'm on the road. She's a great cat.

Labels: lola, maps, travel