Summer 2008 fieldwork
I've been back a while now, but too lazy to post pictures.
The trip was great; all the aches and pains I was bitching and moaning about were totally worth it. I also learned that I am not the most worthless rock-carrying student mule in the department.
First we went back to the Tule Valley, which I posted some pictures from last summer, then to Nevada.
This is Crystal Peak, which is a white volcanic tuff. It basically looks like somebody landed a space ship in the middle of the desert. Absolutely amazing on a clear day.
The rest of the photos
This year, we climbed D for the first time. Holy shit. The easy way up is a small canyon, in which there is a 10 foot cliff to climb around. And then there's a 40 foot cliff to climb around. This is better on the way down, carrying a 60lb pack. The view from the top, however, is fantastic. This is northward toward the highway. Facing east, you can see Sevier Lake (but I failed to take decent pictures of it). It's not just crazy geologists up here, either. The cairn (tiny bump on the crest in the center) was built by a shepherd. There's a matching cairn on the hill behind this perspective, too.
Then we moved to Nevada, and went to Yellow Hill for the first time. Hintze didn't paint his section there, so we had a hell of a time finding it, after having a hell of a time navigating tiny dirt roads in the middle of nowhere. The very scenic middle of nowhere.
Also, when we got there, we realized it wasn't really what you might call a hill, at least when you're from Iowa.
Again, pretty fantastic view from the top. We were extremely fortunate that there was a navigable Jeep track that got about halfway up the side of the hill, or we wouldn't have been able to sample. We found it after climbing up (more than 1,000 feet!) on reconnaissance the first day.
On the way to Yellow Hill, we spotted a mine in a nearby hillside. A lot of mines are labeled in the Nevada Gazetteer, but not this one. I have no idea how old it was, what it mined, anything. But it was damn cool.
Parked down the hill from the mine. 1930s schoolbus.
We were really shocked and excited that the mineshaft wasn't blocked off. Seriously, people die in these, but that makes it more tempting to go in.
So we did! I was of course a negative nelly, and grumbled about how it was stupid to be in an abandoned mine, but it was really exciting to see. None of the three of us had anything that emitted light, so we were seeing by taking flash pictures. We didn't go in very far, because the tunnels curved, and we couldn't see anything.
Still dangerous outside! The boards creaked a bit, but nobody died taking photos.
The field area was high desert, which I'd never seen up close before. This is a little cholla forest by the side of the road.
They were starting to bloom! There were also blooming barrel cactus with fuchsia blossoms, and prickly pear with both yellow and pink flowers. The yucca had just gotten done blooming.
Charcoal kilns at Bristol Wells Historical District, 10-20 miles down the road from Yellow Hill. No marker. No explanatory sign. Just a name on the map, and some abandoned buildings, and the kilns.
It snowed up in the mountains the first night we were in Ely. Snow everywhere above 10,500 feet or so. It was gorgeous driving down the highway, where it is a warm late May day, and seeing the top of Mt. Wheeler (not pictured) covered in snow.
The trip was great; all the aches and pains I was bitching and moaning about were totally worth it. I also learned that I am not the most worthless rock-carrying student mule in the department.
First we went back to the Tule Valley, which I posted some pictures from last summer, then to Nevada.
This is Crystal Peak, which is a white volcanic tuff. It basically looks like somebody landed a space ship in the middle of the desert. Absolutely amazing on a clear day.
The rest of the photos
This year, we climbed D for the first time. Holy shit. The easy way up is a small canyon, in which there is a 10 foot cliff to climb around. And then there's a 40 foot cliff to climb around. This is better on the way down, carrying a 60lb pack. The view from the top, however, is fantastic. This is northward toward the highway. Facing east, you can see Sevier Lake (but I failed to take decent pictures of it). It's not just crazy geologists up here, either. The cairn (tiny bump on the crest in the center) was built by a shepherd. There's a matching cairn on the hill behind this perspective, too.
Then we moved to Nevada, and went to Yellow Hill for the first time. Hintze didn't paint his section there, so we had a hell of a time finding it, after having a hell of a time navigating tiny dirt roads in the middle of nowhere. The very scenic middle of nowhere.
Also, when we got there, we realized it wasn't really what you might call a hill, at least when you're from Iowa.
Again, pretty fantastic view from the top. We were extremely fortunate that there was a navigable Jeep track that got about halfway up the side of the hill, or we wouldn't have been able to sample. We found it after climbing up (more than 1,000 feet!) on reconnaissance the first day.
On the way to Yellow Hill, we spotted a mine in a nearby hillside. A lot of mines are labeled in the Nevada Gazetteer, but not this one. I have no idea how old it was, what it mined, anything. But it was damn cool.
Parked down the hill from the mine. 1930s schoolbus.
We were really shocked and excited that the mineshaft wasn't blocked off. Seriously, people die in these, but that makes it more tempting to go in.
So we did! I was of course a negative nelly, and grumbled about how it was stupid to be in an abandoned mine, but it was really exciting to see. None of the three of us had anything that emitted light, so we were seeing by taking flash pictures. We didn't go in very far, because the tunnels curved, and we couldn't see anything.
Still dangerous outside! The boards creaked a bit, but nobody died taking photos.
The field area was high desert, which I'd never seen up close before. This is a little cholla forest by the side of the road.
They were starting to bloom! There were also blooming barrel cactus with fuchsia blossoms, and prickly pear with both yellow and pink flowers. The yucca had just gotten done blooming.
Charcoal kilns at Bristol Wells Historical District, 10-20 miles down the road from Yellow Hill. No marker. No explanatory sign. Just a name on the map, and some abandoned buildings, and the kilns.
It snowed up in the mountains the first night we were in Ely. Snow everywhere above 10,500 feet or so. It was gorgeous driving down the highway, where it is a warm late May day, and seeing the top of Mt. Wheeler (not pictured) covered in snow.