March 18, 2005

• 
  
  Death Valley & Owens Valley Field Trip 2005
  
  This year’s trip, run through the UofU G&G dept and AAPG student chapter, was organized by yours truly. It was a blast, and is certainly in my top 5 field trips ever. It’s not quite up to the level of the Cascades trip in 2001, but close.
  
  
  
  As an aside, is it a good idea to put a bottle opener on the state van keychain?
  
  Cast:
  
  
  
  Erich (mineral exploration prof) on the Lone Pine scarp,
  
  
  
  Toshiko (geophys ugrad) enjoying the culture of Nevada
  
  
  
  My Dad (who joined us out in the field for part of the trip)
  
  
  
  Jenny (geo MS in mineral exploration) in Balerat Ghost Town
  
  
  
  Megan (geog ugrad) doing some rock climbing
  
  
  
  Steph (geo MS in barite deposition) showing off her strength in Panam Crater
  
  
  
  Katrina (geo MS in earthquake seismology) living up to her namesake campground: Lazy K
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  and last, but far from least, my new girlfriend Alysen (geo ugrad). Yeah, you heard me.
  
  SUNDAY March 13
  
  We left the SLC at ~9 AM (I told people 8, and figured we’d not actually leave by then. I was right.) The goal was to drive to Shoshone, CA and go hotspringing in Tecopa that night.
  
  
  
  Well, the first few hours of the trip went smoothly. But somewhere near Toquerville, UT our tire failed. It did not go flat, but the tread fell off. We smoothly came to a stop and called AAA. We were able to make it to Pahrump (who’s high school mascot is the Trojans… tee he) for dinner on the spare, after a 1-2 hour delay.
  
  
  
  Surprizingly, the town was packed. We waited a while to eat. It was good, not Terrible.
  
  
  
  Well after dark, and too late for Tecopa Hot Springs, we headed to Shoshone for the traditional campground. However, even though I got email permission to camp there, the campground was closed off.
  
  
  
  This forced us to park outside by the road and hike the few hundred yards to the spot. A small inconvience only. Much more inconvienent was the howling windstorm the inundated us all night. I slept barely, Katrina and Steph got immeasurable sleep. Worst wind I’ve been in second only to the Old Woman Mountains field trip in 103C. By the way, when I woke up, I saw an extra vehicle parked by our spot, which freaked me out. Turns out it was my dad.
  
  MONDAY March 14
  
  In order to be safe, we decided to drive back to Pahrump to get a new tire, so we wouldn’t be on the spare and so we would have a spare in case something else happened. That took another hour or two away from our trip.
  
  
  
  The desert was very green, as has been widely reported. Here’s Shoshone…
  
  
  
  …and here’s the road into Death Valley.
  
  
  
  Everyone was certainly enjoying the senery.
  
  
  
  And the right angle for that perfect picture was just a strech away.
  
  
  
  We were practically doing cartwheels over the vegitation.
  
  
  
  I’m not saying I didn’t like the flowers, but there was something else in DV that was an order of magnitude more amazing.
  
  
  
  If you had to think of things DV is famous for, what would you think of? Cow skulls? Hot temperatures? Lowest elevation in North America? Where would “gigantic brown-water lake” and “wave-worked beach deposits” rank?
  
  
  
  
  In DV, there is a fucking HUGE lake?!?!!?? I know that they got a lot of water this year, but this is unbelieveable. The lake is dozens of square kilometers. A quick look at a map shows that it’s probably the size of the San Fernando Valley. These are some pics from Badwater. The lake exended from well South (~10 mi?) of Badwater to about 5 mi north. Think this lake is hypersaline? people that waded in it had their legs coated with salts.
  
  
  
  
  Just to remind you, here’s what it looks like the other 99.9% of the time (pics from last year).
  
  
  
  What I can’t figure out is: Badwater, the lowest point in DV and the country, was NOT underwater. In fact, it had the normal few springs and that’s it. They were more productive, but not by much. I thought the information center would be well underwater!
  
  
  
  Our next stop was Devil’s Golf Course. It was also dry, though the salty mud was wet underneith the uppermost mm.
  
  
  
  There certainly was a high girl/guy ratio on this trip, which made our group stand out, except when we were in So. Utah.
  
  
  
  Our next stop was the Mesquite Dunes.
  
  
  
  
  Of course, by now there wasen’t even a light breeze. We couldn’t see them in action, but it still was cool.
  
  
  
  That night we drove to Wild Rose campground. It is out of the way but well worth the 30 min drive. It’s at 4000+ feet, a good moderation between the really high campsites and the valley floor sites. We had a short-lived sagebrush campfire.
  
  TUESDAY March 15
  
  
  
  Here’s our lovely campsite in the light.
  
  Our plan this day was to head down the Panimant Valley and check out Goller Canyon (a famous snowball earth site).
  
  
  
  We stopped at a little ghost town on the way.
  
  
  
  
  And just as amazing and rare, PV had another seperate but large lake, except this one was blue (still very salty).
  
  
  
  Goler was certainly the longest stop of the trip (4 hours). I wish we could have hiked more, but this was a whirlwind kinda trip.
  
  
  
  Here’s a small fault between the Noonday Dolomite and the Kingston Peak Fm. The cave was lined with slickenlines.
  
  
  
  Here is the Wildrose member diamictite of the Kingston Peak. Looks cold to me…
  
  
  
  Next, we went to the Trona Pinnacles. These are Pleistocene tufas.
  
  
  
  After the pinnacles, we went to Ridgecrest to shop and pick up some wood at my house. Therefore, everyone got to see my pad, which was cool.
  
  Since it was getting dark, would could not make our scheduled stop at Fossil Falls and had to go straight to Lone Pine to camp at Diaz Lake.
  
  WEDNESDAY March 16
  
  
  
  Diaz Lake was a nice campground, right at the foothills of the Alabama Hills.
  
  
  
  It was very pretty. Plus, it had voyeristic benches.
  
  
  
  Our first stop was the 1872 Lone Pine Fault scarp. As you can plainly see, it’s about 2.1 Alysens in height.
  
  
  
  At this point, my dad left our little adventure, and we took one last group pic. Megan “happened” upon that sign. I’m so jealous.
  
  Speaking of illicit activity, I had a first—I was pulled over. I hate the question, “So, you realize why I pulled you over, right.” Does he want me to say, “Because I’m a coke mule for the TJ mafia?” I really had no idea, except for that I was nearing a speed reduction zone and possibly had gone over the “line”.
  
  He got us for lack of seatbelts. Luckily, he only cited us for one (instead of the correct 5) and it should be a $40 ticket. I certainly was respecting his authority, but many of the gals were not. Of well, that’s just one more thing that I can say that I’ve done. He pulled overanother poor sucker immediately after us.
  
  
  
  Our next area of interest was Bishop. I knew it snowed a lot this year, but this was ridiculous. We could not get to Inyo Crater or Obsidian (Glass Creek) Dome. So, we went to Panam Crater, since it was (relatively) not far from the road. Sometime on the way, BOTH of the blinkers stopped working on the van.
  
  
  
  Let me tell you, a 1/2 mile hike in the snow is no easy task. But we were determined to see something, and Panam was about our only option. Here, Alysen is hot (of course she is) so she decided to cool down the old-fasioned way: snow angel.
  
  
  
  When we finally made it, we realized it was worth it.
  
  
  
  The view alone was well worth it, but all of us collected a ton of rocks. For those of you that did not have a class with Jon Davidson, Panum Crater is a rhyolitic volcano associated with the Mono Domes and the Long Valley system. It’s last eruption was in the 14th C. In the background is Mono Lake.
  
  
  
  That evening, instead of camping at our normal spot, we decided to just drive and drive, and we eventually made it to the lovely city ofLovelock, NV and the just as Lovely Lazy K campground. We at least had a shower.
  
  THURSDAY March 17
  
  Happy St. Paty’s day! Of course, we started the day by listening to Flogging Molly.
  
  
  
  Not much to show for this day. We made it home by 4 PM. Here is Toshiko enjoying her last Capri Sun “in private.” By the way, she loves Capris Sun.
  
  
  
  When I got to my house in the SLC, I saw this. I guess they were installing a new hydrant, the sight of it all freaked me out at first.
  
  
  
  Yes, a lot of things went wrong and not as planned, but it was a great trip. Awesome people, amazing sights, and someone just might have accidentally learned something. Hopefully, this can be an annual event.

  • 6:18 pm
  • 17 Comments