March 30, 2009

• Notch Peak for NP

  

  (a map of the places I’ve been, from the Facebook)

  

  Just got back from a trip in the field.  How close to the end is this?  I may only have two trips left… EVER!  We wrapped up the aquifer test, but I was not there because of illness (I’m better now).  On an aside,I am leaning more and more toward staying with the state for the indefinite future, assuming they don’t fire me for assault to vehicles.  What I have been doing out there is hand measuring all of our aquifer test wells and other local wells in case the transducer data has issues.  Since this only takes about 4 hours, it has allowed me some time to explore/hike/get lost in the wonderful area that I’ve worked in for the last 2 years.  How Great Basin NP is not 3x bigger is beyond me.  Some examples:

  

  This is King’s Canyon, in the Confusion range.  Beautifully bedded mid-Paleozoic carbonates dominate this drive along US Hwy 6/50.

  

  Even though I had driven past it dozens of times, I had never really looked at this arch.

  

  According to this website, it is called Elephant rock (though their picture sucks, it might not even be the same thing).  It really, really looks like an elephant, with a pack/saddle on it’s back.  Do you see it?  I think this one really does look like it, unlike that ‘skull’ at Joshua Tree.

  

  Possibly the coolest thing about it is if you stand in the perfect spot, there is actually a small hole where the eye should be!  You might just make that out on this pic, but in person, it is awesome.

  

  I spent the most time in the House Range, the place where Notch Peak, Tatow Knob, and the world-class Wheeler Basin Trilobite beds and soft-bodied Cambrian Burgess Shale-type fauna.  Above is Amasa Basin, an OHV paradise, but great even if you don’t have a four-wheeler.

  

  This range is FULL of big, impressive cliffs.  What more would you want in a national park?  From here, you can do the hike to the top of Notch Peak, which I was going to do, but I ran out of time.  If any of you want to do this, I’ll be there in a heartbeat.

  

  This would be the famous drive if the House Range was a national park: Marjum Pass.  It’s a beautiful, winding drive around large cliffs of Paleozoic carbonates.

  

  There are also great knobs and spires… how could this at least be a state park?

  

  Of course, the main attraction.  I was gonna hike up the canyon that goes up to the cliff, but it was too windy and snowy on the day I was gonna do it… Next time…

  

  What I did do that day is drive to Crystal Peak, which is in the Confusion Range, south of King’s Canyon.  I might have mentioned this before, but it is such a strange mountain.  It literally glows and shines compared to the dark miogeosynclinal (passive margin) rocks around it.

  

  The funny thing about Crystal Peak is it’s a xenolith rich magma, NOT a xenocryst or porphyritic magma!  Silly namers…

  

  Here it is up close.. it has really strange weathering pits on it, and it is so out of place locally, though regionally there is a lot of magmatism, even Holocene basalt.

  

  To end, here’s a pic of (what I believe to be) Ord. Eureka quartzite for you Pioche folks.  It really is a great place, and I’d love to take all of you on a tour of the valley, especially because it may be unihabitable in our lifetimes.  If Vegas does withdraw groundwater from the region, this whole area, including Great Basin NP, could be a dust bowl.  So, better come see it before it’s too late!

   

  P.S. In my part to help stimulate the economy, I have bought (in the last month) a new camera, iPod (120 GB), and framed a painting by my Grandmother.  The iPod now has every CD I own on it, and then some (that came from a external hard drive I bought from SB Scott).  Now I have all my music ready to go… how cool is that?

  • 9:04 pm
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