Wolf River Fieldwork Mar 2-5

Frontispiece: Young fossil (Taloclamys gemmulata) found in marine silts 580m above sea level, uplifted by the Alpine Fault.

With a narrow but promising weather window forecast over Fiordland, I quickly geared up at the last minute for what regrettably may have been my last bit of PhD fieldwork. This would be the first PhD fieldwork where I did not directly study the Alpine Fault. Rather the goal of this work was to re-find a deposit of young fossiliferous marine silts and sands exposed in large slips at the head of the Wolf River (580m/2000ft elevation) and drainages southward. We would collect any and all shells we found so that a paleontologist collaborator could determine the diversity, environment and water depth the shells were deposited in. I would then give a few of the broken fragments to another collaborator who would be able to date the shells so that I could determine an Alpine Fault-related uplift rate here. For the fieldwork I was fortunate to be joined by one of New Zealand's great field geologists who originally found the shell deposit almost 15 years ago.

An early start from Dunedin had us flying out out of Milford just after noon under overcast skies. We had a great but short flight up the Harrison and over into the John O'Groats to spiral into grassy "flats" near the head of the Wolf River, a large creek between the John O'Groats and Kaipo. In seconds we were out of the chopper and watching it fly out of sight and out of sound. A thorough search for a campsite found sparsely any flat ground but we settled on a sloping spot just inside the bush and set about making it comfortable.

We then walked up the creek towards the towering slip, noticing the occasional chunk of weathered marine silt in the creek. We followed deer tracks to the head of the slip where we found the marine deposit sitting on basement rock. The rock was strongly weathered with all the calcareous fossils gone from the rocks leaving only the imprints, which would be useless to me and of only minor interest to the paleontologists. Things were not looking promising and I began to think we had poorly gambled a helicopter flight to come here. I continued searching the area for fresher material and marking a stratigraphic section through the deposit. A couple hours later I heard a triumphant hoot- Mo had found shell material! I joined him to attack the more promising bluish gray silt outcrop where he found the shell. After digging in about 20cm we began finding fossils with regularity- apparently the calcareous shells had only been leached near the surface and were well-preserved (though delicate) within. A couple hours of careful work revealed over 15 species of molluscs including ones that would be useful for dating! Many were so well preserved they still had their iridescent  mother-of-pearl. Uncovering the fossils was great fun compared to my usual activities of structural measurements and oriented samples and reminded me of my early rock collecting days. Nearing the end of the day, we carefully wrapped up our finds and walked back to camp. We cooked dinner over an open fire in the creekbed as trails of smoke spun into the sky. I was much relieved by the day's eventual success.

The next morning we happily awoke to a cloudless sky and got an early start climbing up the slip past the previous day's outcrops and then headfirst into the bush to gain a well-deer tracked moraine ridge that we could travel to reach the edge of the Wolf River Tablelands, an extensive flat glacial surface beneath which lie the marine silts. We traveled about 1.5km to reach the rim of the next drainage to the west of the Wolf to take in the sobering view- a huge slip complex 700m across lined by 20-40m cliffs of moraine with waterfalls pouring over in places. Below we could see the marine silts we hoped to reach but it was not obvious how we were going to get down the cliffs to reach them. We continued for quite a distance along the rim before eventually finding a sketchy deer trail down through the cliffs to eventually reach the creek and walk up the next branch. Here we found a near perfect section through the entire silt unit with a 35m cliff towering overhead. I set about describing and measuring the base of the section. This time it was I that found the fossil-rich zone in the middle of the steep slope with well-preserved scallops in abundance on the surface. Here the exposure was so good that we could spend most of the time collecting the fossils off of the surface instead of digging through the silt looking for them. Over several hours we found a diverse fauna including scallops, clams, bivavles, gastropods, urchin, barnacles, chiton, mussel and others.

        Here be fossils.

As the day started to get on we headed back. To avoid the long circuitous route back up the cliffs we opted to try our chances at finding a more direct route. This went well for a while but the most promising place still had a 15m high bush clad cliff we would need to scale, including vertical roof-clinging for the last 5m. It looked do-able with care, though definitely with bad consequences if one of us fell. Using quite a bit of strength I pulled myself up the tree roots and shrub stems while wedging myself between a tree and the cliff. Eventually I reached the top and Mo followed, both of us feeling more than a bit triumphant. If only health and safety police could have seen us! We made great time heading back so collected a few more fossils at the Wolf outcrop before yet another great campfire evening.

The following morning we packed up camp and walked down the Wolf River to reach the coast. The day was beautiful and the going down the Wolf remarkably good thanks to low waters, good deer trails and grassy terraces lining the river. At the last turn in the river we abruptly received a beautiful view of Madagascar Beach guarded by a gateway of rock with a nice swimming pool beyond. We reached the beach without incident 2.5 hours after setting out. The sandflies were mostly civil and the warm sun exceedingly welcome on this beautiful and remote beach. We found a campsite and spent the rest of the day walking the bouldery coastline, examining old wave cut terraces that had been uplifted and abandoned. Nothing useful to date but it was worth a try. We had a great little driftwood-fed fire on the beach as the sun set and clouds rolled in from the horizon.

        Exiting the Wolf River

        Above and below: Several views of the remote Madagascar Beach

We had a lazy last day with a prolonged breakfast, then moved on to boredom fighting activities like moving rocks to make a good helipad and untying knotted crayfish pot lines. When those were succeeded we resorted to walking around in circles to avoid a cloud of sandflies landing on us. Eventually the chopper landed and we were whisked away on another beautiful flight back to Milford Sound with many kilograms of precious fossils carefully packed away.

Goodbye sandflies!

It was exceedingly pleasant fieldwork without complaints. Easy, beautiful, productive. Many thanks to Mo, my very keen, capable and accomplished field assistant for the trip.

 

Stormy Pot Expedition Feb 11-17

Frontispiece: The amusing silhouette and namesake of the Big Friendly Giant entrance (best appreciated after 6+ days in the cave). All in-cave photos by Neil Silverwood.

Stormy Pot is a new system found on Mt Arthur in early 2011 by some of the keener cavers in New Zealand. Over several trips they pushed the cave to great lengths and depths. When they plotted up their surveys at the end of the trip they found the cave to be within hundreds of meters of connecting to New Zealand's deepest through-trip, Nettlebed Cave. Such a connection would be the first >1km deep throughtrip in New Zealand (taking 3 days to traverse) and would represent one of the great milestones in New Zealand caving. It would be the Mt Cook of New Zealand caving. So with that potential how could I resist not being excited for this trip for months!?

I guess the caveats would be that it would be one of the hardest caves I have been in, very wet in places and an even 4 degrees Celsius. I would be carrying heavy packs with gear for rigging, camp and caving. I tried desperately to get in better shape before the trip as I knew the quality of the cavers I would have to be able to keep up with. It was with high hopes that I packed for the trip.

An all day marathon drive across the South Island through a gauntlet of construction zones, slow semi-trucks, and even slower camper vans led to my arrival in Nelson at 7:30pm. These are cavers after all so naturally I met up with them for planning at a local pub. Luckily we did not need to drop gear off at the chopper until the next day at 10am which gave me a chance to relax and not worry about packing until the morning.

Day 0: The weather looks cloudy and foggy and we are really hoping it lifts so the helicopter can get into Mt Arthur with our gear. The team drops off our cave gear at the helipad. We laid out the survey sketches in the hanger and formulated plans to check leads. The pilot said no worries to the weather so we all hopped into the cars and drove up the hill to the Flora Saddle carpark...where it was raining lightly. We procrastinated for a solid half hour in the shelter hoping for a miraculous improvement in the weather before walking up the hill to the Mt Arthur Hut. The weather was still miserable and most of the group was happy to hang out at the hut. All the food and many peoples sleeping bags and tents were on the helicopter so many people were in limbo over whether to stay the night at the hut or walk back down the hill. To try to do something productive with the day Bruce and I ran around the tussock getting accurate GPS coordinates of entrances so the cave survey could properly be tied together instead of just guesswork. At this point it was obvious the weather was not going to improve today and there would be no helicopter. When we got back to the hut a family of 7 (including crying baby) had arrived and the cavers unanimously declared mutiny for a warm bed or floor down the hill in Motueka.

 

Day 1: We all woke at daybreak, ate, packed and headed back up the hill. The weather was comparitively good and the helicopter was able to land without incident. We walked past the crowded hut where the family was cooking brekkie and followed the poled route across the alpine karst of Horseshoe Basin and sidled across to the Innominate Basin high on the backside of Mt Arthur. The enormous pile of gear near the Big Friendly Giant entrance could be seen from several kilometers away. Cavers frantically ran around in circles amid brightly colored gear, much of which would inevitably turn a muddy brown.

We had a meeting and broke up into teams of 3-4 and organized our caving gear, camp gear, clothes, food, ropes, etc. for a week underground. Between my sleeping bag, down jacket, camp clothes and thermrest (and my share of the food) my 2 packs were already filling up. Sadly there was no way I was going to fit a camera in my pack, but thankfully Neil took his and got many good shots. I frantically packed, somehow seeming to take a lot longer than everyone around me. I remember a touch of reluctance and intimidation as I dropped into the Big Friendly Giant entrance and the last trace of sunlight vanished overhead. What was I getting myself into I asked myself.

We went down about 400m of rope in the entrance series, often with only a few horizontal steps between. The 70m Intimidator pitch was particularly sobering. Gravity was aiding all the movement of the heavy packs but I dreaded the huge amount of work climbing back out of the cave was going to be. With every drop I added a bit more fatigue to my perception of the hellish trip back out of this cave. What joy it would be to find a connection to Nettlebed and walk downhill out of the cave. One of my packs was particularly awkward- almost as tall as me and top-heavy which made it a nightmare threading through tight spots and added much effort to the descent. Once down the entrance series things flattened out for a bit as we followed a rifty stream passage downward to an imposing obstacle, The Gates of Troy, a narrow squeeze which still remains the only way on to the rest of the cave. It was not so narrow that I had to take my vertical gear off, but was quite an obstacle to fit some of our gear through.

        The Gates of Troy and the small mountain of gear that needs to fit...

Beyond we enter the Quartz River which continues to drop steadily over downclimbs and pitches to the impressive Summer's End, an thundering 10m waterfall. Some clever rigging meant it could be descended all but dry. A short traverse just above the lip of the next dramatically thundering waterfall gives access to a steep dry canyon (You Can Call Me Doctor Delicious) with several more pitches. After a time the route starts heading uphill to camp, with another traverse and short pitches and climbs to reach the Chocolate Room Camp- a welcome sight!

I was tired but not nearly as spent as I thought I would be. Still the dread of the exhausting exit from the cave at the end of the trip weighed down on me and I truly felt the distance to the surface world. After a freeze-dried dinner I settled into bed but slept very poorly. I had not quite figured out the right technique for maintaining my warmth with feeling claustrophobic. My body was doing strange things. At one point I woke up hyperventilating. All up I think I got only about 3 hours of sleep that night, which is a really poor way to start a weeklong caving trip. I remembered it was almost the last place I wanted to be.

         Summer's End

Day 2: Needless to say my enthusiasm was low when morning was declared and everyone got up for a porridge breakfast and began packing for the day. I also was feeling rather unwell. I sucked it up though, put on my freezing wetsuit, and headed out for the day. The most exciting bit of the commute was a somewhat sketchy rift we needed to downclimb about 12m- fun but also a bit scary. I was happy when we later put in a rope to eliminate that possibility of error. Thankfully I warmed up by the time I reached the River of Clowns, a fantastic bedrock river passage with several sporty swims and beautiful sculpted passages. The river goes for almost a kilometer to an enormous collapse chamber perhaps a hundred meters called Black Dwarf. We stopped for a snack on the saddle of the enormous rockpile and enjoyed the view of inky darkness. At this point Nettlebed should be only a hundred meters or so to the south so we scoured the south wall for leads. We found a good one with a strong draft and I began on the surveying team while the exploration team powered on ahead. We surveyed past several obstacles, all the while chilled by the cool draft that told us this passage was headed to a lot more cave.

After lunch and a hot cup of tea, I took over the exploration team, hoping to warm up a bit, as the surveyors followed. We worked our way downward through stunningly coral-lined passage to a short drop into a room with several passages branching off. Eventually we found the one with the draft again. I carefully worked my way through the delicately white passage but I still felt like I was going to conservation officer hell. We came to a former sump with strange bubbly calcite formations, then followed a very strong draft down a narrowing passage to a rather abrupt and fresh looking rockfall. Beyond we could see a chamber and surely I thought we were meters away from Nettlebed! I could feel it! We moved quite a few rocks, careful to avoid touching the particularly precarious looking boulder that would squish us flat and certainly "hole-in-one" the way on. Eventually I managed to do a spiral squeeze through the rockfall and two of us explored the small chamber and the several leads branching off. The most obvious lead was a 10m pitch down into a canyon, and I was pretty convinced it would take us to Nettlebed. It was getting late so we called it a day and headed back to camp. The route back is supremely enjoyable after a long day of caving. I got some pretty horrible and almost debilitating abrasions from wearing a wetsuit all day but luckily managed to come up with a cure the following days. I was in high spirits at the end of the day and excited to see what lurked beyond tomorrow. I slept very well despite the efforts of the snorers.

        One of several swims along the fantastic River of Clowns

        Neverland, near the bottom of the cave

Day 3: We returned to our great leads of the previous day. Apparently the canyon choked in both directions with no draft and similarly the high leads did not have a draft. We scoured the walls of the chamber but could not find the draft again! The chamber is formed right on a major fault- perhaps the fault separating Stormy Pot from Nettlebed. We were so close! Since we could not find the draft anywhere else, it must filter through the rockfall in the floor. What a bummer! We turned back and surveyed a few bizarrely rollercoaster-like passages until we had enough. With our stunning lead gone, we de-rigged all the rope in this area and brought it back to Black Dwarf so other teams could use it elsewhere.

Day 4: Two of us explored and surveyed a promising canyon above the River of Clowns. Again we were following directional coral and a strong draft. Several passages branched off and we surveyed along the most obvious passage, eventually tying into a known station. It was a surprisingly complex area, very much controlled by the abundant faults. We left several promising leads with good draft. Elsewhere another team had completed an impressive climb into a large passage which unfortunately ended in rockfall after 150m. The cave was beginning to show its stubborn side!

Day 5: Most people had long days the previous day and so had chose to have a short day not too far from camp. I decided to have a camp day. I took an extended nap, which was great because I caught up on sleep for the first time in the cave. To keep warm I helped on some of the camp projects- improving the kitchen and improving a precarious part of the walkway. After some deliberation, I decided I would head out of the cave tomorrow with the two others headed out. Sure I could stay in 8 days like some of the others, but at the time 6 really felt about right! This day was a good mental and physical rest for the hard day's effort that tomorrow would bring.

The Chocolate Room Camp is surprisingly pleasant and a great mental refuge from the rest of the cave. To get to it you must climb a couple meters up into a sandy-floored passage about 3m wide and 20m long. A walkway extends along one wall with room for sleeping perpendicular to the opposite wall. The kitchen is at the back of the passage and features a long table for food and a great semi-circular bench for cooking. Just beyond is a small crawl leading to the rest of the cave. Thankfully this can be blocked with one small pack which cuts out the draft and warms up the camp a couple degrees which makes a huge difference. Water is about 50m away and requires either crawling or climbing and so could be more convenient. It is easy to go through a lot of water at camp between all of us. The toilet area is similarly inconvenient and requires a couple downclimbs and  ducks under low roofs to get to- an unpleasant mid-night walk when semi-conscious. Of course all trash and solid waste is carefully packed and carried out of the cave. After a couple days in the camp our breaths condensed on the ceiling and drips began to develop, including a notable one very close to my head when I slept.

 

         The kitchen at the Chocolate Room Camp

        "Lights out" at Chocolate Room Camp

Day 6: The three of us heading out woke for an early start. I decided to leave my sleeping bag in camp- the added bulk and weight was going to kill me on the way out and I hoped it was not too long before the connection was found and I could do a throughtrip. We headed up at a comfortable pace at first, helping each other with our packs, some much heavier than the ones I was carrying. Helping made a huge difference and we made steady progress. The guided pitch at Summer's End was pretty entertaining to go up. More pack passing and we were through the Gates of Troy. Shortly after would be the abundant pitches at the entrance series so to avoid a bottleneck I kept moving up the pitches at a steady pace, occasionally stopping for a few minutes to be sure I could hear the other two in the distance. The ropes were endless! By the time you got off one you could already see the next one you had to go up! Up, up, up. Sweat, sweat, sweat. The Intimidator pitch was particularly endless and my arms were rather pumped by the time I got to the top. My shoulders and waist were becoming sore from the weight of the packs tethered off of my harness. Once up the Intimidator pitch I saw a single blade of tussock grass. What an inspiring sight! Up another pitch I saw a leaf. Up another pitch the random pile of snow that found its way into the cave. Looking up I could see the faint glow of daylight which powered me on. The last sight was the one of the Big Friendly Giant, just before I emerged back into the land of the living. I promptly stripped down to underwear and laid flat on the karst pavement in the warm sun with a slight breeze blowing across my skin. What a trip! While we did not make the sought after connection to Nettlebed or Windrift, we still surveyed many kilometers of cave and accomplished much. I still have high hopes of a Stormy Pot-Nettlebed connection and the epic throughtrip which would result. I would love to go back.

 

        There is nothing like emerging to a warm summer's day!

Eventually the other two made it out and we slowly made it back to the cars. Unfortunately my car was in Nelson so it would take They gave me a ride down to the Mot highway where I unsuccessfully tried to hitch until just after dusk. It was beginning to look like I would be camping under the bridge...without a sleeping bag or tent. Fortuitously a minivan swerved to stop for me and a great conversation ensued about caving and the local scene. I got delivered right to the door of the Brewers, had a shower and collapsed in a bed. The next morning I walked to the far end of Motueka (a long way it turns out!) and almost immediately got a ride to Nelson from a friendly couple about to go to a wedding. Again I got delivered right to my car! I had a nice relaxing day in Nelson walking through the farmers market and then going over to collect my stuff at the Brewers and go for a swim and sunbath on Little Kaiteriteri beach. I stayed the night at Jane's in Nelson then drove to Akaroa where I was similiarly spoiled with good food and good conversation and a good night's sleep. A solid half day spent in lovely Akaroa before the uneventful drive to Dunedin. It is just wonderful how well things turn out in this country sometimes. Thank you good people!

Thanks to Troy, Bruce, Chris, Neil, the Kierans, Heidi, Aaron, Grant, Lindsay, Gavin, Claire, Hamish, John, Michael, Sarah, Ian, Judith, young couple from Wairarapa, Jane, Rick and Francesca.

Great Barrier Island Feb 3-6

Several months ago I agreed to help out at the UC education abroad orientation in Auckland I was a part of many years back now when I first came to NZ. I gave the students my impressions of what it was like moving to New Zealand and give tips on how to settle in, and in particular talked with the students headed to Otago. Despite feeling my age at times, in general it was a positive experience and I can remember brimming with that same new country enthusiasm I saw in them. One of the afternoons in Auckland I got a tour of some of Auckland's lava caves from the expert himself. It was a very amusing afternoon of knocking on people's doors and asking if we could see the cave in their backyard. It also resulted in a cup of coffee with one of the keen residents.

I used the opportunity in Auckland to book a ferry to and flight from Great Barrier Island (Aotea), the largest island in the Hauraki Gulf and a place I have always wanted to visit. It has a small population spread over several isolated settlements and a large amount of forest that, while mostly stripped of its largest kauri trees, is still nice sub-tropical lowland forest with great variety. The island has a rather extensive trail network for its size, not to mention two very nice hot springs. Despite being a holiday weekend, I found most of the trails satisfactorily quiet.

I took the ferry over late on Friday once relieved of my orienting responsibilities arriving as the sun set. I got a ride from a friendly Scottish woman and her 6 month old to the trailhead and walked through the trees and boardwalked swamps by headlamp. There was a great abundance of mosquitoes about and I would have many bites by the end of my stay on the island. After setting up and having a meal, I calmed my nerves with a candle-lit soak in one of the Kaitoke hot pools. I remember the forest had an eerie creak to it as the trees bent in the breeze. Exploring the following morning determined I happened to find the best pool the previous night, though there were a half dozen other good pools for soaking. I took off as a large group arrived and did not see anyone else on the trails through the middle of the forest that day. I took the Tramline Track through a nice nikau palm grove and spent about a half hour trying to find Peach Tree Hot Springs. After much walking in circles I determined the GPS coordinates I had were wrong, I followed vague trails and vaguer directions and found the springs with no trouble. A nice deep pool had been carved out of the altered andesite and is supposedly at least as old as 1930, but potentially dates to the late 1800s. It had a rather scummy appearance from disuse but the temperature was great and I settled in for a great soak until I could stand the mosquitoes no more.

        The best pool at Kaitoke Hot Springs

        Peach Tree Hot Spring (better than it might look!)

         Nikau grove

I then took the Peach Tree trail which steadily climbed up ridges towards the high peaks of Mt Heale and Hirakimata. As I climbed the forest gave way to manuka scrub. At intervals the trail gave great views of the rugged east coast and the seemingly random volcanic landscape (a cliff here, a couple pinnacles here, a flat topped mountain there and rugged gorges over yonder). Before long I reached the new Mt Heale Hut with its thoughtfully spectacular view of the islands and inlets around Port Fitzroy and Little Barrier in the distance. I found a suitable place for a hammock and within 10 minutes of setting it up it started sprinkling! Still I enjoyed the view from the patio as the sun set through clouds.

 

        View from Mt Heale Hut

        Little Barrier in the distance

In no particular rush, I enjoyed a long morning at the hut reading and writing before finally packing up to go. The track up and down from Hirakimata was a test piece in DOC track-building OCD with a near-continuous boardwalk with stairs for perhaps over a kilometer (apparently to protect black petrel nesting sites). The view from the top was grand and demonstrated perfectly the vastly different nature of the rugged oceanic east coast with long beaches and rocky headlands, and the relatively sheltered Hauraki Gulf side with its many intricate inlets and islands. I then took the Kaiaraara track down what must be the most impressive valley on the island. Bedrock is exposed in the stream nearly the whole way indicating it had not yet recovered from the massive human-made floods in attempts to float kauri logs conveniently down to sea. I stopped for a swim whenever convenient to cool down from the tropical humidity. The opposite side of the valley boasted impressive vertical-jointed cliffs that made for dramatic landscape that peeked through the bush. The landscape really reminded me of the Coromandel, though thankfully a touch more pristine with less roads and forestry blocks.

The Lower Kauri dam (fronticepiece) was quite an impressive engineering feat considering its remoteness. 1930 bushmen loggers built these impressive dams, which they would pile up large kauri logs behind. The dam would be tripped, releasing a terrifying flood of enormous logs and crashing water that would ream their way down to the coast where they could be put to use as ship's masts or otherwise. I had a nice quiet evening in the Kaiaraara Hut (I had it to myself!), and found the perfect place to set up the hammock and listen to the birdsong. Good swimming holes nearby too.

        View for the top of Hirakimata

         DOC track OCD

The following day I took the Forest Road track back across the island, to the Tramline track and back to the hot springs. I enjoyed a final dip up to the last minute, then hiked out, got a painless hitch to the Crossroads and walked to the Claris airport just in time. Being the only solo person on the plane I got to sit in the co-pilot's seat which definitely had the best views. 25 minutes later we landed at Auckland Airport and I am on my way to Dunedin. It made for a really nice sub-tropical getaway and I really appreciated the few days untied to my computer and thesis.

Gloomy Gorge Recon Jan 18

Gloomy Gorge!!! A canyon so impressive I vote the official name should have "!!!" in it! For years I have heard it whispered as one of New Zealand's great unexplored canyons and I always considered it with the same level of respect. A distant goal that maybe I would tackle after some brave souls made a daring first descent...

I guess that view changed recently and I decided I would be at least interested in having a look at the bottom to satisfy my curiosity. With incredibly low river levels and a keen partner, we decided to scout the bottom of the gorge to try to get a feel for the level of involvement and danger involved in a descent. If we went up the bottom, we would always be able to return the way we came. If we could go a long way we could subtract that length and time from the total for the rest of the canyon, such that the risks would be less on a first descent. We also aimed to get a sense of the obstacles and how dangerous the hydraulics were with these low river levels.

Unfortunately the approach is a long 3 hours up the wide West Matukituki Valley, passing through farmland for the first half. It does not help knowing that the first 2 hours is on a 4WD track...Amazingly it was possible to keep dry feet all the way up the valley. At last Gloomy Gorge came into sight. The great chasm cuts a deep and narrow tear in the hanging valley of the Maud Francis Glacier on the flank of Mt Aspiring to reach the West Matukituki at Pearl Flat below.

     Gloomy Gorge cutting through the bush at right

      Going up the bottom

After enjoying some lunch in the sun we started up the gorge, noting the significant amount of water, even at so low a flow. Before long a tributary entered and Gloomy Gorge lost about a third of its volume above. After some rock scrambling we approached a double waterfall over 20m high. The water ripped and spiraled and roostertailed down both sides, but between them it was possible to climb up the bedrock, precariously slide across a slippery slope beneath a giant boulder, and pop out through a narrow hole to find ourselves at the top of the waterfall. We continued on passing several more climbing obstacles and avoiding the hydraulics. The canyon narrowed dramatically, a few places overhead being only a foot wide. We reached a long pool and a 4m waterfall and paused to consider how to surmount this obstacle. The current would be hard to swim against. I figured out that the current pressing into the right wall could actually work to our advantage- instead of spitting us out of the pool it forced us into the rock. This meant we could push off the rock with our hands and use them to traverse sideways. Alain managed to climb a rather slippery 6m boulder, and I followed using the rope he rigged. We did our best to keep moving and stay warm in the glacial melt stream. A couple more corners and obstacles and we reached the canyon's final abseil a 17m waterfall we would not be able to climb. The canyon looked similarly narrow as far as we could see. Many large boulders chocked the canyon overhead, testament to the canyon's narrowness.

We made it up the canyon a little over 150m and 50m vertically which leaves about 650m of inescapable and committing canyon with a 300m vertical drop. To accomplish this there could be a couple large waterfalls and probably many in the 10-20m range. The canyon would be hundreds of meters deep for much of its length with any prospects for escape basically nil. We saw some unpleasant and potentially dangerous hydraulics, but we were always able to avoid them. It is hard to say whether we would have similar luck in the rest on the canyon. Needless to say our scouting trip was successful and if the rivers stay low this season, this might be the year to mount an expedition and push the canyon from its top. It is going to be one hell of a canyon.

Jackson Head Jan 17

I had a productive 14 hour marathon day of fieldwork in the Cascade (first two pictures) which included running around on an enormous landslide looking for exposures of the material through the mature forest. The rivers were incredibly low which made for some great stress-free crossings. A highlight was visiting the "Empty Tarn," a mostly dry pond with mysterious rocks from a variety of sources- all within the landslide though.

With good weather, low swell, low tide and remarkably well-behaved sandflies, I took to the coast around Jackson Head to check out the strangely deformed rocks. I crossed over to Ocean Beach on the DOC track then headed south along the coast passing several big sea caves before reaching a deep water gut I would have had to swim if I wished to keep going. I was hoping to find evidence of uplift along this coast, such as uplifted sea caves. I turned around and walked back to Ocean Beach. I ignored the DOC sign saying "Danger...Jackson Head is impassible..." and continued rock hopping my way along the coast. There were a few interesting scrambling/climbing bits at the Head, but I managed to pass it with little difficulty, and stay completely dry. Around the point large sharp boulders of limestone made for slow but interesting travel. It was a beautiful stretch of coast, and a good day for it.

        Empty Tarn. All of the fore- and mid-ground were landslid from the hill at center distance, over 2km away!

         Jackson Head

Hometown Trail Run Jan 3

Distance: 10.5 mi

Elevation Gain: 2782 ft

Trails: 90%

Time: 1:58 hr

Soundtrack: The Arcade Fire

"No Entry" Signs Ignored: 4?

I guess this is the anti-Travels post. I spent a bit of time in my hometown over the holidays. I might as well muse a bit.

Hometowns are a strange thing. Like oneself, they grow and evolve and change, and at the same time perhaps they do not change at all.

Our house was a part of a tract that was one of the first drops of suburbia in the hilly area. The hills were flattened, houses were built. I remember as a young kid being pushed up and down piles of dirt in a wheelbarrow in the backyard of my parent's newly acquired home. I remember not having a back fence and the grassy hillside beyond that cattle grazed on. I remember walking dirt roads to a concrete stock pond to catch frogs. I remember seeing horses on the same dirt roads. The nearest grocery store was 4 miles away. We built a fence. The cattle disappeared. Houses were made more homely. Yards were landscaped. I grew. The sprawl grew. New paved roads appeared with more houses. A park appeared down the street. Then a fire station. The nearest grocery store was less than a mile away. I grew. I built treehouses. Treehouses were torn down by the Neighborhood Association due to safety reasons. Wooden playgrounds were replaced by plastic. Chicken wire was placed under fences to keep out rattlesnakes and bunnies. I grew. A whole shopping center sprung up within walking distance with joys like Target, Toys R' Us, a movie theater and frozen yogurt.

As a kid every addition was an exciting move in the right direction. Kids like the smell of progress. But more people mean more "wildfires," and their numbers seem to have increased with the population. Freeways slow from the traffic. More lanes are added. Cars get bigger with increasing income. A toll lane is added. The freeways still slow with traffic. Either I lost my kiddish ability to spot frogs or their numbers have declined. Rarely do I see roadrunners or blue-tailed skinks or alligator lizards or any of those other joys of my childhood. These days just about everything you could possibly want from a store can be had within a short driving distance.

Now my hometown has just about reached suburban capacity with few open tracts of land left. It has achieved continuity with other cities on three of its sides. The land on the southeastern side is currently protected as a private land trust preventing spillover in that direction for the moment. Occasionally cattle still roam out there. Mountain lions are still abundant in the area, as are coyotes and rattlesnakes. Fortunately many of the original valley slopes and floors between neighborhoods have been left as open space, providing wildlife corridors to roam from one place to another, and surprisingly continuous trail running opportunities between residences. These grassy slopes and oak-lined valleys were so important to me growing up. I cannot imagine how I would have turned out without this land to catch lizards, to find fossilized leaves, to hollow out bushes into forts, to toboggan down hillsides in the grassy spring. Still I appreciate them. Driving the streets give no impression that it would be possible to run over 10 miles mostly on trails through the middle of this suburbia.

It has been a great place to live and grow up and I couldn't possibly complain about it. I was privileged with everything I had and I think I have always felt that way, even as a kid. Despite this, it is a place I would never chose to go back to live. It has so evolved with traffic and self-interest. I have changed too. The first few days of a visit I can easily satisfy myself with the endless sun, vibrant smog-fueled sunsets, tasty food and specialty wares I do not have here, but after that I crave simplicity. For now I am happy with my birdsongs, rain on a tin roof, commuting by bike, never bothering to lock my house or car, and being 20 minutes away from places no man has ever set foot. Again, still very privileged.

Long runs are one of the best opportunities for me to think, probably second only to my daily bike commute and solo hiking. The last full day in my hometown I awoke early to run the long trail loop above. Being a day before my departure to New Zealand, I was thinking of going back after being away for a month and all the work I need to do to finish my PhD.

Below is a poem I wrote after a similar run on an evening back in 2008. Funny how different my thoughts were then, fueled by tinges of selfless acts observed, a slight feeling of self-righteousness, and the uncomfortable uncertainty in my own life at the time. It is a bit harsh and one-sided no doubt. I am pretty sure it is called  "You Are The Flood You Are Drowning In."

The dam breaks as the clock strikes 5
Releasing the floods back to their homes


They race or crawl past the thousand screaming billboards
Offering suggestions of the latest need, gimmick or distraction
Lit cigarettes and empty bottles discarded into the air
For they have lost their usefulness
Maybe a selfish thought slips in as this happens
Or maybe no thought at all


They pull into their neighborhood
Past the superficially identical houses
The manicured lawns, mailboxes and street lights
The sprinklers watering the plants from somewhere else
And the sign announcing "Oak Glen," "Sunny Springs," or some French name
Cleverly dreamt up by a marketer who has never seen the place


Or maybe the house is bigger
Behind a gate and fence
And down a long private driveway
High on a hill with a million-dollar view
As if the height protects it from drowning
In the expansive sea of smog and city lights


Home at last they turn on the tube
Because life is more fun to watch than live
And distractions ease the mind
Of what it is to be human
And what is still missing

Red Cones Dec 30-31

We set our hopes high on Iva Bell Hot Springs in the Fish Creek Valley behind Mammoth for a nice place to spend New Years. The mountain was clear of snow (except for snowmaking) and we had it on good authority that there should be little to no snow in the backcountry. However, the road to the usual trailhead was closed for the season and the other common route would have taken longer than a day to reach the springs. Not to be deterred, I discovered a reasonable cross-country route linking two trail systems while Google Earthing. After importing key points into my GPS, we were good to go. We had snowshoes, but decided against bringing them as we expected all south facing slopes to be free of snow. The town of Mammoth Lakes only saw one dump of several inches of snow about a month before. We were warned that since that dump there had been exceedingly high winds that had downed many trees.

We were kindly dropped off at Twin Lakes and set off along the icy bike path, across the bridge between the lakes, through the campground and up the steep hill to a road we could take back to the paved road. We reached Horseshoe Lake in little time but were quickly slowed by the snow conditions. Snow had melted around many trees, but between them the soft snow could be as deep as our calves or knees. Initially we took a stepping stone like approach, wading from tree to tree on the sunnier south side of ridges. Before long we just worked our way in as straight a line as we could, using my GPS to navigate. We crossed Mammoth Pass and rather than being free of snow, we found a greater excess. The trip was already evolving in our mind as I could see our pace not quite adding up to our goal. 

The backcountry had been completely ravished by the wind storm unlike I had ever seen before. In places 50% of the trees were down. Between the snow and trail markers on downed trees, the trails were nearly impossible to follow and we ended up hiking almost the entire way across country. Trees were stacked 3 high across trails in places. I can't comprehend how much effort it is going to take to re-open these trails. Despite trying to improve our pace, we were slowed by the deteriorating trail conditions. Occasionally I found a trail sign, which was a surprising reminder that we were still more-or-less following a trail.

We had lunch at picturesque spot on the edge of Crater Meadow (noting it would be a reasonable campspot) and chose a circuitous cross country route towards the PCT. At about 2:30pm, we called it- there was no sign of conditions improving, even with a decrease in elevation, it would take us more than a day to reach the hot springs, and with snow my route would potentially be unsafe. We returned to the meadow and set up camp with the plan of hiking back out the following day. I hiked to the top of the cinder cone nearby for sunset- great views of the surrounding valleys and the Minarets. Going down the cinder cone was much more enjoyable.

        Crater Meadow

We had a superb morning once the sun crested the mountains and baked our tent. We enjoyed the warm, lazy, bug-free morning as long as we could, and then reluctantly hiked back. With a better handle on the route and determined to get back, we made it back to Twin Lakes in just under 3 hours. We stopped at Lake McLeod on the way back to play on the ice.

We caught the last shuttle bus to town and eventually found ourselves feasting on a tasty bacon-drenched pizza at Nik-N-Willies in town. Our New Years was suitably mellow and we were both asleep by 11pm. I'd love to give this particular route another shot sometime. Although realistically it might be several years before I get back and the trails have recovered.

 

Thanks to Roger, Kacee and the kids.

Champion Mine Dec 28-29

This would be my third visit to the Champion Spark Plug Mine, a great little secret tucked halfway up a mountain gully in the morning shadows of White Mountain Peak. The mine became important during World War I when andalusite was needed for the manufacture of spark plug insulators. Despite the remote location, the mining company managed to set up two camps complete with bunkhouses, a cookhouse, showers, a laboratory, a blacksmith, generator facilities and even electricity, which was considered advanced for its time. The mine actually consisted of numerous diggings, adits, shafts and stopes over a rather large area. This interesting deposit has produced over 50 different minerals, including a few that were the first mineral occurrences in the US, and the first description of woodhouseite, an unusual sulfate phosphate mineral named after C.D. Woohouse, the mine manager and later a geology professor at UCSB. The mine was shut down in 1942. The land became National Forest and a group of keen local volunteers and mineral collectors took over as stewards of the mining camps. They have done an amazing job keeping the camp in great condition and there are a half dozen cabins that can be comfortably slept in on a first-come, first-served basis.

The access road I normally took was blocked and it took us a couple minutes to get the lay of the land and work out how to get back to the road that would get us there. The van carefully crawled up the steep alluvial fan and then clung to the side of the rocky wash. It valiantly delivered us to just before the lower trailhead, where we packed and set off on foot. We followed the mine's old mule trail adjacent to the remnants of weathered old telephone poles. On the way we passed a wide assortment of interesting rock types. And the views of the valley below improved with each step.

        Almost to the camp.

         View of the Volcanic Tablelands in the Owens Valley with the Sierra

         Nevada in the distance.

The trail is never too steep, but very steadily gains 2000ft of altitude to the Black Eagle Camp. We were fortunate to be the only others around at the time of our arrival so I very happily claimed the Champion Hilton (above) as our own. This cabin is set off from the others a bit and is perched on the edge of the flat such that it has the best view from its porch. It has curtains, candles, a kerosene lamp, a closet of sorts, sheleves, two tables, two beds, an extensive library, some food and alcohol left, even a small rock collection, and a poster of minerals on the wall. It is certainly the pick of the litter.

I showed Sara around the camp. We checked out the other cabins (it was not hard to convince her we had the best one), the mess hall with the great wood-burning oven, the core shack, the museum with its many curios, the outhouses, the hall, the workshop, the horseshoe pit, the hammock, the heated shower set-up and lastly the camp's spring to gather some water. I hung the "Occupied" tin can lid on the door and we settled in for the night. The modest stove heated the small cabin perfectly. We got the cabin nice and toasty with minimal wood.

In the morning we hiked up the often narrow trail to the upper camp and mine area at almost 9000ft elevation, prospecting for shiny, colorful and well-formed minerals along the way. I led Sara along the adit that traverses just inside the main cliff to the spectacular oval window that looks straight onto the Black Eagle Camp. I could easily spend a full day in this area, but we had other places to get to and Sara was determined to lunch in Bishop. Reluctantly we packed up and left. Hopefully it is not too long before my next visit.

        Vulcanite Camp (Upper Camp) with the adits and stopes of the main
        Volcanus workings.

        Black Eagle Camp viewed from a mine tunnel.

Thanks to the Black Eagle volunteers for maintaining this special place.