Petrified Forest North Nov 21

Over a decade ago I passed through Petrified Forest on my way east to Kentucky. I drove the north-south paved road through the park and stopped at many of the overlooks and short walking loops. The colorful agatized wood chips were neat to see but the manicured viewings removed some of the appeal for me. Fast forward to researching this trip and I find out that the park now has designated off-trail backcountry areas they allow hiking exploration which piqued my interest. Looking at aerial imagery I could easily map out the blue paleosol layer of the Chinle Formation and also see petrified logs like matchsticks. From this I sketched out a 5.5 mile loop through the northern Painted Desert part of the park that I thought would make a neat overnight backpack trip. Our Flagstaff accident had other plans so we instead opted for a day hike. From Flagstaff we drove out to the Petrified Forest, parking at the historic Painted Desert Inn and following the trail north off the mesa into the colorful wash and badland network beyond. 

We crossed the aptly named Lithodendron Wash and climbed into the blue silts containing the regionally prominent petrified forest, passing through some interesting mud karst. Nearly everywhere we were at this layer we would see enormous logs and the washes below always had rounds as float. One of the first features we saw was a rare upright log. Another log we soon came upon was about 150 feet long!

We marveled at the well preserved and perfectly lifelike bark textures and growth rings within, and had a lot of fun hiking zigzagged beelining between interesting features. We saw much of the Angel's Garden, a 10 acre area with some of the best logs around.

We had a very pleasant lunch spot in a section of wash riddled with good wood sections, making the most of an upright round as a table. At the northeast end of the Angel's Garden was one of my favorite features, two large logs damming the confluence of two washes, something I have certainly seen large woody debris do but never when petrified.

Large [formerly] woody debris dams

From Angel's Garden we crossed through the red capped hills heading towards Onyx Bridge, spotting many nice windowpane-like gypsum crystals. Onyx Bridge is a prominent log that crosses a wash; unfortunately its appeal is somewhat diminished since it collapsed in 2021.

Onyx Bridge

Past Onyx Bridge was another neat feature, two logs crossed as an X. We saw some more nice logs and interesting badlands continuing east towards the large area of the Lithodendron Forest. The logs in this area were abundant but had less color. 

Reaching the end of Lithodendron Forest, we started back towards Painted Desert Inn passing through one more nice badland section before regaining our approach trail. In all it was a neat hike and I certainly saw more petrified wood than I had ever seen before. We spent a few minutes walking through the Inn and then a good long while organizing gear for our San Juan River trip while we still had daylight.

We drove across the vast Navajo Nation, eventually getting to Sand Island Campground near Bluff in time for a late dinner hiding in the warm car.

Lava River Cave Nov 20

A trip to the Colorado Plateau was to be the first real out of town escape since July so I had plenty of time to make carefully laid plans. Two overnight off-trail wilderness hikes, an overnight packraft on the upper San Juan River, and an overnight backpack in the Needles District of Canyonlands were the key elements. Permits were obtained. I have been to the Colorado Plateau at least three times before over Thanksgiving breaks, always experiencing some punishingly low temperatures but enough good weather and lack of crowds to warrant returns. This time the temperatures seemed a good 10-15 degrees lower than usual with forecast lows of 18F. Then the misfortunes began. We had to delay our early Saturday departure to mid-morning which struck our first overnight backpack plans at the Petrified Forest and instead making a first night motel reservation. We exited the highway in Flagstaff for a quick Walmart stop. An impatient driver made a drastic mistake pulling into our lane with no warning or time to react and we ended up flipped on our right side. My first major car accident and ambulance ride, my right eye was foggy and my head with cuts and contusions. After 4.5 hours we were released from the hospital and into the hospitality of Flagstaff friends. We were beaten up physically, mourning the loss of the car, and suffering the headache of dealing with all the new insurance/police/medical/tow yard/car rental logistics we had in place of our long anticipated escape. Ultimately we are both thankful to seem to be totally OK despite the severity of the accident, but it is just so brutal to realize how a single moment of carelessness beyond your control can dash such carefully laid plans.

So Sunday we had a long day of dealing with the insurance company, speaking to the police, getting a rental car, reclaiming our gear from the probably-totaled car, and picking up a pharmacy prescription. My head and eye improved as the day went on and we reevaluated our plans. For starters I would feeling a desperate need to get out and do something rather than mull, sulk, or reevaluate and so I suggested checking out the neat local landmark of Lava River Cave about a half hour drive northwest of Flagstaff for the last couple hours of our afternoon. We drove past SnoBowl and turned onto well-graded partially snowy roads through the forest, eventually reaching the roadend parking lot. It had been several years since I had been to the cave and so unsurprisingly the parking lot was now well manicured with signage, picnic tables, and a bathroom.

The cave was as great as I remember it. The surface has zero indication of what is beneath but a chance roof collapse provides access into a 0.75 mile long section of one of the best lava tubes I have seen. 

The cave is a frigid 35F near its entrance where ice stalagmites are able to exist and at the back of the cave it increases to about 45F. Once down the entrance breakdown pile the cave averages spacious subway tube dimensions with only about 20 ft of stooping passage partway through. The cave has many of the classic lava tube features including lava drip stalactites, lava curbs at the sides, and rafted roof blocks embedded in the frozen lava floor. Overall the cave has very little breakdown and next to no mud, soil, or silt like the Mojave caves I see more often. The walls have surprisingly colorful mineralized water stains.

Slowly we worked our way to the back of the cave. Heather was quite forgiving in letting me play with my camera. Without a suitable flash I used headlamps and long exposures to paint the scenes. It had been a while since I have had a chance to engineer such cave photography so it was a great thing to temporarily take my mind off things. Overall I'm really pleased with how the photos came out but have to admit it is quite a photogenic cave to begin with.

We ran into a few groups exploring the caves but most of the time enjoyed the silence. The cave did smell like pot though which was not appreciated. About halfway through the cave the lava river split creating two parallel passages that then rejoin (frontispiece), which makes a particularly neat feature.

 

We reached the back and turned around. I put my camera and tripod away to avoid further temptation so we could get out and get to dinner before it got too late. After dinner we both were feeling a little better about things and decided to try to limp our way around the Colorado Plateau for at least a couple days and see how it went. Escaping the day's troubles for a couple hours helped a lot. Many thanks to Joe and Linlee for taking us in in our time of need. 

Salton Trough Oct 14-16

This field trip has been years in the making as I planned the rough outline of this three day field trip way back in 2018 as a field trip that all new graduate students could take at the start of the school year to build a cohort and gain common knowledge about this region that hits on so many of our department's research interests. That effort led by myself and other early career faculty faltered due to general faculty enthusiasm. Fast forward into the pandemic years and there was an opportunity to apply for funding to trial this field trip as a department-wide endeavor. I planned extensively and got fairly mild interest and then had to cancel a little over 24 hours in advance in May because of covid concerns. I rescheduled for October and this time got even less graduate student interest, ultimately taking more undergraduates. About half those that expressed interest dropped for various reasons and in the end all these efforts resulted in a trip for 14 people. So that's my cynical backstory. Fairly par for the course with my efforts in my department: a well intentioned mostly waste of time.

Anyway the trip was good and the participants had a great time. We started with an icebreaker exercise straddling the San Andreas Fault and then drove up Painted Canyon to see its textbook folds, faults, unconformities, and 1.7 billion year old basement. We had lunch near the shores of the Salton Sea and discussed its interesting history and unfortunate present as we walked over the beach of not sand but barnacles and fish bones. We then stopped to see some of the art installations at Bombay Beach, a new stop for me. We found the mud volcanoes to be mostly dry, then stopped at Obsidian Buttes for shiny obsidian and frothy pumice. We settled into the research station at Borrego Springs, which we were fortunate to have all to ourselves. A few of us drove out to check out some of the iron sculptures sprinkled around the desert before dinner. After dinner many checked out some planets with the telescope. Tomorrow's forecast was for unseasonably cool weather and strong chances of afternoon thunderstorms.

We started Day 2 with a visit to The Slot, which the students seemed to enjoy. Then we went up Split Mountain Gorge, enjoying the classic geology outcrops as the cool skies darkened. We drove through the badlands for Sandstone Canyon, which I thought would be a great lunch spot. We made it a little up the canyon when quite abruptly it started to rain, hard. In no time at all we turned around and started driving down the canyon. The rain picked up to full thunderstorm as waterfalls poured in from the canyon walls. Thankfully the wash floor was sandy not muddy and so we actually had increased traction driving through the muddy water that formerly was our road. It really was quite an unusual phenomenon we were witnessing. We would drive down the flooded wash fast enough that we outpaced the flood pulse such that we would reach the flash flood front and drive a dry wash for a couple minutes, only to have the next tributary reflood the trunk wash. We then would drive out this flow until we reached its front. This continued for over a half a dozen times. The floodwaters seemed to be getting more mature as the catchment area increased and so at one point where there was a nice high and wide terrace I decided we should stop and see how it played out. We had lunch and marveled at the waters and rain and thunder. The waters surged up and then dropped below what they were when we started and so we decided to continue on down the wash. Only a mile or so further the waters sunk into the wash and we saw no more. The flood was certainly the highlight of the trip for all of us. Afterward we got a tour of the state park's paleontology museum. We were all a bit wound up from the flood so the museum pace was hard to adjust to. 

Day three we stopped at some of the other iron sculptures then headed for the Pumpkin Patch. This area was VERY muddy and so we bailed (wisely) after a very short distance. The crisp post-rain air meant that we could easily see the Martinez Mountain landslide and Lake Cahuilla lakeshores very well at a distance of several miles, saving us another detour. This gave us plenty of time at Thousand Palms for a hike and a nice picnic in the shade of the palm grove. Our last stop was the Palm Springs Tramway. Thankfully I reserved ahead of time and so we only had to wait about a half hour to get on the gondola, the perfect amount of time for students to wander around in the giftshop and check out the grounds. The students thoroughly enjoyed the tram ride and the views at the top. 

All in all it seemed to leave a favorable impression on the students that chose to attend. Many thanks to Heather for helping with logistics, especially food.

Wonderland of Rocks Sept 24

Another month almost without any escape, I left Riverside predawn to spend a few hours working on my Wonderland of Rocks Floor Is Lava Project before the heat of the day set in. I thought I would try to tick off some of the forbidding terrain north of Rattlesnake Canyon. I started hiking at Indian Cove's Rattlesnake Canyon trailhead before 8am. Recent thunderstorms meant the washes were moist, making better travel. Along the way I found a surprising number of pools and even more surprising number of small red-spotted toads hopping out of the way of my footfalls. On familiar terrain, I made it to the Rattlesnake Canyon talus cave in just over a half hour. This would be the last major wash crossing I would have to tackle on my traverse. Fortunately there were ample boulders strewn along the floor and in about 10 minutes I was able to find a route scrambling across to the north side of the wash. The game was afoot.

I scrambled steeply a few hundred feet up slabs and worked my way northwestward as best I could. In no time at all I felt the remoteness surround me. The humidity won over the early hour, resulting in drenching sweat. Puffy white clouds already began to form. The terrain was much less cooperative than I hoped and I soon came to realize that this area might be the hardest section to crack. I struggled to sidle around a sandy wash and when I finally gained the saddle I realized there was more sand. After only about 75 minutes in lava-mode I broke the route to beeline out, still requiring another 70 minutes by path of least resistance to regain my car. In the end I hiked a little over 4 miles in 3 hours. I was way too tired and my marathon through-trip felt a little further away than before. I would probably need to find a completely different route further west. The ultimate goal feels far away. Hopefully I can try to make some more progress over the winter months. It was nice enough to spend a few hours locked in deep wilderness.

Eaton Canyon Sept 11

My last visit to Eaton Canyon was way back in January 2016. This would be late season in the middle of an epic drought but we held out minor hope that the remnants of Hurricane Kay passing through the day before would boost flows slightly. It did not. What it did do was ensure that we were absolutely drenched in sweat on the hike up due to the extreme humidity despite our 7:40am start to our hike. The hike up to Henninger Flats was straightforward enough; apparently we just missed seeing some bears. Once we branched off onto the Telephone Trail we had to be rather careful with all of the poison oak infringing on the trail. I enjoyed the moments of downcanyon views out into the LA Basin and the patches of crunchy fall leaves covering the trail. 

At the creek I was disappointed to find it barely flowing. In hindsight we would have been fine without wetsuits but we all put them on since we had them. At our suit-up spot I found a cute ensatina salamander enjoying the moisture from the previous day's dampening.

The creek flow was very low and went dry completely in many places. There would be no jumps, slides, or swims and the deepest wade was just past my waist. It certainly was not the waterpark I hoped for (and looking at my 2016 pictures proves the contrast) but we were all happy to be outside and it was new to the others.

We worked our way through downclimbs that would have been slides and some dry waterfall rappels. The rappel into the short gorge section definitely lost some of its appeal without water splashing and a deep pool below. We stopped at one point for a snack but for the most part made steady progress. Some of the banded gneiss we saw was particularly beautiful, better than I remembered.

The second to last fall was nice as always except this time had a swirl of water-seeking bees to rappel through which was not a high point for any of us. I opted to take off my wetsuit at the bottom of the falls, a decision I was happy with later. Here a group of two behind us almost caught up. I forgot how long the slog was between the last two rappels.

The last falls (Eaton Falls) had its usual fanfare with about thirty people dipping toes in a meager muddy pool at the base of the trickling falls. None of us made any embarrassing moves and I think all of us got rounds of applause on reaching the bottom. The hike out was fine. We were back to the car around 3pm. Thanks to the others for a reason to get outside.