Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona

In my humble, yet well-informed opinion: drop everything and go to southeast Arizona's stunning National Monument, Chiricahua. This isolated "sky island" mountain is surrounded by an ocean of desert grasslands that protect the wonderland of rocky sentinels that call Chiricahua home. Forget the Badlands*, forget Mono Lake**; if you are in the market for several thousand acres of pinnacles, hoodoos, and precariously balanced spires secreted away at 9,000 feet above sea level, Chiricahua is the national monument for you.

The moment I traced our path from Silver City, New Mexico, towards our next destination in Tucson, Arizona, and noticed the attractive swath of green on our atlas that represented the monument, I knew it was fated. Even more so as we felt the predictable lull of road trip weariness settle on our shoulders as we careened down I-10 after the setting sun, trying to put car troubles and freezing temperatures behind us.

A hike will do us good, 

I thought.  

Some rocks will cure us.

We drove the long and lonesome road through cresting waves of grass towards the looming mountain as the sky dimmed, anticipating a hopefully mild night in our tent. Forty solitary miles later and we were enveloped in the comforting familiarity of a National Park campground, whose completely average yet consistent facilities are among my favorite lodgings in the country.

A warm morning welcomed us with the delight of choosing our hiking trail for the day. We decided on something long and hopefully epic, making sure the Mushroom Rock Trail, Big Balanced Rock Trail, and Heart of Rocks would not be missed. In the end, we chose a 7 mile hike out of the possible 17 to explore.

From the campground and the Welcome Center, there were no interesting rock formations to be seen, but as soon as we boarded the bus to Massai Point - climbing ever higher into the sky - the tantalizing blanket of unique geology began to unfold before us.

Twenty seven million years ago, the nearby Turkey Creek Caldera laid down 2,000 feet of volcanic ash that fused into rhyolite tuff, an event similar to the recently visited Bandolier National Monument. Over time, additional uplift paired with erosion caused by wind and water wore cracks into the tuff, leaving behind the carefully sculpted masterpieces that make up Chiricahua today. 

As an added bonus, Chiricahua is one of the only places in the US where you can see a native coati... and we did!

And as I expected, walking beneath the towering spires, under an overcast sky was just the balm we needed to sooth our traveling bones and ready us for what's next: Tucson in the rain.

*NEVER forget the Badlands

**Long live Mono Lake!!!!!

Rock City, Kansas

File this one under awesome roadside attractions! 

After spending the previous day exploring the prairie by foot, we were ready to cover some miles in our car, but first we just had to check out nearby Rock City Park in Minneapolis, Kansas. Touted more as a roadside attraction than a geologic park, we were delightfully surprised to find that it was actually more like a roadside playground! This was particularly exciting because it being the middle of winter on a Wednesday, we were the only ones there.

So on the two acre spread overlooking patchwork fields of ranch land and winter wheat, we began climbing all over the 200 round sandstone concretions, formed by calcite from Kansas' prehistoric inland sea and differential erosion, that littered the park. And yes, it was just as cool as the pictures make it look! All around us were rock formations, varying from 3 feet high to 12 feet high and easily climable. In fact, the park encourages climbing!

We spent about an hour exploring and climbing until it was time to hit the road with our sights sent on Colorado. It may seem crazy to say, but if you are ever in the area, I highly suggest stopping by the park for some geology-themed excitement.

(Ps, I may be writing this to you in Tucson, Arizona after a million adventures, but my heart is still in Kansas!)

The Nessa & Zy Road Trip Finale: Yosemite to Cupertino

Alas, the story of me and Nessa's trip from Vermont to Cupertino, California is coming to an end! From 24 hours straight to Tulsa, to harrowing adventure in New Mexico, to dodging tractor beams on the Extraterrestrial Highway, and much more, we are finally bringing Nessa home...

After the painfully early morning at Mono Lake, we headed up, up, up into Yosemite National Park, conveniently located en route to destination: Cupertino. I love entering Yosemite from the eastern access point in Lee Vining. It feels more removed from the impending tourist traffic ahead and it's always best to drive the road less traveled - the Tioga Road, so far away from the hustle and bustle of the oh-so-popular Yosemite Valley. It's a nice way to lean into a National Park experience before the overwhelming crowds, traffic, and then show stopping stunnery of Yosemite's most famous inhabitants. A night of primitive camping amongst the sage in the Inyo National Forest and a Mono Lake sunrise before a day at Yosemite? Yes, please! (and definitely get breakfast at the Whoa Nellie Deli in Lee Vining)

The first time I went to Yosemite with AGP, we had elected to skip the Valley in order to take a more accessible hike and then make it to San Francisco with time to spare. If you are heading into the Valley, especially after driving the Tioga Road, assume that your adventure will be daylong. I mean obviously, right? Most people save up vacation all year just to spend weeks frolicking amongst the granite domes and the glacial valleys dripping melt water from the upwards of 13,000 feet in elevation. So it was a clear choice for me and Nessa to spend a few hours exploring the beautiful Valley on this special trip.

Yosemite is pretty famous for having several Giant Sequoia groves, although Nessa and I spent our time exploring beneath the canopy of ponderosa pines along the Merced River in the shadow of El Capitan.






Ah, the infamous "Captain", illuminated in geology slide shows in lecture halls around the nation. The granite that makes up El Capitan was formed approximately 100 million years ago!

We cruised out of Yosemite in the golden afternoon, traveling from the crisp summer of the Valley into the bizarre alien scape that was the western edges of the park and the surrounding Stanislaus National Forest, which had very recently been on fire. Actually, Route 120 had only opened back up a couple of days before we had arrived! In the park, we were in awe of the ash colored trees where a low intensity fire had torn through the forest floor, burning up the trunks but leaving behind a cloudy pink canopy of needles.

And then - woah. We stopped at an overlook that truly put the devastation of forest fires into perspective for a couple of rainy day flatlanders like us.



The size consumed by the wildfire was three times the size of San Francisco! With high intensity fires like this one, it can take 20 years or more for the recovery process to begin in the forest. Lost are valuable homes and food sources for many animals and the soil will be at risk for erosion and nutrient depletion, not a pretty forecast for such a massive tract of wild space. However, it was nice to see that nearby Groveland was spared certain disaster, and the streets were lined with handmade signs thanking the firefighters for their hard work and sacrifice.

Before long we were ensconced in the eternal interstates of the Bay area of California, anxiously spiraling towards Vanessa's new life in Cupertino. We arrived just as the sun set, slowly creeping down the dead end that her rental cottage was situated on. Since Nessa's boyfriend had arrived in California a few months before her, he had scouted out this awesome home for the two of them. Greeted by a small front yard lined with fruit trees, flowering shrubs, darting hummingbirds, and a perfect oasis among the nonstop pop-op of urban Cali, we knew we were finally home.

Thanks for reading about our adventure!!

The whole tome is here:
Ready, Set, Tulsa!
From Oklahoma to New Mexico
Adventure in the Jemez Mountains
On Arches & The World's Oldest Living Organism
Dreamland & The Extraterrestrial Highway
Morning Over Mono: A Poem

5: Iceland Inspiration

It's hard for me to think about Iceland without getting my heart rate up. I was fortunate enough to spend a month there when I was in school and I still think about that trip as kind of the BEST adventure of all time.

You all know how studying geology is kind of like majoring in adventure, right? Well, us lucky bastards got to circumnavigate the whole freaking country by bus! Stopping to camp, hike glaciers, and check out those natural wonders I can't get enough of - for school credit!

So, here is some Iceland Inspiration for your Thursday: 5 Awesome Places in Iceland!

One - Mývatn

Mývatn, which means "Midge Lake", is located in northern Iceland and is the home to craters caused by steam explosions, migratory birds who LOVE to gobble up the never ending swarms of hatching flies, and Hverfell, the 2,500 year old tephra cone volcano. But don't let the swarming bugs sway you, Mývatn is an excellent jumping off point for the Dimmborgir, "dark catsles", area - a sweeping lava field of craggy formations.

Two - Landmannalaugar

If you are young and have been adventuring in Iceland, you have probably been to Landmannalaugar. There is an extremely popular hiking trail through there, in the Icelandic highlands, through rhyolite mountains and obviously complete with hot springs to bath in.

Three - Hólar

Okay, you probably will never get to Hólar, and I probably will never get there again, but it absolutely holds a torch in my heart. We stayed at the agricultural college there and as far as I could tell, there wasn't much else to do in this town with a population of 100. We did drink from the healing pool at the 300 year old church though. 

Four - Reykjavik

We actually saw Björk when we were in Reykjavik. We also hung out with sketchy strangers, stayed up all night and bought snacks from the 1011. Even as wild American tourists, the city was very welcoming and accessible for us, easy to walk around and had excellent lighting - you know, because of that solar night thing they have happening there! Oh, and don't forget to hike Esja.

Five - Vatnajökull

I could have said "Vatnajökull Glacier" so you would know what I am talking about, but that would be redundant. In Icelandic, "Vatna" means lake and "Jökull" means glacier. So here we have the Glacier of Lakes! Which is the biggest glacier in Iceland and host to all sorts of amazing sights. We hiked, Flaajökull, a glacial tongue, took a tour through the Jökulsárlón, or "glacier river lagoon", and camped at Skaftafell National Park, home to Skaftafoss, the famous columnar jointed waterfall. (Pro tip: "Foss" means waterfall!)

There is a reason we always sing:

"Iceland is a nice-land

Don't wanna go once

I wanna go twice-land!"

I also have some more fun pictures on my Flickr if you want to check it out: N-Iceland

And feel free to drop a line if you need come travel recommendations in Iceland!

The Long Trail to Styles Peak

Hello, late fall! With the last nice days of autumn winding down into sustained rain, chilliness, and threats of snow, AGP and I have been taking full advantage of the sunshine. Not too long ago we took a short walk to Styles Peak in Peru, Vermont, which happens to be on an infamous stretch of wilderness belonging to the Long Trail.

There is an easy to access trail head that begins at Mad Tom Road and climbs a moderately steep 1.4 miles to the summit for awesome views to the south and northeast at 3,394 feet above sea level. The visibility that day was so great, we could see all the way into New Hampshire (I think)! It took us about 40 minutes to get up and twenty minutes to get down. Not bad for a mid-afternoon jaunt.

Did you know that the Long Trail was established in 1910 by the Green Mountain Club? That makes the trail the oldest long distance hiking trail in the country. In fact, it runs the entire length of Vermont, from the Massachusetts border to Canada! That's 272 miles in total and for 100 miles in southern Vermont, the Long Trail is also the Appalachian Trail.

As always, I was thoroughly impressed by the National Forest Wilderness we were hiking through. Even though the trees in the predominately beech forest we explored have (mostly) lost their leaves, it made for a perfect opportunity to focus on the vibrant greens that still abound. And you know how I love the forest floor. 

Do you know about club moss? It was everywhere! Like a shaggy, green carpet. And like their namesake mosses, they are spore-bearing plants, often considered to be allies of the fern (which were also in abundance along the trail). What I found was mostly Shining Club Moss, Huperzia lucidula, a trailing, evergreen. I was oddly thrilled to find these specimens complete with sporangia (spore cases), which are the yellow, kidney shaped pods in the top portion of the plant.

We also found Angel Wing mushrooms, Pleurocybella porrigens, in abundance as we neared the summit. While these are largely regarded as edible mushrooms and even though I have eaten them on occasion, we usually leave them alone when we are out on a casual hike without our expert identification resources. 

Despite the fact they are delicious and delicate tasting, they have been implicated in a few deaths involving people with preexisting liver ailments in Japan. And due to these concerns, although minimal, I am fine to just perk when I see these snowy beauts gracing decaying conifer logs.

The trails on this portion of the hike were well maintained, if not a bit muddy, even at the top! Neat boardwalks spare you most of the muck, but definitely not all. We weren't worried about going off trail either, because the paths were well defined and marked with a humble white blaze. Although, with all the rusty beech leaves everywhere on the ground, we did have to stop and double check our steps a few times!

Thanks for reading!