{"id":5792,"date":"2017-04-30T18:09:26","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T00:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/?p=5792"},"modified":"2020-07-01T14:35:03","modified_gmt":"2020-07-01T20:35:03","slug":"spring-trip-2017-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/?p=5792","title":{"rendered":"Rendezvous With Deep Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Arrival at Night, and the First Day<\/h1>\n

I got a late start, and entered the mountains just as full dark was falling and all the stars were coming out on this moonless night. The military refueling flights were occasionally deafening as they droned though their long mechanical circles overhead, but they stopped at 10 pm. Snug in my sleeping bag, there under the glittering arch of heaven, I felt much more comfortable and at home than in my bed back in Silver City.<\/p>\n

On the first day, temperatures were mild, with alternating wind and calm, clouds and blue sky, and I hiked up to the Shade House. There, I strung my hammock and lay reading and watching birds and pollinators move among the nearby shrubs and boulders. The clouds, some tantalizingly dark, brought temporary humidity but no precious rain. I was plagued by gnats, but at least they didn’t bite. I hiked up to the seep and found the catch basin dry \u2013 something that only happens in the deepest droughts.<\/p>\n

\"Approaching <\/a>
Approaching the promised land at sunset: north ridge of the mountains from the Pass <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"On <\/a>
On my first day, I hiked up to the Shade House and watched birds from my hammock <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A series of sphinx moths were working this perennial <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Sphinx <\/a>
Sphinx moth extends its long proboscis into a flower <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
<\/a>
Others flock to high vista points to view blooms that cover the landscape; I get down on my knees to discover hidden beauties like this <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"In <\/a>
In this section eroded from inside a giant nappe, molten granite has interpenetrated the pre-existing carbonates as they were being folded into a nappe by the fault – possibly in more than one faulting episode – here exposed with a chunk of wollastonite below <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"More <\/a>
More interesting structures at the intersection of cold carbonates and hot granites <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pure <\/a>
Pure quartz forms when water-rich granite encounters ancient gneiss <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"These <\/a>
These shy insects seem to live only on beavertail cactus <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"One <\/a>
One of my many favorite shrubs was blooming <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

A Walk Across the Bajada<\/h1>\n

The next morning I woke to a cold wind and put on layers of fleece before making breakfast and coffee. Discouraged by the drought, I thought of leaving and going elsewhere. But the sky cleared and I saw the big boulder pile 2 or 3 miles across the basin, where I knew there were inner chambers with shade from the full sun of afternoon and views out across the bajada.<\/p>\n

The walk across the bajada reminded me that this is a special place for plants. I found dense stands of healthy bunchgrass, and surprising groupings of very different plants living together in harmony, in a desert that’s more commonly known for plants that isolate themselves from each other with chemical repellents. Many were blooming, long after the “official” annual bloom, from the tiny annuals at ground level to the tall cholla cactus and creosote shrubs. And I came upon bees, butterflies, birds, rabbits and hares, all enjoying springtime on the bajada.<\/p>\n

That night it was so windy I had to anchor even heavy things down and turn my sleeping bag away from it, to the south. I could tell the wind was on the rise and planned to leave in the morning, discouraged by both wind and drought.<\/p>\n

\"Temperature <\/a>
Temperature in the 40s when I got up <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"I <\/a>
I was never crazy about purple until I discovered this desert shrub <\/div> <\/div>
\"IMG_3104\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The military way of enhancing our wilderness experience <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Notice <\/a>
Notice the iridescence of the needles on this purple pencil cholla <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Most <\/a>
Most bajada plants isolate themselves from others, but here, many very different plants grow together in harmony <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The beautiful bunchgrass Hilaria rigida <\/div> <\/div>
\"I <\/a>
I spent the day inside a rock pile hundreds of feet tall, shaded by boulders the size of houses <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pairs <\/a>
Pairs of mourning doves were active all over the desert <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"This <\/a>
This boulder seemed to be on the verge of toppling – and one day it will <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A completely different granite formation, just above on the slope <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"This <\/a>
This woodrat, nesting in the rockpile, watched me from above <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Freestanding <\/a>
Freestanding Hilaria rigida <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A dense stand of grasses on the high end of the bajada <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Blooming <\/a>
Blooming in the burnt-looking shell of dead yucca <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"This <\/a>
This bee has fallen into a drunken stupor inside its cholla flower <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Another <\/a>
Another passed-out bee <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The distant view from camp at sunset <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Rendezvous With Deep Time<\/h1>\n

High winds in the morning. I took my time packing up, and on the way out down the broad main wash, noticed a wedge of snow on Mount San Gorgonio, a hundred miles away through a haze of wind-raised mineral dust.<\/p>\n

Then, just outside the mountains, I unexpectedly came upon a vehicle driven by someone I only knew as a legend \u2013 the geologist who’d discovered this place and helped put it on the international map of earth science. He was bringing some young students out, hoping they’d like it enough to resume research out here. So I turned around and joined them, and the legend gave me some glimpses of an incredibly dynamic, and incredibly ancient, story.<\/p>\n

Here, the crust of the earth, then consisting of sedimentary \u2013 the limestones, shales, and sandstones of the Grand Canyon \u2013 and ancient metamorphic rocks such as gneiss \u2013 had been folded under unimaginable forces, and interpenetrated by younger granite rising from below, and the interfaces between the rocks were incredibly complex. In fact, much of the story remains a mystery today after decades of study.<\/p>\n

In this migmatitic exposure, beautiful marbles had been formed, and embedded with colorful skarns in reds and greens. Layer upon layer of granites and recrystallized carbonates that had flowed over and under each other repeatedly, to be eroded across eons and exposed here for us in frozen waves and thin sheets like iced cream. Almost two billion years of the Earth’s history we hiked over, up a few hundred feet of steep mountainside.<\/p>\n

The students hungrily scanned the rocks at their feet, but the legend kept redirecting their attention up to the deep blue of the sky behind the stony ridge, and to the special plants scattered around them, like the red Dudleya and the barrel cactus, that thrive on this particular substrate. And I pointed out my new obsession, biological soil crusts, which arise at the interface between rock and life. Easily missed knots of nondescript black matter in fissures of white stone. Subdued now in the drought, but ready to swell and glisten after a rain.<\/p>\n

\"On <\/a>
On the way out of the mountains, I came upon this coyote melon in bloom across the sandy track <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"But <\/a>
But just outside the mountains, I came upon a legendary geologist with a carful of students. I turned around to join them, and they told me stories of deep time, including this cross-bedded Tapeats sandstone – the bottom layer of the Grand Canyon – folded upside down and recrystallized within a nappe <\/div> <\/div>
\"And <\/a>
And this marble – recrystallized limestone – impregnated with silicates from intruding granite <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
<\/a>
The silicates on the surface have weathered, developing a dark patina, but the same minerals are hidden between the fine crystals of the marble <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"This <\/a>
This small boulder shows the contact between the cretacious granite at left and the dark proterozoic gneiss at right <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Boudinage: <\/a>
Boudinage: stretched carbonates (limestone) intermixed with wollastonite <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"This <\/a>
This marble is the Grand Canyon’s Redwall limestone, recrystallized in the nappe <\/div> <\/div>
\"Closeup <\/a>
Closeup of wollastonite <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A skarn: colorful minerals resulting from the contact between hot granite and cold carbonates and embedded within the marble <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Fragments <\/a>
Fragments of a skarn, containing epidote, diopside, and garnet <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rock-crazed <\/a>
Rock-crazed student attacking our hillside <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Another, <\/a>
Another, more pensive, student high up on the nappe <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The goth aesthetic lives on at the abandoned tungsten mill <\/div> <\/div>
\"IMG_3205\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"An <\/a>
An artist was here! <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arrival at Night, and the First Day I got a late start, and entered the mountains just as full dark was falling and all the stars were coming out on this moonless night. The military refueling flights were occasionally deafening as they droned though their long mechanical circles overhead, but they stopped at 10 pm. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,85,83,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2017-trips","category-mojave-desert","category-regions","category-road-trips"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_3057.jpg?fit=2000%2C1500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5792"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5973,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792\/revisions\/5973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}