Tag Archives: Geology

Eastern Sierra Road Trip

September brought a long-awaited pleasure: a leisurely road trip south and back along the eastern side of Oregon’s Cascade Mountains and California’s Sierra. I’d traveled Highway 395 along the Eastern Sierra twice before, south to north, both times in February, when the peaks were veiled by low clouds and I had neither the time nor the gear to do any exploring. I looked forward to seeing more.

My only previous visit to Yosemite had been to the Valley via the west entrance. Driving in from the east over Tioga Pass, the highest in the Sierra, into the upper park was a thrill. Meadows, lakes, and polished granite domes abounded. And yes, the iconic Half Dome is visible from a few spots in this part of Yosemite as well. We had a lucky day, bracketed by evening storms on both sides, but well spent soaking up the vistas and hiking a few short trails.

Our next stop was Mammoth Lakes, another place I’d never been. We spent a few days hiking and sightseeing, from small spots such as Emerald Lake, tucked away in the John Muir Wilderness, to geological glories such as the Devil’s Postpile, one of the world’s best examples of columnar basalt, and the Minarets, piercing the sky at dusk. (Why, though, are fascinating geological formations so often attributed to the Devil? My home state of Oregon has a bunch of them, from an Elbow to a Cauldron.)

My primary goal was to visit the Ancient Bristlecone Forest in the White Mountains, across the highway from the Sierra. From the Schulman Grove and its wonderful new visitor center to the Patriarch Grove at 11,000 feet of elevation, this home of the world’s oldest trees did not disappoint! Here my traveling partner Z photographs one of the dead trees, which, we learned, are so hard and durable that they don’t decay–they erode. Well worth a 2,029-mile round trip.

Last but not least, we spent a hot but cheerful few hours rambling among the Alabama Hills, which Z had long wanted to visit. These strangely comical, lumpish rock formations are the backdrop of many Western tv shows and movies, including Tremors. Needless to say, we kept a sharp eye out for graboid dust trails.

Quenched Blobs and Chaos Jumbles

We got home last evening from our second multi-day excursion of the pandemic era, and it was swell. Among the highlights (details below) were the fulfillment of a lifelong optical-phenomenon goal and the cutest wildlife experience ever.

Chaos Jumbles, Lassen NP

Even before the pandemic, it had become a challenge for both Z and me to be away from home at the same time. Our ageing cat, dear Xerxes, gets medicated twice a day and hates to be alone, but alas, a couple of years ago our longtime cat- and house-sitter moved two hours away. She became briefly available last September, so Z and I rolled the Covid dice and chanced a three-night road trip to the Wallowas, which we loved. A few weeks ago we learned that she’d be available again for four nights in June. We jumped on the chance.

We drove south on I-5 to Roseburg and took the North Umpqua Scenic Byway (otherwise known as Hwy 138) to Diamond Lake, just north of Crater Lake. We spent our first night at the DL Resort. On the evening of the second day we drove from Crater Lake National Park southwest to Redding along the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Highway, passing just north of Mt. Shasta. After a night in Redding we hastened to Mt. Lassen Volcanic National Park and spent an entire day there, ending up at Z’s stepsister’s house 90 minutes away. We spent our last two nights there and drove home yesterday, breaking the eight-hour drive with an all-too-brief visit with Z’s cousins in Ashland. Xerxes and our recent addition, Xanthe the Speckled Menace (a young Bengal cat), were in fine fettle when we arrived and seemed barely to have noticed our absence, which speaks well of our sitter.

Highlights:

* Green flash sunset at Crater Lake. We watched a nearly fluorescent sun set behind the rolling hills west of the lake. As the last bit of it sank below the horizon, we saw the green flash. It was yellowish-green, almost chartreuse. I was thrilled. I have long wished to see this phenomenon but even on a long sea cruise never had the luck. So that was pretty damn cool.

* Babies in ground squirrel town. Ground squirrels scampered everywhere around the Diamond Lake Resort. The lawn leading down to the lake had a patch of burrows like a miniature prairie-dog town, with squirrels popping up and down, grazing in the grass, and standing sentry. Then we saw two squirrels bring up their young, who were about as big as my thumb. There were half a dozen of these little ground squirrels altogether. They frolicked and played like puppies, running up a little sand hill and rolling down, piling onto and chasing each other. I didn’t try to use my crappy phone camera because I didn’t want to disturb them.

* Half a dozen good hikes, some of them short but steep. One benign walk took us to the famous Bumpass Hell in Lassen NP.

* Watson Falls, at 293 feet the highest in southwestern Oregon, and Clearwater Falls, where we saw a lot of American Dippers (sometimes called water ouzels). These were not my first Dippers, but it was the first time I’d seen such a close, clear, and protracted display of the bobbing movement that gives them their name.

* Geological phenomena at Lassen, including Quenched Blobs and the Chaos Jumbles. My next band name. . . .