Mountain Trip

Last week I went on a trip to the mountains with the other new hires at work, really it was just a bit of geo-tourism to familiarize ourselves with the local foothills geology. I thought I'd share some of the neat things we saw (okay, neat to geo-geeks maybe).

A view of the dam near Mt. Yamnuska where several of the following pictures were taken.

Dinosaur tracks:

I believe these trace fossils are Rosselia, which is generally interpreted as the dwelling tube of a terebellid annelid (a type of worm). This is the trace fossil Ophiomorpha, which is a combined dwelling and feeding burrow created by shrimp by lining it with fecal pellets.

This trace fossil is Diplocraterion, which is a U-shaped tube with spreite within the "U". The organism lives in the tube and moves the burrow up or down depending on sedimentation, erosion, or growth of the organism. Trace maker unknown.Trace fossil: Asterosoma, trace maker: unknown. The organism would have been farming the sediment by burrowing down and then digging burrows out from the main tunnel in a star-shaped pattern.

Mt. Kidd - one of the most photographed mountain in the Rockies. The structure here is the result of a fault-propogation fold. I had planned to sketch out how it formed in photoshop but haven't gotten around to it... so this photo may be updated at a later time (or not).

Panorama of Mt. Lorette - Tom and I took shots of this last season when we hiked Wasootch Ridge. Lots of neat thrust faults here that give repeating stratigraphy (that I also had planned to sketch in and might do later).

Mt. Indefatigable (aka Mt. Fatty)

Tom & I headed out for another hike on Saturday - it was weird not having Kali with us, but she's not quite up to it anymore with her bad elbows. We've been wanting to hike Mt. Fatty, a 7.6 km round-trip with 920m elevation gain (although our GPS recorded around 1100 m). The trail started with a brief foray into the woods, but with an instant hit of steady climbing.

This is the view from the lower slopes of Mt. Fatty back towards Upper Kananaskis Lake.

Out of the trees and up the rocky slope: I paused here to take this pan:

Our first view of the peak of Mt. Indefatigable:

The Opal Ranges with Kananaskis Lake in the foreground. At 2266 m we hit snow. Most of the trail wasn't too bad - compacted footprints made for decent footing and closer to the top the drifts had been blown away. Tom making snow angels: A snow-filled valley looking up to the peak of Mt. Fatty:

Getting close to the peak:

From this point we decided to take an impromptu ramble towards the northern outlier of Mt. Fatty. This is a view back down to where we came from.

A view of the wild flowers growing up the slope of the northern outlier: A view of the northern outlier from Mt. Fatty: A peek over the edge of Mt. Fatty:

Tom on a lower peak, but the highest we got to.

From the secondary peak up the ridgeline towards the real crest of Mt. Fatty - it was a bit more than Tom's hand could handle. Tom suiting up to take the fast way down. If you strap a wind-breaker to yourself you can use it like a toboggan and slide down the snow (note to self: always pack wind-breaker on a trip like this!) Tom getting the hiking poles ready for braking: Tom en route: Since I didn't have a wind-breaker with me I had to settle for boot-skiing down the snow. Heading back down, and loving how beautiful the day was - great hike, great weather, and a beautifully lit fold =o)!

Hailstone Butte

Last weekend Tom & I decided to go hiking (since it's one of our few one-handed activities these days) and brought along Nikole (our guest) and our friend Breanna. We opted for a couple of easy hikes to get us warmed up for the season, but were a bit delayed getting out of town because we mistakenly ended up on the same route out of town as a bike race so didn't complete the second one (but it will be excellent for the folks when they make it to town!). The first hike was Hailstone Butte, a 4km round-trip with only 327 m of elevation that ended with a fire look-out. Our guide book was a bit confused on the location of the trailhead and actually sent us route-finding up a bit of a harder hill that tacked on some difficulty and time, although we found the trail on the way out and it was much easier.

... but if we hadn't gone that way we probably wouldn't have noticed this lovely fold!

The fire look-out on top of Hailstone Butte; much newer than the one on Mt. Burke that we visited last year and in much better condition!

View along the butte from the fire look-out:

Eww... Franken-Finger

Just thought I'd share this lovely shot with everyone. A couple of weeks ago some boulders decided to get even with Tom and crushed his hand. He needed 15 stitches in one finger and the rest of his hand was pretty swollen and mangled looking. Needless to say he's being forced to take it easy now, but is recovering.

Visions of Moab

Sorry I've been a little lax on updating the blog lately. These are just a few shots from Moab from my work trip back in May - hopefully there will be many more in the future when Tom & I go ride it!

Pictographs painted by "Archaic people" from Barrier Canyon, Utah

A picturesque fault outside Moab: