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Physics Makes for a Beautiful Moment in a Day
This post is off the beaten geo-track today, but there is a little bit of science involved. Our new Science Community Center at Modesto Junior College, which I have mentioned extensively in previous...
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Out of the Valley of Death: Geology at Fifty-five
One of the first things I tell my students (and occasionally even with some success) is "don't sleep while traveling in the vans". Death Valley National Park is the largest national park in the lower...
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Out of the Valley of Death: What the Heck Happened at Ubehebe?
The geology at Death Valley National Park is naked and raw. Nothing is hidden beneath a soft matte of vegetation. It's in your face, all the processes of tectonism, volcanism, erosion, and deposition....
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You Don't Know What You've Got 'Til It's Gone: They Burned Paradise...
My God...Nothing beautiful today; nothing inspiring... Twenty years ago I paid my first visit to the destruction wrought by the eruption of Mount St. Helens. I stood on a high viewpoint on Windy Ridge...
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The Yosemite No One Sees in Summer...the Merced River Canyon
The drought in California is horrific. It is quite probably the worst drought in centuries, but we received a slight respite in the form of showers and snow during the last part of March and early...
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Meanwhile, in the Skies Tonight...
Lunar eclipses are always interesting, and they can be shared by most of a planet, unlike solar eclipses that follow a narrow strip of land across the globe. I was a little frustrated tonight because...
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One of the World's Most Precious Places, Under the Volcano
Yosemite Valley, hands down, is one of the most extraordinary places on our amazing planet. I have been going to Yosemite National Park three or four times a year for the last quarter century, and I...
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Out of the Valley of Death and into an Upside Down Mountain
The Grapevine Mountains form the eastern margin of the Death Valley north of Stovepipe Wells, reaching elevations of nearly 9,000 feet in places. It's an imposing range, stark, barren, and rugged. All...
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Vernal Fall in Yosemite and a Sense of Scale (or, How to Feel Very Small)
It's a sense of scale that helps us keep perspective. I was at Washburn Point in Yosemite National Park today, and I took a few shots with the zoom of the same spot across the way. We have a bunch of...
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The Dogwoods are Blooming in Yosemite Valley! And North Dome, the Stuff of...
The Pacific Dogwood (Cornus nuttalli) is a diminutive tree that forms some of the understory of Yosemite Valley's conifer forests. It seems practically invisible to park visitors (like me, anyway) most...
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Where are the Ten Most Incredible Places You've Ever Stood? A New Blog Series...
What is the most incredible place you have ever stood? That thought occurred to me this last weekend when I got up to Glacier and Washburn Points in Yosemite National Park. For those who are less...
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Where are the Ten Most Incredible Places You've Ever Stood? My Number 10: The...
It is Earth Day 2014, which seems as good a day as any to start a new series about ten of the most extraordinary places on Planet Earth, as based on my own personal experiences. Everyone has such...
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Where are the Ten Most Incredible Places You've Ever Stood? My Number 9:...
It's the journey through the Ten Most Incredible Places I've Ever Stood! As I explained in the last post, the list is subjective, and everyone's list will be different. I'm pleased at the response of...
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Where are the Ten Most Incredible Places You've Ever Stood? My Number 8: The...
The journey continues through the ten most incredible places where I've ever stood. Every person's list will be different; I'm hoping to hear of great ideas for future travels! Number ten for me was...
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Where are the Ten Most Incredible Places You've Ever Stood? My Number 7,...
It's not always easy, but travel whenever you can. See as much of the world as possible. I passed on both New Zealand and Hawaii three decades ago for reasons that seem trivial today. I didn't go...
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The Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve: Color in the Western Mojave...
I admit I've taken artistic license, in that I took this picture of a busy hummingbird on the same day, but by the time I took the shot, I was two hundred miles north in the parking lot of a Black Bear...
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Adventures Along California's San Andreas Fault: The Devil's Punchbowl (but...
The Devil gets blamed for a lot of stuff, and who am I to say he isn't responsible for bad things? But one can hardly blame us for blaming him for massive earthquakes when he goes around leaving things...
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Where are the Ten Most Incredible Places You've Ever Stood? My Number 6: I...
Yes, Hawai'i gets two spots on my top ten list of the most incredible places I've ever stood. A few days ago I talked about my wonderful adventure in the swamps of the Alaka'i Plateau on Kaua'i, but...
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Two Serene Hours in a Very Noisy Place: The North Valley Trail in Yosemite...
Yosemite Valley is an awe-inducing place, a place that was the inspiration for my current series on "What are the Most Incredible Places You've ever Stood"? I've been there many times and I never get...
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Where are the Ten Most Incredible Places You've Ever Stood? My Number 5:...
This entry into my series on the "Ten Most Incredible Places I've Ever Stood" is sort of a two-for-one deal. It was my journey into a different kind of geological past, the history of the science...
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