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Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: Into the Land of Sand and Exploding Whales
The Cascadia Subduction Zone has raised mountains. The entire length of the convergent boundary, from California to British Columbia is marked by incredibly rugged cliffs and steep, forest-covered...
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Want to Work at a Great Museum? The Great Valley Museum May Have a Place For You
I work in a great facility at Modesto Junior College. The recently opened Science Community Center on our west campus combines the labs and classrooms for the physical and biological sciences, a fully...
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Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: Into the Realm of the Devil (and Sea Lions)
Ocean waves are powerful. Extremely powerful. Waves are one of the few erosional processes that operate within a time frame that can be perceived by humans. Gigantic rocks may be moved in one storm,...
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The New Tuolumne River Trail is Coming!
In one sense, this is a local story, about a trail that I can walk to from my house. On the other, it is of interest to anyone who travels into the region, on their way to Yosemite and other more...
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Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: Putting on a Happy Face at Dismal Nitch and...
Waikiki Beach at Cape Disappointment. Yes, the cliffs are basaltic like those in Hawaii, but the spot was named for a Hawaiian sailor who lost his life here in a shipwreck (one of many).How does a...
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Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: Into the Rainforest, Seeing Something...
So, after a Dismal day of Disappointment, the vagabonders hit the road, going north onto the Olympic Peninsula. It was my first time on the west side of the peninsula, and my first foray into the Hoh...
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I Wish I Had Thought of This...
Source: Scienze GeologicheI immediately fell in love with this mapping concept from Scienze Geologiche that I saw on Facebook this morning. All I can say is "Bravo". I pay homage to a brilliant idea...
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Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: The Diverse Landscapes of Olympic National Park
We continued north and east from the Hoh Rainforest on our vagabonding journey through the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Mountains have been raised along the entire convergent boundary, but the ranges on...
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Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: The Salish Sea and the Strait of Juan de Fuca
As we reached Port Angeles and boarded the ferry to Vancouver Island on our vagabonding journey along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, the landscape underwent a dramatic change. For one, a bunch of it was...
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Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: Stone Rings, Glaciers, and "Dinosaurs" on...
We've got a mixed bag on this post...Our vagabonding trip along the Cascadia Subduction Zone involved a desire to spend most nights camping, but we now we had reached Canada, our gear was all wet, and...
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Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: Exploring North America's Southernmost Fjord
One of the nice things about vagabonding, traveling without a set itinerary, is that one can make allowances for weather. That's a major consideration with a journey through the Pacific Northwest. We...
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Cloud iridescence in Central California
I was out and about running errands in the late afternoon yesterday when I glanced at the sky, which was full of high-altitude clouds. The small opening in the clouds (just left of center) caught my...
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Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: Landing Place of the Thunderbird and the...
Nch'kay (Mt. Garibaldi) near Squamish, B.C. Photo by Mrs. Geotrippert'ak't'ak mu'yin tl'a in7in'a'xe7en and Nch'kay ("Landing Place of the Thunderbird" and "Grimy One") are the Squamish names for two...
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Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: Controversial Stone People, Fire and Ice,...
A stone person stands on an outcrop up in Callaghan Creek a few kilometers west of Whistler in British Columbia. It has been called an inuksuk, although inunnguaq may be the more proper name (it's the...
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Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: Seeing Volcanoes from the Inside Out at...
It's one thing to talk about a subduction zone from the outside, where one might see an oceanic trench, or a chain of volcanoes. It's quite another to explore the convergent zone from the inside out,...
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Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: Our Tour of the Greatest National Park I...
The western slope of the Cascades Range is green. Very green. There are trees, shrubs, mosses, grasses, just about every kind photosynthesizing plant there is. This is due of course to the mountains...
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Oo'-tin (Bower Cave) in the Sierra Nevada: Caverns, Lost Pictures, Dances,...
The middle parts of the Sierra Nevada are kind of the great unknown of the Sierra Nevada (at least to me, but I suspect many others, too). It's not that the region between the mostly alpine national...
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A Bird Shangri-La No More: The Moas of New Zealand
Blogging always involves a little bit of free association, where inspiration comes from numerous unrelated events over the course of a few days. I've started my fall semester, and I've met 170 new...
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Vagabonding on Dangerous Ground: The Geology That Explains Why North Cascades...
Diablo Reservoir below the peaks of North Cascades National Park. The Turquoise color results from fine silt and clay derived from glaciers.As I described in my last post on vagabonding, North Cascades...
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California's Endemic: Yellow-billed Magpie on the West Campus, Back from the...
Note: Occasionally the subject matter of posts that I put on Geotripper's California Birds spills over into areas that may be of interest to those interested in the geology I cover at Geotripper. This...
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