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Is it a Fossil Smuggling Conspiracy?? (Answer: No, it's something fun)
There's this suspicious storage container on our campus. It's been there for months, all through the construction of our much-anticipated Great Valley Outdoor Nature Lab. It's always closed and locked...
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It's a River Again! Winter on the Tuolumne
All the pictures in this post are from the Tuolumne River Parkway Trail in Waterford.All in all, it's been a good year (so far). One can judge the quality of a year on the basis of many things, and in...
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It Was That Kind of Day: Half Dome from the Central Valley
It doesn't happen often. I usually pass the right intersection once or maybe twice a week, but the most important factor is the air quality. It's almost always poor. Dust and smoke in the summer, fog...
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There's a Giant Atmospheric River Storm Pummeling California...So of course...
So we here in California are experiencing one of those very intense atmospheric river storms generated when a highly active jet stream dips far to the south and starts to draw up very moist tropical...
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What's the Most Alien Landscape You've Ever Explored? Here's a Candidate
What is the strangest landscape you've ever explored? That is, the kind of place that makes you think that this just isn't part of planet Earth. I got to experience one of those places last week during...
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The Other Snowstorm in California Right Now, and a Water Problem of a...
The Sierra Nevada and Cascades are buried under record amounts of snow right now, but that's not the only "snow" falling in the state just now. More than a million acres of the state are covered in a...
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A Sense of "Wonder" and the Dreams of Avarice: The Keane Wonder Mine in Death...
This is a lonely place. Lonely and harsh. The names we give such places reflect our fundamental fear of such landscapes: Death Valley, Funeral Mountains, Furnace Creek, Badwater. The fact that we made...
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Join the Geotrippers! British Columbia, the Channeled Scablands, the Olympic...
(This was posted in January, but is re-posted in preparation for a second organizational meeting on March 19)What are you going to do this summer? Are there places in the world that you've thought of...
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Harbingers of Spring at the Red Hills Area of Critical Environmental Concern
It used to be a "junk" landscape...the kind of place where locals dumped their garbage and shot up old cars. Off-road vehicles ran roughshod over the relatively barren slopes. It wasn't private...
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A Day of Celestial Equality: the Vernal Equinox
The Earth has survived another winter and today we entered into the season of spring. I had a fortuitous moment, driving home on an east-west road (Claribel in Stanislaus County) at the moment the sun...
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Death Valley is Actually a Tropical Rainforest...except for the Caterpillars
They SAY Death Valley is the hottest place in the world. They SAY it is the driest place in North America. But I found out the truth on my trip there this weekend. Death Valley is a tropical...
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Tales from the Semi-Super-Bloom Tour, Part 1: The Mojave Desert and El Paso...
A lot of excitement has been generated this year with the plentiful precipitation in the California Desert and the resulting "Super-Bloom". Mrs. Geotripper and I didn't want to totally miss out on the...
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The First Wild Arrival at the New Great Valley Outdoor Nature Lab
The Great Valley Museum's Outdoor Nature Lab is reaching the final stages of completion! The area includes a native vegetation of the Great Valley, characteristic rocks of the valley and Sierra Nevada...
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The Way it Was Today: Spring is About to Burst Forth in Yosemite Valley
In certain ways, I am the luckiest of people. I live in a place, however humble, that is a mere two-hour drive from Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park. I can visit and explore the park almost...
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Tales From the Semi-Super-Bloom Tour, Part 2: Death Valley National Park
The Desert Five-Spot (Eremalche rotundifolia) has to be one of my favorite desert wildflowers. I don't see it often because it is rarely blooming during my customary visits to Death Valley National...
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Tales From the Semi-Super-Bloom Tour, Part 3: On the Road to Yosemite
Mrs. Geotripper and I didn't see the legendary "Super-Bloom" in Southern California. We didn't have the time or patience to deal with the crowds and trampling and helicopter landings in fields of...
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Tales from the Semi-Super-Bloom Tour, Part 4: Into the Realm of Demons, the...
Human mythology finds bigger meanings in everyday stories, i.e. vast battles fought in the heavens, on earth, and in the depths below pitting light against darkness, fire against ice, and good against...
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There is Still Time to Join the Geotrippers (but not much)! British Columbia,...
What are you going to do this summer? Are there places in the world that you've thought of visiting but never made a plan? Maybe we can be of assistance in fulfilling your dreams! The geology and...
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Tales from the Semi-Super Bloom Tour, Part 5: Coming Home
"We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time.Through the unknown, remembered gateWhen the last of earth...
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The Eruption of Mt. St. Helens at 39 Years: Why It Still Matters
It is the 39th anniversary of the famed eruption of the St. Helens volcano and as I think of those days, I realize that even though a majority of the population wasn't even alive at the time, the...
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