Inaugural Blog!

---

Night before the trip, just wanted to have a dry run for the blog! All the gear is packed from rock hammers and head lamps to tarps, tents (my tent of course goes nowhere without the luxury of a queen-sized air mattress) and thanks to every member of my family, 9 pairs of smart wool socks! Oh, where I'm headed, right. This trip is a geological excursion to the Eastern Sierras and will include a comprehensive survey of Death Valley National Park. I will try and update the blog as much as possible with what we're studying, what we've found, pictures, and would the blog be complete without general Dale Gump banter?

Our itinerary looks something like this:

Friday March 9, meeting the team at the gates of Columbia at 6AM and hopping a 930 Flight to Las Vegas! Funny how this will be my first ever trip to Vegas and I'm not even stopping to drink or gamble... now THAT is something else. From there we'll snag our prison-style 9 passenger vans and do some grocery shopping. If the food list is thematic with the vans, we'll hopefully pick up some spam, corned beef hash and two week old buns. Keystone Thrust and Resting Spring Pass are the only landmarks on the table for Friday. After a few farmer-early rises and travel out west, it's probably all for the best!



Day 1, Saturday March 10, Death Valley 1; drive from Cynthias in Tecopa to Olancha RV park (with stops at Dantes View, Mosaic Canyon, Sand Dunes along the way)



Day 2, Sunday March 11, Coso Volcanic Field (red cone, fossil falls, red rock canyon state park?, next day Fish Springs fault)



Day 3, Monday March 12, Structures of the volcanic tablelands Bishop tuff; drive from Olancha RV park to SNARL (with stops at Fish Springs fault, volcanic tablelands, petroglyphs? Owens River Gorge) shop for groceries in Mammoth Lakes.



Day 4, Tuesday March 13, Mono Basin Paleoclimate and Environement.



Day 5, Wednesday March 14, 9 a.m. Mammoth Pacific Geothermal plant tour; Panum Crater; Black Point.



Day 6, Thursday March 15, Owens Lake/Valley; drive from SNARL to Olancha RV park (with stops…).



Day 7, Friday March 16, Death Valley 2; drive from Olancha RV park to Cynthia’s in Tecopa (with stops at Darwin Falls, Artists Drive, Natural Bridge, Badwater Basin).



Saturday March 17, return to Las Vegas, return vehicles, return to NYC!

---