Training Log Archive: bleggIn the 7 days ending Oct 17, 2009:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| « | » |
| » now | ||||||||||
|
|
|
|
| |||||||||
| Su | Mo | Tu | We | Th | Fr | Sa | |||||||
Saturday Oct 17, 2009 #
Climbing 45:00 [3]
On the spur of the moment, I joined some MSE folks for a trip to Sonora, to go rock climbing around table mountain. It was quite a fun trip.
In the spirit of geology, I have researched the history of Table Mountain. Apparently, it is a snakelike plateau almost 50 miles long that overlooks New Melones reservoir. It is said to be about 9 million years old. It gets it snakelike shape because the basalt flow proceeded down the Stanislaus river valley. Since then, the surrounding rocks have erroded away, but the lava flow remains. The ancient river gravels are still preserved beneath the mountain, and miners from 150 years ago have drilled shafts into the mountain, hoping to find these gravels and their deposits of placer gold.
Large piles of rubble lie at the foot of the cliff, where the lava flow has been undercut and the mountain has slowly tumbled into the river valley. Sometimes huge chunks over a 100 meters across have been cleaved off the cliff face, which has created one popular climbing spot called the Grotto.
The rock looks similar to columnar basalt, having roughly 1 meter hexaganal columns going up the cliff face. At the bottom, these columns are very clean. They get more disordered and blocky at the top; which is said to be a result of rapid cooling by water and ice.
The rock is technically not a basalt, but called a "latite." Which apparently means it is a basalt with extra potassium. The potassium is somewhat interesting to geologists because it provides clues about the volcanic history of the Sierras. My meager mineralogy skills didn't allow me to say anything brilliant about the rock when I was there, but I did pick out some large, roughly rectangular white patches on the rock surface. These apparently were large plagioclase feldspar crystals - a very important mineral. Next time I go I will have to peal off a few flakes to look at under the microscope. Plagioclase shows very beautiful twinning patterns under a cross polarized microscope.
In the spirit of geology, I have researched the history of Table Mountain. Apparently, it is a snakelike plateau almost 50 miles long that overlooks New Melones reservoir. It is said to be about 9 million years old. It gets it snakelike shape because the basalt flow proceeded down the Stanislaus river valley. Since then, the surrounding rocks have erroded away, but the lava flow remains. The ancient river gravels are still preserved beneath the mountain, and miners from 150 years ago have drilled shafts into the mountain, hoping to find these gravels and their deposits of placer gold.
Large piles of rubble lie at the foot of the cliff, where the lava flow has been undercut and the mountain has slowly tumbled into the river valley. Sometimes huge chunks over a 100 meters across have been cleaved off the cliff face, which has created one popular climbing spot called the Grotto.
The rock looks similar to columnar basalt, having roughly 1 meter hexaganal columns going up the cliff face. At the bottom, these columns are very clean. They get more disordered and blocky at the top; which is said to be a result of rapid cooling by water and ice.
The rock is technically not a basalt, but called a "latite." Which apparently means it is a basalt with extra potassium. The potassium is somewhat interesting to geologists because it provides clues about the volcanic history of the Sierras. My meager mineralogy skills didn't allow me to say anything brilliant about the rock when I was there, but I did pick out some large, roughly rectangular white patches on the rock surface. These apparently were large plagioclase feldspar crystals - a very important mineral. Next time I go I will have to peal off a few flakes to look at under the microscope. Plagioclase shows very beautiful twinning patterns under a cross polarized microscope.
Friday Oct 16, 2009 #
Climbing 45:00 [3]
Was going to do the TAC class, but it was moved inside for a soccer match. Instead I went to IW for some climbing, where I met Derrick and the other MSE folks, and got invited along on a climbing trip for Saturday.
Thursday Oct 15, 2009 #
Climbing 1:00:00 [3]
Some pretty tough bouldering at IW.
Monday Oct 12, 2009 #
TAC 1:00:00 [3]
Good session, quite fun. Cloudy with a touch of sprinkles. I'm waiting for the big storm to come in. I needed this. I've been feeling in a funk after last week's lack of activity. This class has been good a leaving me feeling energized. Once again, I had no trouble with the track running repeats, but ab work is still killer!
Sunday Oct 11, 2009 #
Event: Hudson Highlander
Orienteering 1:11:00 [3] 7.5 km (9:28 / km) +275m 8:00 / km
shoes: Kainuu Integrators
Briones Park. A pretty fun course, although the route choices were a little to consistant in favoring the "out and around" approach. Control #4 was misplaced. A shame in an otherwise nice course. It was in a beautiful part of the terrain though.
Jonas started 4 minutes behind me and caught up at the misplaced control. He gave me a minute to get ahead again though. He caught up with me again a few controls later, and slowly pulled about 30 seconds ahead by control 12 On the way to #13, we both took a stupid route choice. Jonas decided to fully backtrack, while I pushed through the green marsh - saving a minute. Jonas caught me again a few controls later, and slowly pulled ahead -finish a couple minutes before me. It was humbling to see him run away across a meadow and not be able to keep up, but my leg was quite sore.
Kainuu Integrators are now dead. But they are all I have until I buy some new ones.
Jonas started 4 minutes behind me and caught up at the misplaced control. He gave me a minute to get ahead again though. He caught up with me again a few controls later, and slowly pulled about 30 seconds ahead by control 12 On the way to #13, we both took a stupid route choice. Jonas decided to fully backtrack, while I pushed through the green marsh - saving a minute. Jonas caught me again a few controls later, and slowly pulled ahead -finish a couple minutes before me. It was humbling to see him run away across a meadow and not be able to keep up, but my leg was quite sore.
Kainuu Integrators are now dead. But they are all I have until I buy some new ones.