poor accounting / today's geology lesson
"To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness, they would have performed something. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?"
That's a quote from Thoreau's Walden, my favorite passage, even though I usually fall far short of Thoreau's definition of "awake." Certainly I made a poor accounting of my recent trip with Dad to Lander. But here are a few pictures of the trip, proof that I was paying some attention to the trek.
This first picture was taken on the way back down from the Popo Agie (apparently it's pronounced po po zhuh) Falls, after we'd hiked up beneath a mostly ominous sky and gotten rained on a bit. This was our second attempt to hike the trail: the day before, we'd gotten to the trailhead just as it started to snow and decided to turn back around, managing to get back to Lander with just a bit of ice frosting up the windshields of the motor-scooters and cold fingers but at least the roads weren't slick. The trail to the falls is about a mile and a half long, and worth the walk.
And this second picture is of the Popo Agie (po po zhuh, remember) River, coming down into "the sinks." According to the brochure published by Sinks Canyon State Park,
"Halfway down the canyon, the river abruptly turns into a large limestone cavern, and the crashing water “sinks” into fissures and cracks at the back of the cave. The river is underground for 1/4 mile until it emerges down the canyon in a large calm pool called “The Rise.” It then continues its course into the valley below. ... For many years, it was unproven that the water flowing into the Sinks was the same water flowing out at the Rise. Dye tests have proven it is the same water but have revealed other mysteries: it takes the water flowing into the Sinks over two hours to reappear at the Rise. Geologists speculate that while underground the water circulates up and down and through many narrow, winding passages and pools until it resurfaces. It was also discovered that more water flows out at the Rise than goes in at the Sinks."
Pretty fuckin' cool, huh? Yeah, I thought so too.
After the hike and the stop at the visitor center we headed off to Thermopolis, where we took a soak in the hot springs ("largest mineral springs in the world," they claim). According to wyomingtourism.com, Hot Springs State Park is the busiest of the state parks, with over 1 million visitors annually, and
"all of the pools in the park get their water from the same source: rain falling on the nearby Owl Creek Mountains enters porous rock layers and moves slowly downward, picking up heat and minerals from the rock as it goes. Hot gases eventually force the water up through crevices and into the Big Spring in the state park. Daily, 3.6 million gallons of this mineral-rich (sodium, zinc, titanium, magnesium, bicarbonate, among others), 127-degree water ... flows through the Big Spring."
And then, after a night at the Rainbow Hotel in Thermopolis, dad and I headed over the Big Horns back to Newcastle. The Big Horns, I learned on the googles, are home to both the Big Horn Mountain Festival and the Big Horn Trail Run. We saw some deer but no moose, and we managed to get over the hill without getting snowed on, though there's obviously been new snow in the high country lately.
All in all, not a bad trip, despite the looming threat of rain.
One last thing: I can recommend Cooking Crow, in Lander. There, I had scrambled eggs with chard for breakfast, and it was good.
That's a quote from Thoreau's Walden, my favorite passage, even though I usually fall far short of Thoreau's definition of "awake." Certainly I made a poor accounting of my recent trip with Dad to Lander. But here are a few pictures of the trip, proof that I was paying some attention to the trek.
This first picture was taken on the way back down from the Popo Agie (apparently it's pronounced po po zhuh) Falls, after we'd hiked up beneath a mostly ominous sky and gotten rained on a bit. This was our second attempt to hike the trail: the day before, we'd gotten to the trailhead just as it started to snow and decided to turn back around, managing to get back to Lander with just a bit of ice frosting up the windshields of the motor-scooters and cold fingers but at least the roads weren't slick. The trail to the falls is about a mile and a half long, and worth the walk.
And this second picture is of the Popo Agie (po po zhuh, remember) River, coming down into "the sinks." According to the brochure published by Sinks Canyon State Park,"Halfway down the canyon, the river abruptly turns into a large limestone cavern, and the crashing water “sinks” into fissures and cracks at the back of the cave. The river is underground for 1/4 mile until it emerges down the canyon in a large calm pool called “The Rise.” It then continues its course into the valley below. ... For many years, it was unproven that the water flowing into the Sinks was the same water flowing out at the Rise. Dye tests have proven it is the same water but have revealed other mysteries: it takes the water flowing into the Sinks over two hours to reappear at the Rise. Geologists speculate that while underground the water circulates up and down and through many narrow, winding passages and pools until it resurfaces. It was also discovered that more water flows out at the Rise than goes in at the Sinks."
Pretty fuckin' cool, huh? Yeah, I thought so too.
After the hike and the stop at the visitor center we headed off to Thermopolis, where we took a soak in the hot springs ("largest mineral springs in the world," they claim). According to wyomingtourism.com, Hot Springs State Park is the busiest of the state parks, with over 1 million visitors annually, and
"all of the pools in the park get their water from the same source: rain falling on the nearby Owl Creek Mountains enters porous rock layers and moves slowly downward, picking up heat and minerals from the rock as it goes. Hot gases eventually force the water up through crevices and into the Big Spring in the state park. Daily, 3.6 million gallons of this mineral-rich (sodium, zinc, titanium, magnesium, bicarbonate, among others), 127-degree water ... flows through the Big Spring."
And then, after a night at the Rainbow Hotel in Thermopolis, dad and I headed over the Big Horns back to Newcastle. The Big Horns, I learned on the googles, are home to both the Big Horn Mountain Festival and the Big Horn Trail Run. We saw some deer but no moose, and we managed to get over the hill without getting snowed on, though there's obviously been new snow in the high country lately.
All in all, not a bad trip, despite the looming threat of rain.
One last thing: I can recommend Cooking Crow, in Lander. There, I had scrambled eggs with chard for breakfast, and it was good.
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