Garden of the Gods: Mainly a Picture Show

(Still) Day 4 - Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado

After our morning of tempting gravity to pull our 2-ton vans down 5000' of Pike's Peak Granite, we venture on to western Colorado Springs to unwind with cold nalgenes and soft rock. Colorado BASIN soft rock (ohhh geology joke....) Anyways, we arrive at Garden of the Gods around 1PM, after eating lunch in the scalding visitor's center parking lot, and after visiting the welcoming center. (Beware: this is not the first time we'll stop by a visitor's center before actually visiting the attraction.)

The Garen of the Gods stop is a series of tremendous, near vertical or completely vertical tipping bedrock monoliths protruding upwards. Aside from one bright white limestone piece, many orange and deep pinkish-tan sandstone outcrops (with outrageous sedimentary structures) surround you as you enter the park. I believe the rocks are Paleozoic, but my rite-in-the-rain notebook is currently drying in the dining room right now. Anyways, on to more pitcures.

Les Hasbargen in Super-Geologist-Photo Mode

Vertical Bedrock=Drool
Sedimentary Structures worth Killing For
Something happened riiiiiight here...
Don't tell my geo-colleagues I took pictures of a dicot...I mean plant..
And this.

Pikes Peak (or) I'm Going to Die, Volume 1

Day 4
Pikes Peak, Colorado

So we got up pretty early to take a ride up to Pikes Peak. Thinking that it would be a typical up-mountain tredge in our beastly Chevy 3500 Vans, and obviously tainted by my assumption that this meager 14,000' peak would be just like negotiating Whiteface Mountain (4600') of the Adirondacks.

I was wrong.

The ride up was devastating. Switchbacks all the way up, for about 14 miles I believe, all with near-vertical cliffs at every hairpin turn. Not to mention, coming around every corner there seemed to be rock outcroppings just high enough to obscure the view from the vans. Also, it doesn't help when your driver is a rubber-necking geology professor more interested in the surrounding mountains than his own well-being.

Our first stop was at a visitor's center about 30% up the mountain by a nice body of water known as Crystal Creek Reservoir.














A little later we stopped once again, a stop which was probably induced by personal comfort issues (gasses expand at higher altitudes, including the ones inside you) at Glen Cove. From here you can see a heavily jointed rock face, as to be expected in this part of the country, but also, what seems suspiciously like a rock glacier...



















To see the magical rock glacier, look in between the trees in the center of the photograph. I have not found any published information on rock glaciers at Pikes Peak, but it's still kind of a new field. This looks quite a bit like those developed in the highlands of Maine which remain active in movement during the summer months when temperatures can fall below freezing.

Moving on. On to the Peak itself! From here you'll see a few typecast tourist-rockhound photos. But they're still rad, so check them out.















Looking out over Colorado Springs vicinity.














Some much tougher grasses than myself...














A hungry fox...














Rockhounding some Pike's Peak Granite














Scientists at play...



















...and water and rocks, at the same time...

Coming up next: Day 4 Part 2 - Garden of the Gods

Soil Nails

Pretty interesting story out of America's west coast here. The Colorado-based company, Landslide Solution Inc., has created this tremendous air compressor\nail gun to drive "nails" into unstable hillsides, effectively creating a block of soil on the hillslope, rather than building an unstable retaining wall or letting nature takes it course. Heads up to Dave's Landslide Blog for this one.

See the video.