Class Outing after Six Weeks of Lecture

On March third Mary finished her six weeks of one-night-a-week learning about the local rock formations from a instructor about as old as some of the formations he was talking about. Near the end of the course, the instructor mentioned that he would be "taking a walk" on one of the local trails where a number of examples could be found of formations and rocks discussed. He could NOT have an official field trip, but those that he met on the trail were welcome to ask questions about things within their view.
So on March 5 at 10 AM about 25 individuals crossed his path for a show and tell.
The path was very well marked and the formations and soil types were very clearly visible to the now trained eye. Max joined the group just to take a few photos and ended up walking a lot more than he had bargained for.

First stop along the trail was this large rock, made up of a bunch of little rocks. It is an example of the conglomeration formation.

The good professor moved quickly around the formation explaining this and that and showing the layers of the different soils pressed together.

This gives a better prospective of what he was talking about. See how the little rocks are pressed together in the different soils. Harder rocks are held together by sand and soils.

The far peak is about 20 miles away and that is where these boulders were a bunch of years ago before being moved down stream to this current location. Yes river water accomplished this moving process.

This little house sized rock being pushed around is easy to imagine after seeing the recent news footage of Japan.

Time to move up hill, off the trail. As you can see, some of these folks really dig their rocks. Some even took sacks full home with them to study, polish, and share.

Little ants on the hill side. You will notice there are no close ups of Old & Gray up there. We are just watching for afar.

We were not sure what needed such close examination!

Mountain goats had nothing on this group of senior citizens when it came to going up, down, or sideways in their search for rocks.

This water is just 30 yards from the hill side and some of the damage from December floods is present. You can wade across now.

This formation is of Blue Clay. This clay is responsible for a lot of damage in the area because when it gets wet it expands to 4 times its size. The pressure as it expands buckles roads, foundations, and hill sides.

The Blue Clay shifts off into a fine power and blows around into cracks where it waits to grow out of its space.

Walking away from the hillside and looking back you can not see the people on the hill but the rock on the left hand side is where we started.

Moving into the river wash this little Road Runner stepped out of a bush where he was invisible. We walked along with him as he moved along. At times he just disappeared until he moved his head or tail feathers.

Taking a right hand turn onto a river side trail we moved along until the path looked like this.

Again you can see how little house size rocks can be washed downstream. St. George is waiting for the Feds to place money in hand for repairs like these.

This flow makes me want to put in the kayak, where the flow would take me back down the Virgin River about five miles to the little park a mile from our home.

This little falls is one of three I am scoping out if I can get J to put in with me at this site. Easy unload place, just off a city street. If we are going to do this, it will need to done before the snow melt gets too far along.

This is Mary at the trail head just off the city road in a sub-division. We turned around at this point and walked for about one hour to get back to the car. We were out about three hours. A little wind blown, sun burned, and realizing two water bottles need to be put in the backpack.