Great Basin National Park

While driving back from the Northern California Geology Field Trip Class, I finally made it to a place I have long sought to visit. Great Basin National Park is on the eastern edge of Nevada and quite out of the way from any major or even small city. The tiny hamlet of Baker, NV sits at the base of the park, but there is not much else even close by. Ely, NV is an hour west and Delta, UT is a few hours east. The siren call of this remote wilderness is the unique biological wonder of bristlecone pines on Mt. Wheeler. I have visited the other major stand of bristlecones in the White Mountains east of the Sierra Nevadas in Cali and discussed those in an earlier post on here because they are the coolest trees ever. I'm not a big plant person, preferring rocks to most vegetation, but bristlecones are the oldest known living individual organisms (as opposed to colonies or clones) in the world. And these trees live in some of the most inhospitable environments in the world, growing at and above treeline in remote great basin locales. The Methuselah Tree is over 4,400 years old; it's location kept secret by park officials to prevent defacement. To read more click the title of this post to go to the park website. Enjoy the pics, all of which are copyrighted A. Keller 2011.

NorCal Geology

This summer I had the wonderful opportunity to take a geology field trip class to Northern California to visit the Modoc Plateau and Lassen Volcanic National Park. These are areas I had never visited before and the chance to see them for such a cheap price was more than enough incentive to go. I met up with the class at Devil's Post Pile and left my car in Mammoth to continue in the vans with the class. The following day we drove to Lava Beds National Monument. Lava Beds has the largest collection of lava tubes in North America so spelunking was the name of the game. Bats live in some of the caves, one cave even has ice in it year round. The area was also home to the Modoc Indians before they were sent to the Klamath Reservation. A small band came back and fought a gorilla war against US troops. Led by Captain Jack, they hid out amongst the lava outcroppings and kept the soldiers at bay for 6 months before half the group rebelled and turned in Capt Jack. Just east of the monument is the remnants of the Tule Lake Segregation Camp where thousands of Japanese Americans were illegally held during WW II. We toured the camp "jail" and saw some of the scribbled notes on the walls left by occupants.