Glenwood Canyon, Colorado

I have to apologize for my depressing post yesterday. I reread it this morning and thought maybe I was a little too dramatic. Feeling better today.

Today I am in the beautiful town of Glenwood Springs, CO. Glenwood Springs started out as a rough frontier town in the late 1800's. It has developed into a civilized resort town with a dominantly tourism based economy. Sitting at the confluence of the Roaring Fork and Colorado Rivers and set into deep valleys cut by the rivers the area abounds with recreational activities. Today I saw rafters on the Colorado River, bikers and loads of hikers.

I'm camped at a place called Ami's Acres, a delightful campground perched on a hillside just west of town. There are worse places to be stuck waiting for parts. Here's a photo of my campsite.

Here is a photograph of the Mexican styled palapa I hung out in to write this post. If only I had a margarita! The material for the structure were all locally sourced cedar trees that burned in the "Coal Seam Fire" of 2002. Apparently a local coal mine fire, which had been burning for over a century underground, came to surface and ignited a brush fire. It eventually jumped the I-70 and burned the hillside on the property of the campground. Unfortunately it also burned a number of residences and commercial buildings in West Glenwood Springs although there were no fatalities.

Interestingly I'm camped on the southern flank of Storm King Mountain which was the site of the South Canyon Disaster of 1994. 14 Firefighters perished when they were trapped upslope of the fire following a change in wind strength and direction. This disaster illustrates a major issue with interface fires (those which burn from unpopulated to populated areas) as the fire would never have been attacked had it not threatened properties in West Glenwood Springs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Canyon_Fire

Geologically the area is quite interesting. Sitting on the edge of the Colorado Plateau, a physiographic region that encompasses a large part of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, the area underwent  significant regional uplift in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Coincident with uplift, incision of rivers has led to the formation of numerous canyons, most famous of which is the Grand Canyon.


Just to the East of Glenwood Springs is the Glenwood Canyon. An impressive feature, the canyon contains within it the Colorado River, a train line and the I-70. The interstate was completed in 1992 and is a two-tier highway perched on the steep hillslopes above the Colorado River. When it was completed it was the most expensive rural interstate per mile in the US.

Within the canyon is the Hanging Lake Rest Area where I acquired my samples. The area is a very popular day hike with probably hundreds of visitors per day. Consquently the regional ranger didn't want me sampling rocks along the trail and required I be accompanied by an individual from the Forest Service. So this morning Olivia Garcia, an environmental engineer who usually handles mine site reclamations, and I went for a hike to find the rocks. Here we are near the trailhead post-sampling.

The sample location was up a side canyon, not along the main trail up to Hanging Lake. Here's a view from the sample location back down toward the river.

The top of the photograph is Cambrian Sawatch Sandstone. Through the middle of the photograph you can seen the unconformity separating the Sawatch from the underlying Leadville Formation migmatitic gneisses.

The unconformity at the sample location was spectacularly well exposed, beating even the Cody, WY exposure. You pick the unconformity!

I sampled higher up (27m above unconformity), just above the unconformity, just below the unconformity and one sample of the brown micaceous paleosol on the left. All told I had to haul down ~100 lbs (Imperial and loving it) of rock the mile back to the car.

Here is a close up shot of the quartz pebble lag on the underside of the first sandstone bed. The section is not as conglomeratic as at Rawlins but very similar overall.

I've ordered the parts I need to fix Grover from Rovers North and had them shipped overnight to Glenwood Springs. UPS claims that will be tomorrow by end of day. Here's hoping they hold to that. If so I'll get Grover fixed up and hopefully head to Colorado Springs early on Sunday morning.

I'm going into town this afternoon to get food, drinks and generally look around. Perhaps I'll post some photos of the town this evening.