Old Rocks

In the Southwest a few years ago. 'Love at first sight' is a principle that doesn't seem to apply to geologic layers, at least for me. It fails in both directions. When I saw red-rock Utah for the first time I drooled over it like anyone would. But once the brain has seen red rock and admitted it as a possibility, it ceases to be interesting. And yet I know RVers who make a big deal of it, long term. Red sandstone cliffs decompose into loose red sand which is impassable to a mountain bike.

Conversely I was none too crazy about granite at first. It was crumbly and ignoble. Eventually though, the eroded hoodoos and gargoyles win you over.

Soon you appreciate the sure-footedness that you have while scrambling over granite rocks, but it's the dry washes that are the most fun. They are filled with granite decomposed into coarse sand. Granite sand can be sharp-edged; under the shearing pressure of your shoe it locks up and makes for easy walking.

My little poodle becomes years younger as he scampers up and down these granite dry washes. Ironic isn't it, that his fountain of youth is a billion-year-old metamorphic rock? On a recent mountain bike ride the granite went all the way to the top of a ridge. What a great surface for running! At the top of the mountain pass he was quite smug in his achievement and guarded the bike while I took photos.

Where we are currently camped there is a gully and dry wash every quarter mile. Fluidity is written in the streamlines everywhere you look, even in the roads. It is fun to look for quartz veins running through the granite.