tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211670216140060946.post2135869024447697076..comments2024-03-17T18:37:36.377-07:00Comments on Geotripper: A Look Back at Ten Years of Geotripping: Where are the Most Incredible Places You've Ever Stood?Garry Hayeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00531226195147986457noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5211670216140060946.post-36668001531941576012018-01-13T18:55:17.161-08:002018-01-13T18:55:17.161-08:00I’m an ex-geo, as ex as one can be anyway. I still...I’m an ex-geo, as ex as one can be anyway. I still look at outcrops and road cuts, my wife still tells me to watch the road when driving, not the rocks, but I quit earning a living from precious metals exploration in 1986. But I have to say standing on billion+ year old lava in Canada and then fresh stuff melting your shoe rubber in Hawaii was quite a thrill. Fresh rock!<br /><br />When we visited years ago, the Park rangers prevented anybody from going past the lava-blocked end of the road. The simple solution was wait for the rangers to go off duty around 5PM then everybody made a break for the hot surface running lava. We looked for smoke, vegetation that was being engulfed by surface flows and lobes. I swiped a wooden mop handle from our Timeshare, wired it to my old Estwing rock hammer and dipped the hammer into the lava. I still have that lava cast. Took hours for it to cool enough to put in my backpack. My wife had nightmares for weeks of us falling thru the lava and apparently some tourists later that month did die when the lava shelf they were standing on collapsed.<br />T Butler UCSB Geology 75&78noreply@blogger.com