A Look Back at Ten Years of Geotripping: You can tell the world is an incredible place when these are the runners up...

This month I've been searching the archives for my favorite posts after ten years of geoblogging. The last two posts involved the ten most incredible places I've ever stood. What's striking is that as wonderful as these places are, I was quickly able to come up with ten (eleven, actually) more sites that weren't any less spectacular. So I posted this on May 19, 2014 as a follow-up to the list of the "best 10 places"...

I've noticed that nearly every movie reviewer puts a list of the runners up at the end of their list of the top ten movies of the year. In that spirit, I'm putting up a set of pictures from the places that almost made my top ten list of the most incredible places I've ever stood. As before, there is no particular order to these personal choices. It's a bit like asking which of your children you love the most...

 Number 20: Horseshoe Bend, Arizona

A few miles downstream of Glen Canyon Dam is a huge entrenched meander along the Colorado River. The deep blue color of the river isn't right; the silt has settled in Lake Powell, but it makes for a memorable color contrast. Learn more about Horseshoe Bend here.

Number 19: Antelope Canyon, Arizona

There are hundreds of spectacular slot canyons scattered across Utah and Arizona, and you don't have to pay to get into them, and the noontime tours can be extremely crowded, as in shoulder to shoulder, but there can be no denying that the long beams of sunlight reaching into the darkness of the labyrinth is a spectacular and unique sight. For more views, check out this link.

Number 18: Observation Point, Zion National Park, Utah

The Angel's Landing Trail in Zion is one of the most spectacular hikes in North America, but I can never forget my adventure of climbing to Observation Point on the other side of the valley and looking hundreds of feet down onto Angel's Landing (the Landing is the peak on the lower right). For more information about Zion, check out this link.

Number 17: Inspiration Point, Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Bryce Canyon is one of the most intricately eroded landscapes in the world, and the spires, called hoodoos, look otherworldly. Almost as incredible is to walk among the hoodoos below the rim, so here is a shot of the fir trees growing in the impossible environment of Wall Street Canyon at Bryce.

For more information about Bryce Canyon National Park, click here.

Number 16: Captain Jack's Stronghold, Lava Beds National Monument, California

The northern flanks of Medicine Lake Highland are coated in barren flows of basalt from the gigantic shield volcano. Within the flows are miles and miles of lava tubes, long caves left behind as the lava drained out. This was the setting for the Modoc Indian War of 1872-73, yet another tragic story of destroying the culture and lives of a people, in this case so settlers could have more land to graze cows and grow potatoes. It's a haunting place to stand. For more information, click here.

Number 15: The Big Sur Coast, California

A mountain range rises directly from the sea. That's about the only way to describe the incredible Big Sur Coast of Central California. This is a view of McWay Falls at Julia Pfeiffer-Burns State Park. For more details, check out this post.

Number 14: Muir Woods National Monument, California

I read somewhere that Muir Woods is the most heavily visited national monument in the United States, and I understand why. It's one of the few old growth Redwood Forests left anywhere close to the Bay Area, and it is a wondrous place to wander about. The Redwoods are ancient trees, both in individual age (thousands of years), and in ancestry (back to the age of the dinosaurs). More information about this incredible place can be found here.

Number 13: Pinnacles National Park, California

Around 23 million years ago, a volcanic center of five rhyolitic cones erupted on top of the San Andreas fault. The fault split the volcano, and the two halves are separated by 195 miles. At Pinnacles National Monument, the jointed blocks of lava and lahars have been eroded into towers and spires. The High Peaks Trail is one of my favorite hikes in North America. For more information, check out this link.

Number 12: Owens Valley and the Eastern Sierra Nevada

The most incredible wall of rock that I know is the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada, a two-mile high barrier to storms and human travel. No highways cross a stretch of something close to 200 miles of mountain peaks. The Owens Valley is a deep fault trough that once was going to be one of the most important agricultural regions of California, but because of water diversions by Los Angeles, is now a sagebrush desert. Each canyon hides treasures, and I spent much of my youth exploring as many of them as possible.

Number 11: The Great Western Divide, Sequoia National Park, California

My own personal terra incognita, the Great Western Divide is a high sub-range in the middle of Sequoia National Park across the Kern River from the main Sierra Crest. It's one of the last major parts of California that I haven't set foot on, but I've looked in from the summit of Moro Rock. There are lots of places left to explore in my life...

And another Number 11 (because it's my blog and I make the rules): Mono Lake, California

Mono Lake probably belongs on another planet. It's one of the strangest sights in a state filled with strange sights, a lake that is three times as salty as seawater, with a simple ecosystem of basically algae, brine shrimp and brine flies, but the simple combination is a food source for millions upon millions of migratory birds. The edge of the lake is lined with strange tufa towers that formed along freshwater springs.

And that's my highly personal list of the second ten most incredible places I've stood, and it was just as hard to pick out as the first ten! I'd love to hear about more of your favorite places. Put them in the comments, or send me a story that I can post as a guest entry in Geotripper!

Where are the Ten Most Incredible Places You've Ever Stood? The Runners Up

I've noticed that nearly every movie reviewer puts a list of the runners up at the end of their list of the top ten movies of the year. In that spirit, I'm putting up a set of pictures from the places that almost made my top ten list of the most incredible places I've ever stood. As before, there is no particular order to these personal choices. It's a bit like asking which of your children you love the most...

 Number 20: Horseshoe Bend, Arizona

A few miles downstream of Glen Canyon Dam is a huge entrenched meander along the Colorado River. The deep blue color of the river isn't right; the silt has settled in Lake Powell, but it makes for a memorable color contrast. Learn more about Horseshoe Bend here.

Number 19: Antelope Canyon, Arizona

There are hundreds of spectacular slot canyons scattered across Utah and Arizona, and you don't have to pay to get into them, and the noontime tours can be extremely crowded, as in shoulder to shoulder, but there can be no denying that the long beams of sunlight reaching into the darkness of the labyrinth is a spectacular and unique sight. For more views, check out this link.

Number 18: Observation Point, Zion National Park, Utah

The Angel's Landing Trail in Zion is one of the most spectacular hikes in North America, but I can never forget my adventure of climbing to Observation Point on the other side of the valley and looking hundreds of feet down onto Angel's Landing (the Landing is the peak on the lower right). For more information about Zion, check out this link.

Number 17: Inspiration Point, Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Bryce Canyon is one of the most intricately eroded landscapes in the world, and the spires, called hoodoos, look otherworldly. Almost as incredible is to walk among the hoodoos below the rim, so here is a shot of the fir trees growing in the impossible environment of Wall Street Canyon at Bryce.

For more information about Bryce Canyon National Park, click here.

Number 16: Captain Jack's Stronghold, Lava Beds National Monument, California

The northern flanks of Medicine Lake Highland are coated in barren flows of basalt from the gigantic shield volcano. Within the flows are miles and miles of lava tubes, long caves left behind as the lava drained out. This was the setting for the Modoc Indian War of 1872-73, yet another tragic story of destroying the culture and lives of a people, in this case so settlers could have more land to graze cows and grow potatoes. It's a haunting place to stand. For more information, click here.

Number 15: The Big Sur Coast, California

A mountain range rises directly from the sea. That's about the only way to describe the incredible Big Sur Coast of Central California. This is a view of McWay Falls at Julia Pfeiffer-Burns State Park. For more details, check out this post.

Number 14: Muir Woods National Monument, California

I read somewhere that Muir Woods is the most heavily visited national monument in the United States, and I understand why. It's one of the few old growth Redwood Forests left anywhere close to the Bay Area, and it is a wondrous place to wander about. The Redwoods are ancient trees, both in individual age (thousands of years), and in ancestry (back to the age of the dinosaurs). More information about this incredible place can be found here.

Number 13: Pinnacles National Park, California

Around 23 million years ago, a volcanic center of five rhyolitic cones erupted on top of the San Andreas fault. The fault split the volcano, and the two halves are separated by 195 miles. At Pinnacles National Monument, the jointed blocks of lava and lahars have been eroded into towers and spires. The High Peaks Trail is one of my favorite hikes in North America. For more information, check out this link.

Number 12: Owens Valley and the Eastern Sierra Nevada

The most incredible wall of rock that I know is the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada, a two-mile high barrier to storms and human travel. No highways cross a stretch of something close to 200 miles of mountain peaks. The Owens Valley is a deep fault trough that once was going to be one of the most important agricultural regions of California, but because of water diversions by Los Angeles, is now a sagebrush desert. Each canyon hides treasures, and I spent much of my youth exploring as many of them as possible.

Number 11: The Great Western Divide, Sequoia National Park, California

My own personal terra incognita, the Great Western Divide is a high sub-range in the middle of Sequoia National Park across the Kern River from the main Sierra Crest. It's one of the last major parts of California that I haven't set foot on, but I've looked in from the summit of Moro Rock. There are lots of places left to explore in my life...

And another Number 11 (because it's my blog and I make the rules): Mono Lake, California

Mono Lake probably belongs on another planet. It's one of the strangest sights in a state filled with strange sights, a lake that is three times as salty as seawater, with a simple ecosystem of basically algae, brine shrimp and brine flies, but the simple combination is a food source for millions upon millions of migratory birds. The edge of the lake is lined with strange tufa towers that formed along freshwater springs.

And that's my highly personal list of the second ten most incredible places I've stood, and it was just as hard to pick out as the first ten! I'd love to hear about more of your favorite places. Put them in the comments, or send me a story that I can post as a guest entry in Geotripper!

Where the Sierra Nevada Rises From the Sea: A Compilation of Posts

The Sierra Nevada of California is one of the great mountain ranges of the world. The soaring granite peaks, the deep glacial valleys, and the towering Sequoia trees represent some of the most beautiful sights to be seen anywhere on the planet. What is less known is that a portion of the Sierra Nevada is present elsewhere in the state. Around 30 million years ago the San Andreas fault system became active and sliced off a portion of the southern Sierra Nevada batholith and carried it northwest for several hundred miles. It now makes up a considerable portion of the Central California coastline, stretching from Big Sur on the south to Bodega Bay on the north. It is in my humble opinion one of the most beautiful and dynamic coastlines to be found anywhere on planet Earth.

I recently finished my latest blog series, and I present here a compilation of the fifteen entries in the series. If you missed any, here is the place to find them!

  Seeking Geology Along the Most Beautiful Coast in the World

A sneak peak at the coming series. At this point I hadn't fully appreciated that I was going to be covering the entire Salinian Terrane, so I didn't mention the Sierra Nevada connection in the first post.

Where the Sierra Nevada Rises From the Sea: The Big Sur Coast

With the second post I hit upon the idea of the Sierra Nevada connection with my exploration of Limekiln State Park in the southern part of the Big Sur coast. It is a stunningly rugged stretch of coastal cliffs, and amazingly, the state of California almost shut down this beautiful place.

Geologic Change along the Big Sur Coastline: Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

I punted on this one. I wrote this blog four months earlier about what may be the prettiest cove along the prettiest coast in the world. But the post fit well with the theme and scope of this series, so here it is: one of California's two tidal falls. And gigantic landslides.

Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park

A short distance inland from the coast we discover a gem of a state park, Pfeiffer Big Sur. The Sierra Nevada has the Sequoia trees, Big Sur has Coast Redwoods. And both the Sierra Nevada and Big Sur have huge wilderness areas. The wildlands around Big Sur are far less crowded.

Not the Easiest Beach to Find

Big Sur has some nice beaches, and not all of them are on the main highway. You have to be a bit of a sleuth to find Pfeiffer Beach, but it's worth the effort. And...garnet sand beaches!

The Granitic Rocks of Garrapata State Park

One of the lesser known beach parks of the central California coast, Garrapata is a beautiful place that belies its horrendous name ("tick" beach). It has some of the nicest exposures of "Sierran" granite in the region.

Sea Wolves and Underwater Yosemites

Point Lobos was named for the seals and sea lions, not for terrestrial canines. It is another gem along the coast with unique exposures of conglomerates that accumulated in deep underwater canyons that rival Yosemite in their depths.

A Quick Explore of the Monterey Peninsula

We finish our journey through Point Lobos and move north onto the Monterey Peninsular. Here it is trees that take up some of the geologic story. Monterey Pines grow naturally only in a few places, mainly on the Peninsula, but have become one of the most widely planted trees in the world. The Monterey Cypress is another unique species in the region.

Half Moon Bay

We take a look at coastline of totally different character as we reach the Half Moon Bay region. There are prominent marine terraces that make for gentle scenery (and apparently great golf courses). There are some nice tidepools in the area, and during the right time of year, the Mavericks hit, the gigantic waves that bring surfers from around the world.

Little Boxes on the Hillside, Little Boxes Made of Ticky-Tacky: The Mess at Mussel Rock

The San Andreas fault looms large in the history of the Central California coastline, but hasn't made an appearance on our journey until now. At Mussel Rock in Daly City, the fault trace moves offshore. The epicenter of the 1906 San Francisco may have been close by. And there is a famous folk song about the cookie-cutter houses on the high, unstable slopes...

Some Call it the Golden Gate...

Maybe you haven't heard that there is a big bridge that connects the city of San Francisco with the Marin Headlands and the rest of Northern California. It's not likely, but it's possible. There is some interesting geology going on underneath the bridge abutments.

On the Most Inaccessible Mountain Range on the Planet: The Marin Headlands

The Marin Headlands expose rocks that were once part of the midocean ridge, the vast planet encircling mountain range that no mountain climber can ever hope to climb. The scenery on the Marin is majestic. And to invaders in World War II, the cliffs would have been deadly.

Point Reyes National Seashore

The Point Reyes Peninsula has wide sandy beaches, sand spits, a bay that may have been a landing for Sir Francis Drake, Tule Elk, and a lighthouse that has to put up with some really rotten weather.

Tomales Bay and Bolinas Lagoon

If the Point Reyes Peninsular bears the brunt of violent Pacific Storms, the mountains of the peninsula shelter the lands to the east. Two bays along the San Andreas fault are peaceful and serene, which belies their violent origin.

Birds and a Hole in the Head at Bodega

We wrap up our exploration of the Sierra that rises from the sea with a look at Bodega Head, the site of a classic horror movie, and a horror story with a nuclear reactor as the main character. A reactor that was almost built on top of the San Andreas fault. It's also the northernmost exposure of the Salinian/Sierra Nevada rocks.

Where the Sierra Nevada Rises from the Sea: Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park

Where the Sierra Nevada rises from the sea...in our last post, we found out how the Santa Lucia Range of the Big Sur Coast can be thought of as a part of the Sierra Nevada, being made of granitic and metamorphic rocks that were sliced off the south end of the Sierra and carried north by motion along the San Andreas fault. It's usually only missing the "snowy" part of the "Snowy Sawtooth Range (it always sounds better in Spanish), but in my readings, I found out that the north end of the range was actually called the Sierra Nevada early on.

We are continuing our random and arbitrary exploration of the most beautiful coastline in the world. We started our journey at Limekiln State Park, and Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park would have been the next park to explore, but I gave it a detailed treatment here in Geotripper only four months ago. It may have the most scenic cove of all, given the presence of beautiful McWay Falls right on the beach.What we are doing instead is heading north up Highway 1 a few more miles, and a bit inland, to check out Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.

Truth be told, Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park can hardly be called a hidden treasure. It is visited by half a million people a year. It has a nice campground complex tucked beneath the redwood trees, and a small inn and restaurant. The park is traversed by the Big Sur River which despite a long dry season runs all year.

Ridge trails provide airy views of the rugged mountains, while others might prefer to explore up the riverbed narrows.

The coast redwoods in the park are stunning. Ronald Reagan, in his early political years as a candidate for governor was once quoted as saying "if you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all". He didn't actually say that, but he did say something essentially as bad: "I think, too, that we've got to recognize that where the preservation of a natural resource like the redwoods is concerned, that there is a common sense limit. I mean, if you've looked at a hundred thousand acres or so of trees - you know, a tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?"

As Snopes points out, the statement was in the context of a pitched battle to save the remaining old-growth forests of Coast Redwoods in the northwestern corner of California (which culminated in the establishment of Redwoods National Park in 1968). And it is a fair question to ask, if the only point of preserving the tree is to have a forest that people and go and visit like a museum while we cut down the rest. The thing is, we did cut down the rest. In a century, we cut down 95% of the original redwood trees that existed when Europeans first discovered California. Is that a common-sense limit?

As it is, there is a string of pearls, the national and state parks that stretch along the California coast from Big Sur north to the Oregon border, but there is no longer an intact Coast Redwood ecosystem. The species of animals and plants are now trapped in isolated islands, and many are under severe pressure from lack of suitable habitat and suburban sprawl.

Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park is one of those islands. It is so far south, into the drier central California climate, that it was a biological island even before humans arrived. The trees can only survive in the sheltered canyons, in the microclimates that are cool enough and wet enough to allow the survival of the biome. With global warming, the survival of the trees here is even more tenuous as the years go forward. A vast wildfire (the 160,000 acre Basin Complex Fire) burned through the region in 2008, and it is not clear if the vegetation growing back will be like that which existed before.

In the meantime, the forest at Big Sur is a treasure, and an environment that evokes serenity. When I visited a few months back, I took the short hike up Pfeiffer Creek to little Pfeiffer Falls.

Granted, there weren't a whole lot of rocks to look at, but the views across the canyon were nice, giving a good perspective of the terrain (one can say it's also a good view of a terrane, but that's a geological in-joke). The ridge across the canyon is made of Franciscan rocks, and a major fault related to the San Gregorio fault system runs through the canyon below. Granitic and metamorphic rocks dominate the foreground ridge.

The falls are modest, more a pleasant turnaround point along a scenic hike than a destination. But the hike was delightful.

In late July, the setting sun shone directly through the canyon, providing light for far longer than I expected. While the rest of the state was sweltering, we were enjoying the natural air-conditioning provided by the nearby shoreline, and the night-time temperatures were mild as well. It was great base camp for our exploration of the Big Sur. But be sure to get your reservations early! They go fast.

Next, we head out to a Big Sur beach that isn't so easy to find (and I'm not going to make it any easier!).