Recent content by Foy

The first full week of August was seriously chilly while we were in Rock Creek, just east of Missoula. Wet, also. We had morning temp in the 30s on/about 5th or 6th, and probably an inch of rain over a couple of days, too. Where we were, the canyon is only 4,300' elevation, too, so it was cold...

I'm grateful for the additional support. I've spent a considerable sum in dollars and hours on maintenance and prep so i think if I can keep a light foot on the skinny pedal I'll be OK. Hotter than the hinges of Hell now (late afternoon) loading up and hitching up. I've got to survive this...

You're so very kind. We've got reservations all made and the truck has had every fluid changed, right down to a brake fluid flush. Weather doesn't look terribly hot on our route over the next several days, so maybe the old war horse will rattle across the country at 1,700 rpms without fault...

Jerry, If the Good Lord is willin', creeks don't rise, and our 23 year old F350 diesel with 300,000 miles cooperates for her 7th trip from NC to the Northern Rockies, our ETA in White Sulphur Springs is late afternoon 7/22. We'll enter the cowpasture grounds of the Red Ants Pants Music Festival...

Thanks for the preview. We'll be passing through the Shields Valley enroute to White Sulphur Springs soon.

Colt Killed Creek was in fact named by Lewis & Clark after they had to sacrifice one of their pack horses there on the outbound leg in September 1805. They'd been able to acquire horses from the Shoshone at Camp Fortunate just east of Lemhi Pass a month earlier, but they erroneously assumed...

I'm unsure what you mean by caves in Southeastern Montana, but once you get east of the Little Rockies, Little and Big Snowies, and Pryors/Bighorns in MT/WY, you've gotten out of where the Madison Group outcrops at the surface in Montana (and, therefore, where Madison caves and caverns are...

Been on the road (within 160 miles of home, however) parts of the last 3 weeks, so just catching up with your Journey. It may come as no surprise to you to know that the caves you found in the Pryors, as well as the ice caves up top on Big Pryor Mtn, are hosted by the Madison Group limestones...

General O O Howard led the pursuit of Chief Joseph from Idaho through much of Montana, almost to the Canadian border, in 1877. Howard was much criticized during his Civil War and Indian campaigns.

Turns out the professional literature notes the presence of Mississippian limestone in the Dragoon Mountains, but further notes that the limestone unit altered by contact metamorphism from the hot granite intrusion is an impure limestone of younger age---the Pennsylvanian-Permian Naco Group. I...

The 7th picture in this sequence appears to show the contact between light tan granitic (and thus intrusive) rock (left side of photo) and a grayish intruded rock which appears to be limestone (right side of photo). Any time you've got cold limestones intruded by hot igneous rock like granite...

I just came across a YT video from Solomon's Outdoor Adventures entitled "Geology of the Santa Rita Mountains & their rich copper deposits--Tuscon, Arizona". Incudes Mt Wrightson and a lot about how the many metallic mineral deposits were formed, with a focus on a controversial yet undeveloped...

Given that your geology "expert" hasn't earned a dime from swinging a rock hammer at mineralized outcrops since 1983, you are fortunate to have encountered one of the easy ones for this aging prospector to comment on. The nearly ghost town of Cleator, AZ lies at the northern end of the Black...

Ah yes, the Morrison Formation: Deposited by terrestrial (nonmarine) sedimentation arising from eastward flowing streams originating due to rising landmasses in the vicinity of today's Klamath and Sierra Nevada. The landmasses arose due to collision of island arcs with the western continental...

I first read Cherry-Garrard's book about his Antarctic adventures and misadventures around 20 years ago and have read it at least twice since then (typical for me when I enjoyed or was positively affected by a book}. Being both a field geologist (by undergraduate degree and a handful of years'...