The Last Outcrop

From August 2 to August 8 Kyle and I went on a Seven Fingered Jack pluton extravaganza.    We were joined on this voyage into the depths of mosquito-dom by Prof. Bob Miller (San Jose State University), my M.S. thesis advisor and collaborator on my PhD, Prof. Adam Kent (Oregon State University) another collaborator, Kelly Dustin, a dynamic redhead (I only say this because she has the most awesome hair ever) working on her M.S. in the Jack, Kelly’s very tall and awesome boyfriend Grant, and Scott E. (like Wall-E), also working on his M.S. in the Jack.  Our goal was to look at both Scott and Kelly’s field areas so that we could have a better idea how to “sum up” the entirety of the pluton.  We began with a day hike into Scott’s area.  Overall a pretty good day. Looked at rocks. Swatted mosquitos. Took samples. Hiked. Talked about rocks later that evening over beers and wine and liquor.

                Starting Saturday we began a backpack on the exact same trail that Bob, Kelly, Christine and I did last year.  Kyle and I started after everyone else because I had to submit an abstract to a conference.  Whoever thought making the abstract deadline in the middle of field season must have been high.  Anyway- Kyle and I started hiking around 2:30 and found the campsite where everyone else was around dinnertime, which was great.  You may not believe me, but this campsite (at Klone meadow) was even buggier than the crapsite.  However, this campsite had water, so it was still better.  We all had a great time talking around the campfire and seeing how many mosquitos we could kill with one swat- the most being around 50 on Bob’s back.

Photo of Scott E., Bob, and me at the Last Outcrop.

We stayed at this campsite for 2 nights and did some geology in the Entiat highlands a little north of where Kyle and I were last week. Overall it was pretty hot and the geology was kind of boring, which is still interesting if that makes any sense.  After the second night we moved to a slightly less buggy campsite in a higher meadow, again with water.  During the day we worked on the Garland Peak trail, an abandoned treasure that wends through the higher peaks of the region.  This trail follows the ridgeline past several 7000+ peaks, none of which we reached (we were doing geology so we moved rather slowly).  Because the trail isn’t maintained any more (no dirtbikes allowed, so no volunteers to maintain it!) we didn’t see another soul and enjoyed spectacular views across the North Cascades to the north and west  and Glacier peak and Rainier over to the east.  Which brings me to the Last Outcrop.  I’m into small steps, so I was pretty happy around 5 pm on Tuesday when I closed my field notebook at the Last Outcrop for my PhD.  We took a picture to mark the occasion.  Over the past 7 summers I have spent 5 in the North Cascades and 3 summers straight working on this project.  It was a bittersweet moment, but I was mostly happy to be done!  I couldn’t have asked for a better group to have spent my last backpack with.

Now Kyle and I are sitting outside wacky Leavenworth preparing for a fun hike in the Enchantments tomorrow, supposedly one of the prettiest hikes in the North Cascades. After that we’ll do some geo-field tripping up north and hit some Bakeries of Note. More to come!