Owen’s Valley

I was sitting in the middle of my class when my mother came and drove me home. She said to me and Sam that we were going to the eastern Sierra Nevada on a UCSB geology field trip. We drove out into the Mojave Desert only to meet with Andy Weice and his college students at a gas station. We kept driving to a state park called Red Rock Canyon. There were red spires of dirt allover the place.We stopped with the geology vans to find out about the strange hoodoos everywhere. Then, we kept driving off into the night all the way to a place called Alabama Hills. We stayed in the Alabama Hills all night long and in the morning I found cacti everywhere!In the background you can see the Sierra Nevada and Mount Witney. Andy Weice made us all stand around him while he talked about the geology of the Carrizo Plain.Then, we all drove up to a place where my father takes Cate students every year. You can see Owen’s Lake from there, but Owen’s lake was drained by Los Angeles for water so it looks all white.A fault line that was created in an earthquake that killed at least 15 people in the town of Lone Pine was next on the list. A pleasant little stream ran by, only to be guzzled up by the L.A. aqueduct.  We got in the car and drove to a dirt road. Our van isn’t 4-wheeled drive so we had to stop the car when we reached a stream and then we got into one of the UCSB vans. The vans took us to a cinder cone, which we hiked to the top. Andy told us that if we could find a lava bomb, we could take it home. The lava bombs can be as big as a recycling bin or as small as a dime. We found quite a few.From there, we drove of on the valley floor, which is covered in rainbows.We wanted to go to the Bristlecone Pines, but we didn’t have time. We went to a freezing cold lake instead, fringed with yellow and orange trees. There was an island in the lake, so I swam to it and walked around on it.My brother Sam courageously swam to the island with me.The fall foliage was unbelievable!Then, we headed for a place called the Bishop Tuff, in the town of Bishop. The Owen’s River meandered at the base, and Andy told us that it had been made by a huge volcano near there. It was super windy on top of the tuff, and the next day there were rainbows everywhere.Sam and I found some pumice, a type of floating rock, and Andy Weice taught us about volcanoes. We drove to a road cut at the base of the tuff that had a fault. The river next to it was a target of the rocks we found.We then drove to a place called Mammoth Mountain. It is on the flanks of a volcano, but the real estate owners don’t want you to know that. They made the volcano escape route the “Mammoth Senic Drive.” It is a ski resort in the winter, but since it was fall, no snow was there. Instead, there was a thunderstorm. The storm prevented us from going to Devil’s Postpile National Monument. But, Panum Crater was still accessible, so we went there and climbed it to the top. There was a lot of Obsidian on the way.The view of Mono Lake was wonderful.Then, we went to Mono Lake itself, which has tufa towers, swimming flies, and dead birds.We drove back to Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort and found that large RVs have names like “Minnie Winnie” and “The Leprechaun.” Then, we went to a lake that had no islands in it so it wasn’t worth swimming in it.The next day we drove to a place called Manzanar National historic Site. It is the site of a concentration camp used by the USA to control Japanese people during WWII. Then, we went to a place called Fossil Falls, where Owen’s Lake spilled over its banks and carved a gully in the Mojave Desert. On the way home, we saw Beef-O Brady’s. Good sports, Good food.