Another Try

A mistake is in my last post which I wish to correct in this post.  Some of you noticed that the first few pictures have a greenish ting which looks unnatural. (an example to the right)  Indeed it is unnatural.  I considered mentioning the problem, blaming the mosquitoes.  But to mention it would detract from the rapture I felt and wanted to convey on my first hike in the Wind River Mountains,  I want every post and every poem to rest in the intensity that I feel at the place of its origin, rich with pictures, and asking something of the reader.  So I posted anyway.

   Those “winged needles,” as Mary Oliver calls them, swarmed around me like a veil every time I stopped for a picture.  Within fifteen seconds, the little pests had found me.  I hurried to get the camera from its case, make a setting or two, shoot and move on.  I didn’t take time to review the shot.  Somehoe, the "white balance" setting got changed and stayed changed.  I didn't realize it until I got back to the motel. There I tried to correct the faulty color balance without much success.  It's always best to have the settings right on the camera rather than to post-correct.  I almost envy you who shoot with cell phones and usually produce good pictures. 

Wind River Canyon

Today, I give you another try, not by going back to Whiskey Mountain, but by showing part of the Wind River Mountains that isn’t mountains anymore.  Geology may not be your interest, but being mine, I wish to share rocks in a way that you might find interesting.  I hope to get some reaction to what I write, and that depends on my making it worth your trouble.   I may not change your comprehension of the world, but maybe you will be inspired by how some of it got here.   

The place I am staying on the east side of the Wind River Mountains is drained by the north-flowing Wind River.  Originally, it flowed across flat terrain, beneath which lay the buried Owl Creek Mountains.  They were raised about 60 million years ago by the Laramide Orogeny, along with the Wind River Mountains, which I spoke of in the first blog post at  https://sharon-wind-river.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-wind-river-mountains.html    

on the left looking upstream,
same formation

on the right looking upstream,
same formation

About 4 million years ago another uplift caused the Wind River to incise the buried mountains at what is now Wind River Canyon which cuts the old mountains, revealing sediments.  The rocks that the river cuts through were in part deposited from the first version of the Wind River Mountains.  We see sediments from that old Range that was eroded away and buried in its own debris.  Sorry folks, I’m not climbing back up Whiskey Mountain to correct my mistake, but I can show you something similar in the way that sedimentary rocks tell a story.  

right side of canyon going upstream,
same formation

left side of canyon going upstream,
same formation

Notice how the layers tilt more steeply than the road tilts as we drive upstream to the south.  The formation in the distance on the right side is the same formation as the one close-up on the left, but it is high above the road.  The tilt of these layers creates an illusion of driving on a flat road that is actually going uphill.  I used zoom here as on the Whiskey Mountain hike to show the same formation on both sides of the river.  But this time the “white balance” is correct.

left side looking upstream,
same formation

right side looking upstream,
same formation

The tilt or of the layers also means that as we drive up the canyon the age of the layers increases.  Driving uphill is like driving deeper into the layers and farther back in time.

Also on this drive, and of interest geologically, are the hot springs at Thermopolis, a town along Wind River, north of the Canyon.  The Wind River Basin left by the uplift of about sixty million years ago has filled with sediments which have hardened into rock, and the rock has bent deep in the crust and cracked.  It is thought, but not proved, that magma has entered some of the cracks and is heating ground water, causing it to rise and producing hot springs at the surface.  

Terraces have precipitated from minerals in the hot water, and microbes have colored the rocks, similar to hot pools at Yellowstone.  Some scientists think life may have started in pools such as these.  

Sea gulls live by these hot pools?  Really?  

Michael Angerman is making a map of nightly locations, as he has done for many of my trips.  Please see    Michael's Map