On the Road Week 1

Well, this week I started my summer job working for GSY-USA
installing portable magnetotelluric stations throughout the Pacific Northwest
as part of the EarthScope Array project. I was rented a very expensive U-Haul to get up to home base in Yakima,
Washington where I met up with my crew. Jennifer, Chris, Trey, &
Dimitri. It’s a sweet deal. I get paid
very well and I get $325 a week per diem that I can use (or save for a MacBook
Pro) as I wish. We also get to drive
around in two brand new rental trucks – a dodge ram and a Ford 150.

The first day I went with Chris and his nephew Dimitri to
the hills below Mt. Ranier
to install a portable MT array. It wasn’t very hard work and we
were done in
under 4 hours. There were cows all
around us and cowboys out practicing how to rope them in the fields. Small pines grew out of the stumps of ancient
old growth trees that had been cut down years before. The drive back was long due to construction
on the mountain road every 5 miles.  I guess the biggest part of the job will be
the extensive driving all over the state to get to all of the sites.

Let me explain briefly what I am doing. Each array consists of 100m dipoles in the
North-South, East-West Direction which measure electrical currents within the
earth created by the interaction of the earth’s ionosphere with solar energy (solar
flares etc). Those charges in the
atmosphere induces an electric field within the earth. This is the electric field we measure and it
is altered by interactions with the moon on a daily basis and the sun on a
yearly basis. By looking at the electric
currents in the earth we can look deep into the structure of the earth down to
about 14km which is the crust/mantle boundary. Earthscope is setting up these stations every 70km across the nation
(over 1500). Along with MT studies
seismic stations are also set up along with heat flow measurements and
satellite ground movement measurements. Earthscope is the largest and broadest geological study in history and
it will provide us with amazing imagery of what lies beneath the United
States. I’m very excited to be a part of
it.

On Wednesday Jen and I worked together to take down several
sites slightly east of
Yakima. It was
very easy and we were able to take down each site in about 2 hours. At one of the sites we saw a pack of male elk
with huge racks running off over the hill. I also found out that
short socks and boots with shorts on don’t work in
that kind of grass! On the way home we
passed by miles and miles of hops crops. Apparently, Yakima is one of the world’s largest producers of hops for
beer. Last year a fire in one of the
warehouses destroyed so much hops that it upset the world’s beer market! That afternoon I had some time to go for a
drive up to Yakima Canyon where I drove a very drunk couple back up the road to
their truck after they floated down the very cool looking river. I also saw some wakeboarding boats slicing

down the river… Very jealous. I had
bought a watermelon at fruit
stand… dumb. How the hell was I going to eat a giant watermelon in one night? Well, I did, with some help from my
co-workers, but I definitely think I had watermelon poisoning the next morning
and I believe I pee’d about 10 times!  Check out what the prairie grass did to my socks! 

On Thursday Jen and I headed East with all our gear to
service a few stations. We
ended up off
roading pretty hard at one site through some puddles nearly 2 feet deep next
corn crops. We drove over grasses that
were higher than the front of the truck and couldn’t see anything a few
times. Then, after finishing the site,
we were flying through puddles and I almost ran over a duck! There were also large prairie fires raging in
the distance. We ended up picking up
professor from Yakima named Kevin who was sent by NSF to check to make sure we
were working correctly. He was a nice
guy and I heard we’ll see him again soon. We ended up staying at a skeevy motel in a small town with pretty crappy
wi-fi that didn’t work. I bought a 4
foot long beef stick at the gas station along with some campbells chunky soup
for dinner…. Always trying to save a buck.

Friday we headed out to pull out a few sites with amazing
views of farmland and
rolling hills. We got done early so we headed to Moses
Lake, WA and hit up the sand dunes by the lake for some swimming to cool
off. After relaxing on the beach for a
while and cooling off in the wonderful water we headed to check out the new
Simpsons movie. I thought it was pretty
good and well overdue after 20 years of being on tv.  Jen was still working on the giant zucchini
given to her by the nice
farmer we met the night before with Kevin working on a
site on his property.  We then decided to drive West towards our next
sites. Passing by George, WA we
stopped
to see the huge natural amphitheatre over the Columbia River but were greeted
by a massive religious music festival and decided it
wasn’t worth fighting with
the crowd. We stopped briefly for some
great pictures of the Columbia River and of Wild Horses Monument up on the hill
before continuing on to Ellensburg. We
ended up sharing a double room by necessity because every motel in 50 miles was
booked.

Saturday we serviced a couple more sites and stayed in Idaho
at a pretty nice Best Western near the boarder. The first had great views of Mt. Stewart (part of the
cascades) and the
second was out in grassland that stretched for miles. Somehow our truck ended up with a very small
tire leak that we eventually need to fix.

Sunday we drove out to several sites in Eastern Washington
and filled up the back of the truck with a total of 4 transportable arrays now
and a ton of conduit tubing that
looks like it’s going to fly out the back on
every turn we take. Got a great picture
of red-tailed hawk today.

So far the job has been a blast with a lot driving but I
have a great time with Jen. She’s easy
to get along with and as long as we keep her fed she
always seems to be in a
great mood J. I call her Indiana Jen because of the funny
archeological type outfits she wears for fieldwork. She loves her job. Tonight we are heading towards Seattle. We’ll see what adventures next week brings!

South Sister on my Birthday

Today I drove out through Bend to Devil’s lake near Mt.
Bachelor to start my climb up South Sister in the beautiful Sisters
Wilderness. The weather had been cloudy
and rainy all week so I was hesitant about going but it is the last free day I
have for about 2 months due to the GSY-USA consulting job I have taken for the
rest of the summer.

I got
to the mountain around 11am and started hiking up the beautiful trail. In under a mile I found myself in open
meadows with wildflowers everywhere and alpine lakes all around. It was absolutely beautiful . In the distance I could see Broken Top
and
behind me loomed Mt. Bachelor with streaks of snow still left on it from the
ski season. As I scrambled up the
footing became very loose, almost to point of sandy. It was all light weight ground up pumice left
over from previous eruptions ages ago. I
crossed
several snow fields left over from the winter on the way up. Finally I got up to an alpine lake and
followed a ridge above a glacier up to the summit bowl. It was amazing slowly climbing above the
height of jagged Broken top. Looking up
at the mountain you could see snow fields, glaciers, and various colored
volcanic rocks from yellow to orange to dark red.

When I
got to the top I was pretty tired and feeling the altitude because I
had
climbed to over 5,000 feet to get to 10,000 in just over 3 hours. It was beautiful out – 70 degrees, a little
breezy and sunny with a few clouds. On
the way up through the pulverized lava rock I could see and smell sulfur coming
out small vents in the side of the mountain which along with the salts in the
area had attracted millions of butterflies. They were literally crossing my path in a clouds of wings. Look closely at the picture to see
them. At the top I had to walk around
the rim of
the caldera to get to the true summit. The caldera was filled with snow and a small
glacial lake lay in the middle of it. At
the summit there were even more butterflies! The views from the summit were amazing. Middle Sister, North Sister, Three Fingered Jack, the side of Jefferson
were all to the north while Broken top,
Bachelor, and Crater Lake lay off in
the distance to the south. The
colors of
the rocks at the top were amazing. I
stopped for a good hour to enjoy the views, take pictures, and scarf down the
Tupperware container of leftover bbq wings from the night before (one of the
best lunches I’ve had at the top of a mountain). After
hanging out and playing with some dogs
that made it to the summit I climbed down to the top of the glacier where I had
seen two guys go down on their butts in goretex pants
earlier. I took a deep breath thinking it was stupid
and then jumped into their ass-tracks and skied down their tracks standing up
keeping my balance with my
ski poles. Other than falling once briefly on my butt I made it all the way down
the face of the glacier standing up in my leather Asolo boots much to the
amazement of several parties below who thought I was nuts and told me so J. From there I could see the valley below and
where a
large lava field had sprouted from
the earth hundreds of years
ago. It was an easy decent from there
and before I headed home I took a couple minutes to soak my sore feet in an ice
cold stream at the base of the mountain. 12 miles in 7 very wonderful, beautiful, relaxing hours on my
birthday. Definitely one of my favorite
hikes.

Drinks for my birthday

Last night Jason and I headed down to Squirrels to meet up
with Kristin and Chris Holm for a few drinks for my birthday. Anna and all her new friends showed up later
in the evening. Chris had a lot on his
mind that I’m sure he felt good about getting off his chest with me. I won’t discuss it here but the poor guy is
going through a really tough time. After
a funny convo about Harry Potter thankfully getting killed off we all went
upstairs to chat and play pool.  I also won’t go on about what I saw happen
upstairs between friends of mine. It doesn’t
effect me at all but I don’t like seeing my friends get hurt by the
thoughtlessness of my other friends and I ended up losing a lot of respect for
certain people that night. I ended up taking off from the bar around 1am because I had to get
up for my South Sister climb the next day.

South Sister on my birthday

Today I drove out through Bend to Devil’s lake near Mt. Bachelor to start my climb up South

Sister in the beautiful Sisters Wilderness. The weather had been cloudy and rainy all week so I was hesitant about going but it is the last free day I have for about 2 months due to the GSY-USA consulting job I have taken for the rest of the summer. I got to the mountain around 11am and started hiking up the beautiful trail. In under a mile I found myself in open meadows with wildflowers everywhere and alpine lakes all around. It was absolutely beautiful . In the distance I could see Broken Top and behind me loomed Mt. Bachelor with streaks of snow still left on it from the ski season. As I scrambled up the footing

became very loose, almost to point of sandy. It was all light weight ground up pumice left over from previous eruptions ages ago. I crossed several snow fields left over from the winter on the way up. Finally I got up to an alpine lake and followed a ridge above a glacier up to the summit bowl. It was amazing slowly climbing above the height of jagged Broken top. Looking up at the mountain you could see snow fields, glaciers, and various colored volcanic rocks from yellow to orange to dark red. When I got to the top I

was pretty tired and feeling the altitude because I had climbed to over 5,000 feet to get to

10,000 in just over 3 hours. It was beautiful out – 70 degrees, a little breezy and sunny with a few clouds. On the way up through the pulverized lava rock I could see and smell sulfur coming out small vents in the side of the mountain which along with the salts in the area had attracted millions of butterflies. They were literally crossing my path in a clouds of wings. Look closely at the picture to see them. At the top I had to walk around the

rim of the caldera to get to the true summit. The caldera was filled with snow and a small glacial lake lay in the middle of it. At the summit there were even more butterflies! The views from the summit were amazing.

Middle Sister, North Sister, Three Fingered Jack, the side of Jefferson were all to the north while Broken top, Bachelor, and Crater Lake lay off in the distance to the south. The colors of the rocks at the top were amazing. I stopped for a good hour to enjoy the views, take pictures, and scarf down the Tupperware container of leftover bbq wings from the night before (one of the best lunches I’ve had at the top of a mountain). After hanging out and

playing with some dogs that made it to the summit I climbed down to the top of the glacier where I had seen two guys go down on their butts in goretex pants earlier. I took a deep breath

thinking it was stupid and then jumped into their ass-tracks and skied down their tracks standing up keeping my balance with my ski poles. Other than falling once briefly on my butt I made it all the way down the face of the glacier standing up in my leather Asolo boots much to the amazement of several parties below who thought I was nuts and told me so J. From there I could see the valley below and
where a large lava field had sprouted

from the earth hundreds of years ago. It was an easy decent from there and before I headed home I took a couple minutes to soak my sore feet in an ice cold stream at the base of the mountain. 12 miles in 7 very wonderful, beautiful, relaxing hours on my
birthday. Definitely one of my favorite