Cinder cones

When I was about seven or eight years old, my first memorable experience with climbing a "mountain" was a large cinder cone known as Cinder Knoll. Cinder hills are a common site on the Colorado Plateau and elsewhere in Arizona.  They are essentially huge piles of small rock-like cinders from a volcanic eruption.

This satellite view of the area north and west of Springerville, Arizona shows quite a number of cinder cones. The one I climbed as a young child is located further north and little more west of the cones in the photo.

Here is a side view of a cinder cone, in the same Springerville Volcanic Field.

Cinder cones form when the streaming gasses that carry lava to the surface form blobs in the atmosphere as the are ejected from the volcanic vent. They are generally mounds of basaltic scoria. The cones are considered very transient geologic structures because they have no internal structure and are easily eroded by rain water. The crater in the cone above has been breached by erosion.

The Wupatki Blow Hole

About 100 yards from the Wupatki Ruin is an unusual natural blow hole. The signage next to the hole gives the current explanation for the phenomena:

Basically, there is a huge crack system running under parts of the Colorado Plateau. The most notable cracks are near Holbrook, Arizona. Here is a post about the cracks from the State Geologist of Arizona. Arizona has over 1600 caves and karst features and even has cave protection laws that make it a crime to damage natural features in a cave. See A.R.S. 13-3702 and 13-3702.01.  It is understood that most of the caves do not have a natural entrance from the surface. In the case of this blow hole, the only known entrance to the cave is the small opening in the rock, now preserved with the stone wall and a heavy screen (just visible in the hole). 

If you would like more information about Arizona caves, you can see the Arizona Cave Survey. Cavers or spelunkers are very possessive about caves and rightfully so. Some spectacular caves in Arizona have been entirely stripped of formations and are covered with graffiti and otherwise damaged. If you want to visit a wild cave, you can contact a local chapter of the National Speleological Society. Arizona also has three commercial cave sites; Colossal Cave near Tucson; Grand Canyon Caverns near Seligman;  and Kartchner Caverns near Benson. 

I have considerable experience in caves across the U.S. Starting when I was a teenager, we had all of the necessary equipment from my rock climbing background and went into some of the largest caves in Arizona and Utah. This was long before most of the caves were barred and locked to public access. I have had mixed experiences with the National Speleological Society members. I have not found all of them to have an adequate experience level. But it is obvious that lack of control of caves with our present societal attitudes towards the environment would result in massive destruction. The prime example is Peppersauce Cave on the north side of Mount Lemmon, near Oracle Junction. Quoting from the Wikipedia article, "The cave has been subject to vandalism and heavy littering for over fifty years. In 2001, the Peppersauce Cave Conservation Project (PCCP) was established upon the discovery of E. Coli and coliform within the cave's lakes. The initiative is funded by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) and is aided by volunteers who work to keep the cave clean. A sampling conducted in January 2003 indicated that no harmful bacteria were present in the water. The group was also highly successful in removing graffiti, though the cave continues to be heavily subjected to vandalism.

Lava flows in Arizona

This is where Wikipedia is way off. In the article on a list of lava flows in Arizona, the poster says, "there are three lava flow areas in the American state of Arizona." Wrong. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of lava flows throughout the state. Some of the most prominent geological features in the state are associated with lava flows. Here is a NASA photo of one of the flows, very near to Sunset Crater and the Bonita Lava Flow shown above.

This is the Black Point Lava Flow in northern Arizona, seen in this photograph taken from the International Space Station. The flow is part of Arizona’s San Francisco Volcanic Field, a group of geologically young (approximately six million to less than one thousand years old) volcanoes, lava flows, and cinder cones located just north of Flagstaff, Arizona. NASA.

As you travel throughout the state, you will see many old and new lava fields. One prominent section is located near the town of Springerville and is known as the Springerville Volcanic Field. The Springerville volcanic field is a monogenetic volcanic field located in east-central Arizona, USA. The field consists of 405 discrete vents covering approximately 3,000 square kilometers (1,200 sq mi) and is the third largest such field in the continental United States, only the San Francisco volcanic field (Arizona) and Medicine Lake volcanic field (California) are larger. Wikipedia.

There is also the Uinkaret Volcanic Field in the Grand Canyon National Park which has been instrumental in creating one of the notable rapids along the Colorado River, Lava Falls. Vulcan's Throne on the rim of the Canyon is a Quaternary cinder cone.

See Vulcan's Throne Wikipedia

Quoting from the USGS, Arizona Volcanoes and Volcanics, "Late Cenozoic lava flows have repeatedly flowed down Toroweap Valley and several adjacent valleys into the Grand Canyon, at times forming large lava dams. Flows are exposed on the walls of the Grand Canyon, often interbedded with fluvial and lacustrine sediments, up to 600 meters above present river level. Several of the dams are estimated to have been at least 200 meters high. The most recent flows in the Grand Canyon have cascaded over the rim of the Esplanade to the river 1,000 meters below. "

Some of the other notable features of the Arizona landscape that resulted from volcanic activity include the famous Superstition Mountains, the Chiricahua National Monument, the White Mountains and of course, the San Francisco Mountains.

Collapsed Lava Tube

There are a number of lava tubes in Arizona, some of which are very long and big enough to invite exploration. One of the most accessible is mile long, Lava River Cave, located about 14 miles north of Flagstaff on paved highways and graveled forest roads. 

The above picture shows a collapsed lava tube in the Sunset Crater National Monument. Although the Coconino National Forest claims the Lava River Cave to be the longest such cave in Arizona, this may not be exactly correct. The longest cave is probably Harris Cave located near Vernon, Arizona in the Whiting Knoll Quadrangle.  I have been to the end of the Lava River Cave a number of times, but the day we looked for Harris Cave, it took us so long to find it, we had no time to explore. That was pre-GPS technology days however and today, it can be found quite easily.

Lava tubes don't make a particularly appealing type of cave. They have virtually no cave formations except for various types of lava flows, and they can be filled with all kinds of other crawly creatures (besides spelunkers) due to periodic openings to the outer world. The Lava River Cave was previously known as Government Cave, due to its proximity to the Government Prairie, where it is reported that troops were stationed at one time.

There are probably dozens (or more) caves in Arizona of lava origin. Most of them are unimpressive. In Sunset Crater, the Park Service used to conduct tours of a 225 foot lava tube filed with ice, but apparently, the cave roof collapsed in 1984 and the tours were discontinued. 

Dying in the Desert

One of the persistent icons of the American Southwest is a cartoon of a man crawling across the desert in a state of dehydration. There is nothing amusing about dehydration. Recent news stories in Arizona have focused on three Utah men who left Salt Lake City on July 6, 2010 to search for the fabled gold hidden in the Superstition Mountains east of the Salt River Valley (including Phoenix). Quoting from one news account, "But the truth of the matter is that they were amateurs, and they went into the mountains at the hottest time of the year with nowhere near enough water, and they died." Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/pinal/articles/2010/07/17/20100717utah-hikers-searching-for-treasure-feared-dead.html#ixzz0uWskbvkf As of the date of this post, they had not been found and were feared dead.

The part of the legend about the desert being hot and dry is very true. In another recent article, it is reported that there have been bodies of 40 illegal immigrants brought to the office of the Pima County Medical Examiner during the first two weeks of July, 2010. The Medical Examiner is quoted as saying, "Right now, at the halfway point of the month, to have so many is just a very bad sign," he said. "It's definitely on course to perhaps be the deadliest month of all time." From Jan. 1 to July 15, the office has handled the bodies of 134 illegal immigrants, up from 93 at the same time last year and 102 in 2008. In 2007, when the office recorded the highest annual deaths of illegal immigrants, 140 bodies had been taken there through July 15. See Fox News.
 
In all of the U.S. the Centers for Desease Control record the following statistics:

During 1999--2003, a total of 3,442 deaths resulting from exposure to extreme heat were reported (annual mean: 688). For 2,239 (65%) of these deaths, the underlying cause of death was recorded as exposure to excessive heat; for the remaining 1,203 (35%), hyperthermia was recorded as a contributing factor. Deaths among males accounted for 66% of deaths and outnumbered deaths among females in all age groups (Figure). Of the 3,401 decedents for whom age information was available, 228 (7%) were aged <15 years, 1,810 (53%) were aged 15--64 years, and 1,363 (40%) were aged >65 years. The state with the highest average annual hyperthermia-related death rate during 1999--2003 was Arizona (1.7 deaths per 100,000 population), followed by Nevada (0.8) and Missouri (0.6).

Because of the political implications of the deaths of so many illegal aliens, it is likely that the statistics may be skewed either to include individuals who died from other causes or to exclude individuals to minimize the impact of the actual numbers.

Hyperthermia (as opposed to hypothermia) is an elevated body temperature due to failed thermoregulation. In Arizona, we get periodic reminders of the symptoms of heat related conditions by the media. When confronted with excessive heat, the body begins to shut down. Heat exhaustion (also known as heat prostration) is a temporary condition caused by to much exposure to high temperatures or to the sun. Heat exhaustion results from excessive loss of fluids. Its symptoms are nausea, unusually profuse sweating, a sense of anxiety, and weakness or dizziness--i.e., a feeling of "faintness," caused by a drop in blood pressure and a slowing of the pulse. In fact, actual fainting is not uncommon in cases of heat exhaustion. The skin becomes clammy, pale and grayish, and the body temperature drops below normal.  eSSortment.

When heat prostration becomes acute, it becomes heat stroke. Heat stroke has the same symptoms except it is the condition when the body shuts down and the there is no sweating, and the skin is dry and hot red or flushed.

Once the condition has progressed to the heat stroke stage, in order to survive, a person's body temperature must be brought down by spraying the person with water and promoting sweating and evaporation. Cooling the body back to an acceptable range is imperative.

Sunset Crater National Monument

Located just a few miles north of Flagstaff, Arizona on Highway 89, Sunset Crater is one of the most
accessible National Monuments in Arizona. Quoting from Wikipedia,

The eruptions forming the 340-meter-high cone (1,120 ft) were initially considered from tree-ring dating to have begun between the growing seasons of 1064–1065 AD; however, more recent paleomagnetic evidence places the onset of the eruption sometime between about 1080 and 1150 AD. The largest vent of the eruption, Sunset Crater itself, was the source of the Bonito and Kana-a lava flows that extended about 2.5 kilometers (1.6 mi) NW and 9.6 kilometers (6 mi) NE, respectively. Additional vents along a 10-kilometer-long fissure (6.2 mi) extending SE produced small spatter ramparts and a 6.4-kilometer-long lava flow (4 mi) to the east. The Sunset Crater eruption produced a blanket of ash and lapilli covering an area of more than 2,100 square kilometers (810 sq mi) and forced the abandonment of settlements of the indigenous Sinagua Indians.

The elevation of the Monument is 8,042 feet and even summer weather can be cool to chilly. Recent forest fires around Flagstaff have come close to the edge of the National Monument but no fires have recently burned inside the boundaries.  There are some interesting short hiking trails and a few viewpoints but the whole National Monument can be seen in a matter of hours. There is a large campground in the National Forest outside the Monument with an additional large group campsite, but other than camping and Ranger presentations, there are not many other things to see and do. Even though it is small, it is well worth the visit.

Mud Cracks

One of the most fascinating things about the desert is the prevalence of mud cracks. I remember hiking into the Pariah Canyon in Northern Arizona/Southern Utah and along the dry stream bed there were huge, dinner plate sized, mud cracks. They were so dry and hard that they clinked like glass and cracked loudly when we walked on them. When I was young, I used to take apart the mud cracks like puzzles and try to put them back together. Anytime a layer of clay silt is deposited by a rainstorm in a depression in the ground, when the clay dries it shrinks and forms the puzzle pattern mud cracks. 

Like everything else in the world, mud cracks are studied by geologists. If the mud cracks are subsequently covered by another layer of silt and preserved and then through geological changes hardened into rock, they give us a record of the long ago drying event. They use mud cracks to determine the orientation of the original sedimentary beds that formed the cracks. The edges of the mud cracks curl upward and point out which direction was up in the original bed. Also, the cracks get thinner as they go down into the layers and point downward. 

We had a recent thunderstorm in Mesa and the ditches on the sides of the canals filled with water. Of course, the water evaporates in a day (or even a few minutes or hours) but it leaves behind a thin sheet of sediment, dust from the canal road, that dries into the fabulous patterns of mud cracks. If you would like to see a number of different photos, go to the Earth Science World Image Bank. 

Mud cracks are like many things I find while walking Arizona, they are fascinating, interesting and mostly ignored by everyone.

Going nowhere and everywhere

As anyone who knows me well is well aware, I am a fan of Escher. Here is a really interesting 360.


Tribute to Escher in Barcelona

Arizona's Volcanic Fields

Arizona is not usually associated with volcanoes or with volcanic activity, but much of the state is dominated by former volcanoes and huge areas of lava flows and cinder cones. In north central Arizona, the San Francisco Volcanic Field is listed by the U.S.G.S. as a potentially active volcanic area. Near Flagstaff, Sunset Crater is likely Arizona's most recent volcanic cone, the eruption is generally dated to between 1040 and 1100 A.D. The area around the Crater is now a national monument and a surprisingly small one at that. The Visitors' Center, the campgrounds and most of the scenery lie outside of the national monument. The picture above shows a portion of the Bonita Lava Flow, located slightly north and mostly west of the main crater or cinder cone known as Sunset Crater.

The Monument is heavily visited because of its close proximity to Highway 89, a very busy route north and south in Arizona, and to the City of Flagstaff. The Monument is almost at the edge of the City Limits. In my experience the Bonita Campground, adjacent to the Monument itself, is almost always full or nearly full of campers the entire summer.

Historically, the National Park Service had a lot of interesting activities at the Monument, including hikes up to the top of Sunset Crater and tours of local ice caves, really lava tubes. Neither of these activities are allowed under the present management of the Monument. The NPS actually hauled huge amounts of cinders back to the cone to replace those worn down by the trails up the hill.

The Bonita Lava Flow is very interesting. As the lava flowed from the volcanic vents, the surface of the lava cooled. With the cooling, the surface was broken into plates that look similar to huge plates covering the entire lave field. The lava tubes formed when the walls of the tube cooled and solidified while liquid lava was still moving through the tube. When the liquid lava ran out of the tube, it left a long worm-like tunnel often referred to as a lava tube cave. There are several of these lava tube caves in Arizona, some of which are more than a mile in length.

Since you can drive through Sunset Crater National Monument in about half an hour, even at 35 mph, it is worth stopping, even if you don't have much time.

Smoke in the Canyon

According to the National Park Service, the Saffron Fire, currently burning in the Kaibab National Forest at the northern end of the Rainbow Plateau, 2 miles south of the park/forest boundary and 15 miles northwest of the North Rim. As of July 16, 2010, the fire had burned over 3,260 acres. The current fire plan is to allow the fire to burn naturally "within the planned management boundaries (north and east of the canyon rim, south of Forest Roads (FR) 268 and 223, and north of Swamp Ridge Road – the east/west section of the W4 road) in order to maintain fire’s natural role in the ecosystem." See NPS. 

During our recent trip to the North Rim, we found the smoke from the fire drifting generally to the east, pushed by the prevailing south by southwest winds. In approaching the Park we crossed a band of heavy smoke. At first, at the North Rim, the smoke was mainly to the north of the Grand Canyon National Park, but by the next day the smoke had filled the canyon to the east and south. The picture above shows the smoke looking east from the vicinity of Cape Royal. The bright spot is the reflection of the sun in my camera lens caused by the smoke. 

There is a lively controversy over the advisability of fire suppression in most instances. Years of unwise fire suppression have caused a huge build up of combustibles in the forests and when there is a fire, the fires burn very hot and kill all of the vegetation. Driving out to Cape Royal from the North Rim Visitors Center, you can see multiple fire burns in various stages of regrowth. The natural Ponderosa pine forest has an open meadow-like nature. Overgrowth of trees due mainly to fire suppression causes the forest to thicken unnaturally and become susceptible to dangerous fires and also bark beetles and disease. 

Flagstaff has recently suffered a huge fire with flames barely being stopped at the edge of subdivisions. The Schultz fire burned 15,075 acres north and east of Flagstaff. Misguided concerns about "preserving" the forest in the past have contributed to recent huge uncontrolled fires. In Flagstaff the Grand Canyon Forests Partnership is actively moving forward on a forest restoration project in the Fort Valley area northwest of Flagstaff. Treatments of the forest vary: thinning of trees, prescribed burning, meadow and wetland restoration, recreation management, etc. Through these means and with the involvement of the public, the Grand Canyon Forests Partnership hopes to enhance forest values so that they are healthy and sustainable for generations to come.

Death in the Grand Canyon

2009 saw a total of 12 tourists die as a result of visits to the Grand Canyon. However, to put this in perspective, about 4.5 million tourists visit the Canyon every year. Last year's victims included 10 visitors who died from accidents within the canyon, four on backcountry trails and one death from suicide and another from a heart attack. Observing the footwear and physical condition of a lot of the visitors, it is a miracle that more people don't die. I have seen people hiking down the train into the Canyon in flip-flops and even high heels. Most of the viewpoints on the Rim of the Canyon have extreme exposure, but I have seen tourists literally dancing on the edge of the cliffs, apparently unaware of the extreme heights.

One particularly tragic death came from heat exhaustion to a 20-year-old characterized as an "Eagle Scout." He was apparently on his way to find the famous Thunder River on the Canyon's North Rim. He died in mid-July when temperatures in the depths of the Canyon can exceed 100 degrees.

This year, July is also generating news articles about deaths in the Canyon. On July 8, 2010 Park Rangers recovered the body of a female hiker in the same general area where the man died last year, the Toroweap Valley. It is likely that these hikers vastly underestimate the distances, elevation changes and heat in the Canyon.

On one hike into the Canyon, we left the North Rim at 27 degrees and by the time we reached the Colorado River the temperature was 97 degrees. It is very difficult to drink enough water hiking in almost 100 degree temperatures to keep hydrated and maintain life. Many hiker try to avoid the heat by hiking at night or during the early morning hours.

Other deaths in the Canyon are more likely the result of the number of people visiting the Canyon. With such a large number of people, statistically, somebody is going to die from a heart attack or commit suicide. In May, June and July of 2010 there have been apparent suicides at the Canyon.

Happy Fourth of July

The Fourth of July in Phoenix is an ambivalent holiday. The State is relatively conservative but the Fourth comes in the middle of the summer. Virtually anyone that can leave town does so. When I was growing up, (some think I never did), we spent all summer up on the "mountain." Translated, into Arizona speak, we actually were out on the Plateau in St. Johns, where we could see mountains to the south. The temperatures were slightly less intense than the Valley and it did rain every couple of weeks. The Fourth of July was a huge holiday on the mountain, a cannon salute at 6:00 am, with races, pancake breakfast, patriotic speeches, barbeque in park, dances and parties. In Phoenix, it was mostly ignored. There was (and is) the obligatory fireworks display, but except for family gatherings, there isn't much going on. So that is why I have a picture of the Statue of Liberty.

Mesa has tried to buck the tradition by having a Main Street gathering, but like most things in Mesa, they have almost no publicity. So almost no one, relatively speaking, spends the evening on Main Street.

It is strange to me that this low key ignoring of the Fourth of July seems to contrast with the avowed patriotism of almost everyone. I guess when you match up patriotism with 110 degrees outside, the temperature wins. The local Boy Scout troop does put up flags in our neighborhood. But this is not done out of a sense of patriotism but as a fund raising activity. You donate a set amount to the Troop and they put a flag on your front lawn on every holiday, including Flag Day and the Fourth of July.

Saturday in the desert

We had an unusual day at home for a change. Since we both work all week and serve every Saturday at the Mesa, Arizona Temple, we seldom get a free day to do what we need to do around the house. When out subdivision was built, it was an grapefruit orchard and some of the old trees still grow in the yards. But time and re-plantings have changed the nature of the neighborhood and it doesn't look anything like an orchard. Some of the older trees are dying and being replaced from time to time. The first settlers in the Salt River Valley used the existing Indian canals rebuilt to water their crops. Eventually, the ditches and laterals were put underground. Some of the people in the neighborhood still water their yards with underground irrigation. The house we bought has a sprinkler system but the irrigation has been blocked off. Or, mostly blocked off. After living here for a while, we discovered that the old underground irrigation pipes are still there. We found them when holes opened up in flower beds and other locations that were essentially drains into the old pipes. 

So, this morning the first item of business was to block the most bothersome of the holes down to the old pipes so the sprinkler water wouldn't run down into the ground and disappear. That took just a few minutes but then the job began to expand to include enlarging the basins around the new citrus trees in back. We are used to having a huge variety of citrus and when we moved into this present house, we only had tangerines, oranges and grapefruit. So, one of the first items on the agenda when we moved in, was to plant more citrus, this time a navel orange and a tangelo. We have learned by observation, to buy the trees small and let them grow. A smaller tree will be more healthy and produce more fruit earlier than a large fully grown tree. It takes the larger tree a lot longer to get established and produce fruit.

Expanding the watering basins progressed to knocking down cobwebs and cutting a few bushes back. All this was happening as the temperature continued to climb to over 100 degrees. I put the pictures of the two saguaros at the beginning to remind you that I am writing from the middle of one of the hottest large cities in the world. We made a detour to the hardware store to get some screen to fix two torn window screens. Fixing the screens was done later in the day and we suffered mightily from the heat by that time. I have decided not to fix window screens for a profession. I imagine it would be easier to do if you had somewhere other than the floor to work on, but sitting on the floor and trying to get the screen straight is pretty sweaty work. I decided to take a break and watch the Prologue to the Tour de France. I got the program on just in time to see Lance Armstrong come in fourth. I doubt I will see much of the race since we seldom have time to watch anything on TV. This is the first time I remember them having all of this classic bicycle race on TV that we didn't have to pay extra to see.

It is always nice to get a few things done before the heat gets to you and you start to sit around and drink lemonade.