Hot times contemplating geology
Most of us think of geology as pretty immutable. Rocks just
don’t move around much.
The Appalachians, once as majestic as the Sierra Nevada, are a
modest set of hills today. But that change takes some serious
time.
Hot times contemplating geology
Most of us think of geology as pretty immutable. Rocks just don’t move around much.
The Appalachians, once as majestic as the Sierra Nevada, are a modest set of hills today. But that change takes some serious time.
In the Cascade Range between Bend and Eugene, Ore., is a vast field of what looks to be lava that may still be warm to the touch. Almost no vegetation breaks its glossy brown surface. The lava is hardly fresh. It is instead the remnant of an eruption that occurred some 400 years ago.
Usually, geology happens on its own ever-so-slow schedule. But sometimes, and in some places, change occurs fast enough for us to see.
John Muir described standing in Yosemite Valley when a great earthquake struck. As the shaking subsided, an enormous cliff gave way, and rubble tumbled into the valley in a cloud of granite dust. As one house-sized boulder rolled slowly to a stop, Muir climbed aboard, the better to feel the power of the planet’s innards.
We might wait several lifetimes to repeat Muir’s experience, but we are privileged to live in a place in which Earth’s inner workings manifest themselves.
There’s a more pleasant vantage point to ponder that the crust of the earth, the solid matter composed of soil and rock, is about the same thickness as the skin of an inflated balloon. It’s in the bubbling warmth of hot springs.
Whenever an aquifer gets up close and personal with the superheated zone approaching earth’s mantle it heats, expands and seeks a path of least resistance to accommodate it. Given the fortuitous meeting of water, hot rocks and an opening to the surface, the result is likely to be a geyser or a hot spring.
And located as we are at the juncture of two of the planet’s great tectonic plates, we bask in a wealth of hot springs.
Some are developed, mostly relics of a slower time a century ago when people would bask in the healing waters, or even drink foul smelling sulfurous water for its mysterious curative powers.
While Gilroy Hot Springs once drew crowds, its current owners do not permit public access. But Mercey Hot Springs, located just over the San Benito County line east of Panoche Valley, is experiencing something of a resurgence, with new facilities, renovated cabins, massages and special events. I can think of no better place to get way, way, away from it all.
West of Salinas Valley, Paraiso Hot Springs taps the earth to fill its pools.
But most of the area’s springs are not developed. There’s something exciting and elemental about hiking to a wide spot in a river, or to a pond, dipping in and finding water warmed by the earth itself.
A reporter I once worked with wrote a guidebook to hot springs of the West. Some are disgusting, sulfurous puddles walled in mud, but the best are pretty heavenly.
While many are closely guarded secrets, some are quite well known. Sykes Hot Springs, a long, tough hike into the Big Sur’s mountains is located along a creek where users have used native rock to create pools. While Sykes often resembles a latter-day Woodstock, complete with naked hippies and the use of some suspicious substances, other spots are G-rated.
In the high desert just east of the Sierra is a string of the best. At Hot Creek near Mammoth, well graded gravel roads lead to a parking area, changing rooms and an easy path down to paradise. Visitors ignore the signs that warn of a horrible death by scalding should anyone dare dip a toe.
As the creek flows through an ancient caldera, vents spew hot water into the stream. Currents of cold water mingle with the hot, creating an environment in which all the bathers can pick the temperature that suits them. Strangers talk like old friends. Children splash and a healthy population of garter snakes share the tepid shallows with bathers, with none objecting. Everybody but the snakes wears a bathing suit.
I can’t think of a better place to contemplate geology than a creek fizzing with hot water with a panoramic view of the Sierra looming above.
