field camp week 1 – confusion range

05/13/24 – 05/17/24

my first week of field camp!!! this week was Dan’s week, meaning it would focus on sedimentology/stratigraphy and rock ID.

me with all my stuff, ready for field camp 🙂

we drove out to the confusion range in Utah’s west desert, where I had only sort of been once before for a paleo field trip with Dan and other students. it’s a bit stark and dry and hot out there but it’s also beautiful and full of cool rocks and fossils!

day 1

emmaline climbing into the backseat to fix the annoying rattling table while Parker was driving

the drive was like 4 hours and super fun!! I concocted a field camp playlist during the first bit of the drive because I kept forgetting to make one leading up to it

parker with our tent setups – also we found a scorpion while looking for “big-ass rocks”

dinner – we did group meals, which was super fun!

also we went to bed super early every night, like before 10pm at the latest lol

steps: 12,003 = 5.8 miles

day 2

this was our first full day of mapping, and boy was it physically and mentally exhausting!! my backpack was way too heavy and I wore my newer hiking boots, which are not as comfortable as my hiking shoes, and it was soooooo hot!!!

brachiopods, rugose coral, chert nodules, calcite veins, etc

chillin after a looooong day of hiking!!! I started reading about iceland to get ready for me and Jordan’s trip 🙂

steps: 26,108 = 12.1 miles (supposedly)

day 3

another loooong day of hiking in the sun! it really was exhausting, and there were many times that I felt like I knew absolutely nothing about geology, but all my field camp buddies got me through the day and through the week 🙂

crinoids, nodular chert (posing as bedded chert??), calcite, fossils, etc

last 3 pics are looking west toward nevada! I got phone service from a nevadan cell tower and was able to text Jordan 🙂

steps: 14,404 = 6.7 miles

day 4

today we hiked perpendicular to strike, across the valley and up the little mountains/hills (it was exhausting) to see if the rocks there aligned with our findings at indian pass. this is the day that we lost dan, because he thought we were going all the way back to indian pass! oops

3rd pic shows the valley we crossed! 5th pic was taken to show jordan the beautiful scenery I was surrounded by while peeing lol

so yeah, in like the early afternoon, we realized we didn’t know where dan was, so we split into 2 groups – one group went back to back to camp to check for him there & get the car if not, but I was in the group that stayed in the desert with our vests so that we were easy to see. lol. eventually we found him & all was good, but it was kind of funny while it was happening. but also we were like what if dan is dead