Hog Back Heaven

Last week I had a warm window of opportunity to get out and hike up to the hogback adjacent to the “Ecology Park” here in Canon City. The wind was blowing pretty strong, especially at the top of the hogback, which made it quite cold compared to the parking area where I started from, but it was worth it. First, a little history about the hogback and my interest in it.

There are rare places on land where one gets to see the physical evidence of colossal collisions of time and space. Here in Canon City we sit on the edge of an ancient sea dating back some 65 million years ago(MYA). But older still are the mountains that cradle us. Along the northern, and especially western edge of town a prominent hill circles around us and marks the dividing line between sea and mountains, and between the Precambrian and Cenozoic eras. The difference is about a half a billion years, if you can really imagine a time such as that. Even though the sea dried up many millions of years ago, its beginning and end were only a yesterday compared to the distant past when the rocks that make up the mountains were formed. The hill that surrounds the city here is known as the “Hogback” and is made up of rocks of the Dakota Sandstone formation. Skyline Drive, along the cities western edge, traces along this hogback. The portion that I climbed lies just to the south of Skyline Drive across Highway 50 and the Arkansas River.

Older still, by about 500 MYA, are the granite, and metamorphic rocks that surround the Royal Gorge. The Arkansas River cut down to and exposed the precambrian granites, mostly of the Pikes Peak granitic pluton, but just above them are the metamorphic and sedimentary rocks of the Ordovician Period. Laced throughout these rock layers are magmatic intrusions and pegmatites. Many different kinds of crystals can be found in these pegmatites and the interfaces between them and the surrounding rocks. The granites at the bottom are actually older still at about 1,700 MYA and are considered to be remnants of the ancestral Rockies. Because of the heat and pressure presented by the uplifting of these older rocks next to the more recent sea rock(the Dakota Sandstones of the Hogback) many minerals and crystals can be found in this area. For me, the most curious deposits are the gemstones and our friend Uranium!


I climbed up the “top” and geologically newest side of the Hogback to look across Grape Creek over the mountains that surround the Royal Gorge. the first half consists of mostly loose gravel and debris that slid down and accumulated along the bottom. A farmer over a century ago created a little road that climbed along the lower half of the hogback. I followed this as far as I could and then headed straight up the solid rock face on this eastern side. Some of the pictures I took show the ripples of an ancient beach frozen in rock and time. Once I reached the ridge line near a little notch I could look over to see the much older mountain side. From this notch I could look down on the western edge of the hogback and see the remains of an old mine, the creek, and further still the pink granite at the base of the mountains. I was at this point sitting on the edge of time and space quite literally.

View more pictures of my hike here.

The Royal Gorge Railroad

Railroads! That is a favorite topic of little boys, like Hayden, all over the world. What excitement! Just in my back yard I walked out to find the "Royal Gorge Railroad" busy connecting passenger cars for a trip through the deep canyon just east of town. This is a famous railroad built back in the days of cowboys and Indians. The railroad follows the Arkansas River west to the great Continental Divide. When it was first being built two different railroad companies fought for the right to put their line through first. This was known as the great railroad war. The Royal Gorge is a very steep and deep canyon that the train must pass through as it leaves the town of Canon City, Colorado. The river through here is a torrent of white water and is very dangerous. When the railroad was first built it carried stone, coal, timber, gold, and silver. Today it just carries passengers who want to tour this beautiful route through the mountains.


There are dinner cars that serve big fancy meals to the tourists. There is an observation deck car that has no roof! People like to come out on this car to look up at the steep canyon walls. The train is pulled by a big orange colored diesel engine today. Wow, what fun. I want to ride on this train some day.

Visit my Picasa album on the Royal Gorge Railroad.

A Good Day, a Great Day, and Just Another Day

A good day, a great day, and just another day. Yes, the election of Barack Obama was historical in more than the sense of any presidents election being historical. It is a great day in the history of our nation, the United States of America, because we could elect, in the same old mundane fashion as always, a man who has an African-American ancestry and looks...well..black! His skin color and ancestry were not news, even if his prospective policies were big news and highly debated. I didn't vote for him, but I am glad that we were able to hold an election and he could and did win because enough Americans decided his racial background didn't matter. I think had he not won we could still honestly declare the same, though I'm sure many would doubt it.

It is a good day for me, and probably most Americans, not for the outcome of the election, nor what waxes and wanes in Washington and other cities of great influence. It is a good day because we awoke to another day of basic freedom and peace, shelter, clothing, and food, and many other perks of life that prior generations of Americans didn't have. Sadly, there are many fellow human beings in other parts of the world who are not having such a great day because they don't enjoy the relative wealth of freedoms and material blessings we do. Whether my man or you man gets elected pales in comparison to the reality of what we each have. Yes, there are grave concerns about the economy and the security of our nation. Yes, many of us disagree on how to fix those basic concerns.

Today, despite the fears and expectations felt only 24 hours ago, is just another day for all of us. For most of us we awoke with a mix of good and bad perceptions about the world we live in. We each have personal problems that affect us and those closest to us. We each also have a considerable amount of joy in our lives, even when we may momentarily lose sight of it. What didn't happen today were the worst expectations for a complete collapse of a society we call home. Nor has the sky parted to reveal a gleaming utopia of all that was hoped for, in fact it is raining where I live today! The extremes that drove so many of us with passion for our candidate of choice will now meet reality for the first time and we will all have to adjust to that reality. Can we begin to realize that the other will not ruin our beloved country with great and swift destruction? Can we at least acknowledge that seemingly realized "change and transformation" may not look that different today or tomorrow? And can we then not be disappointed but be willing to reconsider where the other may have been right all along?

Both candidates have asked us to come together as Americans and be willing to compromise and build bridges towards one another, can we? Contempt prior to investigation will always rule out that possibility, especially if we refuse to even consider the good we can accomplish with what we have now. If you didn't vote for President Elect Obama, please give him a chance and be willing to consider where he is doing good for the country. And if you did vote for him, be critical and slow to defend him where he may be moving too fast or simply in the wrong direction, he is capable of being wrong. As he represents us to the world at large we must support him, save the most grievous case of treason, lest he be doomed to fail before he begins. In this last point I would add that we have suffered from too little support for most of the past presidencies since the sixties. If you want change then do your part, it requires swallowing ones pride first. Say "no" to those who are quick to condemn and find grievous fault with a new president and his administration from the start. Both political parties have engaged in witch hunts that impeded the sitting presidents from doing the best they could to represent our country to the world, and most of us let ourselves be caught up in the sophomoric nonsense only to see the powers that be as all good or all bad. Reality is never that easy. We all have to give up something to get rid of that paralyzing cynicism and make real change for America.

Blogging blahs

Well, what to blog about, that is a question. Sorry for no new, exciting posts about my grand adventures. I guess it goes with the late Fall blahs, and the fact that I'm now on hold while applying for truck driving jobs. So there are no special plans at the moment. Here in the southern part of Colorado we still haven't had much snow. I'm looking forward to snow even though it means bitter cold, too. I still need to hike more, and at higher elevation to get acclimated for snow boarding this winter. The next big event will be my return to Tennessee the first week of December, only a month away! I will be in Knoxville for a week.

Feel free to comment here on any suggestions for blog posts you may want me to write.