Keck Utah 2018: Hammer Time and other Adventures

I've never met Schmidt, but he makes a nice hammer.

Since yesterday was a day off, waking up early this morning was bound to be difficult. Add in the small caravan of excited Italian tourists that pulled into the campground and partied all night, and this morning was certainly bound to be rough. So, after we finally managed to eek out some sleep amidst accented laughter and shouting, we all awoke too quickly, predisposed to be grouchy and tired. But Ben, somehow, always manages to stay upbeat and full of pep. And this morning, in particular, he was beaming: he told us, "it's hammer time."

Of course, Ben was referring to the Schmidt Hammer, a tool that looks more like a large magic wand than a hammer. Relying on Newton's Third Law (simply put, every action has an equal and opposite action), this perplexing device is used to measure the compressive strength of rock; basically, you push the end of the wand into the rock, and after a spring-loaded "pop," a digital screen in the handle displays a value. This value, measured in mega-pascals (one of which is equal to 10 bars or 145.038 psi), can vary widely depending upon the surface you choose to poke: poke an intact, flat surface on the rock, and the value will approach the actual compressive strength of the rock. Poke some lichen on the surface, and the value will be too low. Poke at an angle slightly off perpendicular, and your value will be too low. Thus, many of your values will be too low. So, to be most accurate, you take the highest reading as the "closest-to-true" value. Of course, you still have to record all of the other values, you know, for posterity.

Preparing to collect samples

And so, as we scrambled about, poking rocks with our expensive scientific poking poker, our morning grogginess wore off, and we were able to enjoy the day. And, although we commandeered Ben's Schmidt Hammer, Ben, with the help of one of us, was quite content to continue flying his "eye-in-the-sky" geologic drone, scanning the fractured cliff walls at Red Hollow Canyon. By the time Ben was done, we had finished poking rocks and collecting hand samples, so it turned out to be a day of immense fun and perfect timing, despite the rough start.

Now, if you've been following our on-going adventures, you may be asking what happened yesterday. Well, to tell you the truth, we took a day off to look at more rocks. What can I say? We're geologists.

Making friends: the easy way.

So, on our day off, we took a drive to Zion National Park. In the park, you can find some of the world's most spectacular exposures of cross-bedded sandstone. These angular striations, which we call cross-beds, are solidified evidence of ancient sand dunes. During the Jurassic (around 180 million years ago), the entire region was teaming with huge, roaming (and sometimes vicious) sand dunes. Today, what's left of this prehistoric land is recorded in the towering red and white cliffs of Zion National Park.

Therefore, Zion was the perfect place for a group of geologists to vacation. We expected to see some rocks, and we were not disappointed. However, we hadn't quite expected the flood of people that swarmed about us at the visitor's center. There, behind what we estimated to be about twenty to thirty million people, we stood in line, waiting for a shuttle bus that would take us to a trail called The Narrows. This place was supposed to be the kind of thing you'd see in National Geographic: giant, towering sandstone walls on your right and left, only five feet from your outstretched arms, and golden sunshine warming you as you enjoy true desert solitude and wet feet.

Our group enjoying a moment to ourselves in The Narrows

Eventually, we clamored aboard the bus, packed in with about one half of Earth's population; when we arrived at The Narrows trail-head, we found the other half, sitting around looking confused and sweaty. Then, as if following some unheard call, pulses of people would pour down the trail and into The Narrows, which was geologically spectacular (National Geographic all the way), but as busy and bustling as a shopping mall in downtown LA.

Although there was no solitude to be found within a hundred-mile radius, there turned out to be a benefit to hiking with all those people: no matter how hard you tried or didn't try, it was always easy to find and make friends. Take Curtis for example. Though a useful member of our geologic party, Curtis is a bit eccentric, possibly bordering on weird. But, due to the numerous personality types present within the national park, Curtis was statistically bound to make friends. And sure enough, he did. At some point or another, an elderly Chinese man noticed some Chinese writing on Curtis's t-shirt and was intrigued. "Ni zai zhong guo xue han yu ma?" the old man asked our group. "Did you go to China? Do you speak Chinese?" Well, turns out Curtis is more eccentric than we had previously thought, because he quickly responded in Chinese! "Yes, I have studied," he seemed to say. But, the rest of us were lost. "What in the world is going on?" we wondered, as Curtis began to draw a crowd of about twenty elderly Chinese tourists, each asking him endless, seemingly unrelated questions in Chinese.

We listened to their unintelligible conversation for about fifteen minutes, before context clues began to hint at what they were saying. "yi san ling ba eight seven five," Curtis said, switching in and out of translation. The Chinese travelers seemed to understand, because they each pulled out their phones and started typing. He was sharing his email with them! He had managed, in the span of about fifteen minutes, to make about ten new friends! All the while. the rest of us sat there, only wondering what the conversation had been about.

When all was said and done, on the car ride out of the park and back to camp, curiosity got the best of us. "What were you guys talking about that whole time?" we asked. There was a brief pause before he answered: "all sorts of things, I suppose. First traveling, then geology, then China, and ultimately the meaning of life and love." At this point, we didn't know what to say. I mean, how can you connect with so many people on such a wide variety of subjects? I guess that's just the magic of our National Parks: anything is possible.