A Geologist’s Journal: 33 Days of Enlightenment on the Colorado Trail

After retiring from the oil patch in the fall of 2017, I began a daily regimen of hiking for exercise and recreation near my home in the hills of western Pennsylvania. The more I hiked, the more interested I became in venturing out for longer distances and higher mountains. I did a lot of research on backpacking and the best gear to buy for long-distance hiking. This involved reading hiker blogs, watching “how to” videos on YouTube and researching the best gear on the web.

In 2020, I spent five-and-a-half months solo thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail and then wrote a book about it, “Rocks, Roots and Rattlesnakes.” Thru-hiking is a form of backpacking in which the hiker completes the entirety of a trail in one season, generally trekking for eight to 12 hours a day, camping each night on the trail and carrying about a week’s worth of food between resupplies. After completing the Appalachian Trail, I was hooked.

Everyone who hikes the Appalachian Trail has a trail name and mine is “Old Oriskany.” The Oriskany sandstone is a natural gas reservoir in the east that I spent years exploring as a petroleum geologist, and hence the trail name.

Some Background – Old Oriskany

My career for 38 years mainly focused on plays in the east in the Appalachian Basin. I worked on Paleozoics almost exclusively, with occasional forays into other basins and continents. In the 1990s I had the opportunity to work onshore Nigeria for Ashland Oil in Houston. Some of those reservoirs contained the kind of permeabilities and porosities that you could sling a cat through. There is nothing like that in Appalachia.

Everywhere I worked I had the opportunity to spend a major chunk of my time interpreting seismic, prospecting for Oriskany, Tuscarora, Trenton, Oswego and Cambrian reservoirs of the Rome Trough. Mappable targets like these were my passion and expertise. I was also fortunate to have been employed primarily by larger companies (by eastern standards) in which staffs of 20-30 geologists were common. The camaraderie and daily discussions about new and existing play concepts was always invigorating and motivating to me. I loved the science, research and prospecting parts the most. I correlated an endless number of well logs, made beautiful and accurate maps, conducted regional studies, wrote many reports and gave lots of presentations.

The oil industry is cyclic, responding to oil and gas prices, and geologists get laid off and rehired with changes in those trends. In the span of my career, I was laid off five times. Fortunately, I was always able to land my next position within a month or so, but that often entailed moving my family to a new state. My final layoff was in 2017 with EQT, where our geoscience department dwindled from a peak of about 30 down to just one geologist and a couple of geotechs. I loved what I did and was truly blessed with a career that I pursued passionately. However, in that pursuit, I had spent more hours working per week than I wished to continue. I had just turned 60 and I thought, “Enough is enough!”

Image Caption

Waking up on Tertiary volcanics on Snow Mesa in the San Juan Mountains

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After retiring from the oil patch in the fall of 2017, I began a daily regimen of hiking for exercise and recreation near my home in the hills of western Pennsylvania. The more I hiked, the more interested I became in venturing out for longer distances and higher mountains. I did a lot of research on backpacking and the best gear to buy for long-distance hiking. This involved reading hiker blogs, watching “how to” videos on YouTube and researching the best gear on the web.

In 2020, I spent five-and-a-half months solo thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail and then wrote a book about it, “Rocks, Roots and Rattlesnakes.” Thru-hiking is a form of backpacking in which the hiker completes the entirety of a trail in one season, generally trekking for eight to 12 hours a day, camping each night on the trail and carrying about a week’s worth of food between resupplies. After completing the Appalachian Trail, I was hooked.

Everyone who hikes the Appalachian Trail has a trail name and mine is “Old Oriskany.” The Oriskany sandstone is a natural gas reservoir in the east that I spent years exploring as a petroleum geologist, and hence the trail name.

Some Background – Old Oriskany

My career for 38 years mainly focused on plays in the east in the Appalachian Basin. I worked on Paleozoics almost exclusively, with occasional forays into other basins and continents. In the 1990s I had the opportunity to work onshore Nigeria for Ashland Oil in Houston. Some of those reservoirs contained the kind of permeabilities and porosities that you could sling a cat through. There is nothing like that in Appalachia.

Everywhere I worked I had the opportunity to spend a major chunk of my time interpreting seismic, prospecting for Oriskany, Tuscarora, Trenton, Oswego and Cambrian reservoirs of the Rome Trough. Mappable targets like these were my passion and expertise. I was also fortunate to have been employed primarily by larger companies (by eastern standards) in which staffs of 20-30 geologists were common. The camaraderie and daily discussions about new and existing play concepts was always invigorating and motivating to me. I loved the science, research and prospecting parts the most. I correlated an endless number of well logs, made beautiful and accurate maps, conducted regional studies, wrote many reports and gave lots of presentations.

The oil industry is cyclic, responding to oil and gas prices, and geologists get laid off and rehired with changes in those trends. In the span of my career, I was laid off five times. Fortunately, I was always able to land my next position within a month or so, but that often entailed moving my family to a new state. My final layoff was in 2017 with EQT, where our geoscience department dwindled from a peak of about 30 down to just one geologist and a couple of geotechs. I loved what I did and was truly blessed with a career that I pursued passionately. However, in that pursuit, I had spent more hours working per week than I wished to continue. I had just turned 60 and I thought, “Enough is enough!”

From the Appalachian to the Colorado Trail

The Appalachian Trail is often referred to as the “green tunnel,” where hikers spend hours or perhaps an entire day hiking through the dense canopy longing for a glimpse of the scenery surrounding them. Most of the views in the east are hidden by impenetrable tree cover, thus creating a continuous yearning for that anticipated peek into distant horizons.

Colorado, by contrast, has very different kinds of mountains. They are younger, more rugged and grandiose – and elevated to a much higher level by tectonic forces whose origins can still spark debate among geologists.

I skied in the Rockies for many years and was always intrigued by what lay beneath the heavy snow cover. During past summer vacations, I took my family to Rocky Mountain National Park, stopping occasionally to wander off on short side trails for an hour or so. But I had never immersed myself into the depths of those incredible ranges, following a continuous footpath up and over pass after pass to experience the vast openness of this part of North America. What an experience awaited me!

Shifting my Focus to the Rockies

In 2022, I decided to thru-hike the Colorado Trail and then wrote another book, “Rocks, Roots and Rocky Mountains.” It is the story of my 33 days on the Colorado Trail and, like my first book, is written in the format of daily logs, and from the perspective of a geologist. It is the story of my daily experiences involving people I met, wildlife I encountered and the multitude of unexpected adventures awaiting me each day.

The book begins with a brief geologic history of the Colorado Trail. In this introduction, I discuss plate tectonics and the three orogenies which affected Colorado from Proterozoic time to the late Cretaceous, including competing tectonic models for the Laramide. Other topics discussed are San Juan Volcanic Field, the Cretaceous Seaway, the Colorado Mineral Belt and Pleistocene glaciation. I attempt to keep the geology simple for the average reader, with each of these topics occasionally mentioned throughout the book. At the end of each day I provide a summary of the types of rocks encountered.

Day One on the Colorado Trail

My alarm sounded at 6 a.m., waking me from my morning slumber at the Motel 6 in Littleton, Colo. I got up and put on my hiking clothes, organized my gear and extended my trekking poles, which had been carefully stowed away inside my pack for safe keeping during my flight from Pittsburgh. This was the first morning of my 486-mile-long trek from Denver to Durango on the Colorado Trail. I must admit that I was a bit nervous about spending the next four or five weeks scrambling along those Rocky Mountain trails at such high altitudes. Although I was a seasoned long-distance hiker back east, the average elevation here was going to be three to four times higher than most of the Appalachian Trail, and possibly more difficult to navigate. I was entering very different circumstances for which I wasn’t sure I was fully equipped.

In a few minutes, I left my motel for a brief shuttle to the trailhead. After hoisting my 35-pound pack onto my back, I sauntered over to the Waterton Canyon Trailhead sign, symbolizing the start of the Colorado Trail. I was now in a much more arid climate zone; the air was drier and it felt more like a desert than a montane setting. Turning toward Durango, I began my journey.

Following the South Platte, the vegetation cover here was thinner than what is typical of the eastern forests and the surrounding mountains were unimpressive, rocky and sparsely vegetated. The underlying bedrock here was 1.7-billion-year-old gneiss where I caught occasional glimpses of the colorful bands of light- and dark-colored crystals in the ribbony foliation. Though still early morning, I could already feel the intense heat of the sun overhead and had no shade above me.

Geology at Every Turn

Perhaps the most conspicuous difference between the Appalachians and the Rockies is the great percentage of trails above tree line in the west, in what is known as the alpine zone. The vegetation above 11,000 feet is generally sparse to non-existent and whatever rocks lie beneath your feet are in plain view. In the Rockies, each day seems like a field trip as I pass from one rock type to the next, always challenged by the weathered exposures surrounding me. Minute by minute I am being tested by these rocks, as they bring to mind the processes that acted upon them to create what I am seeing.

I stop often to closely examine a granite or rhyolite, looking for the textures and minerals that will identify them. Occasional exposures of sedimentary rocks spark my interest and cause me to picture the depositional settings which formed these layers so long ago. Some of the uplifted metamorphics draw me back to more than 1.7 billion years ago, as island arcs collided with Laurentia during the Yavapai orogeny. Everywhere I look I see evidence for the sculpting of alpine glaciation. In the San Juans, signs of Colorado’s violent volcanic past are ever present.

Bluebird Mornings Turn to Afternoon Terror

Most days on the Colorado Trail began with a bluebird-sky morning, slowly clouding up as the day went on. By about 3 o’clock the skies would begin to darken and the low growl of coming thunderstorms could be heard from not far away. Many afternoons, as I hiked toward my camp for the night, I would get caught up in a sudden thunderstorm, plodding through the afternoon rain and hail, eventually seeking shelter from the drenching rains. Day 16 was one such day.

It was Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. I awoke to my 5:30 a.m. alarm with everything inside my tent damp or wet. Despite the discomfort and cold, I quickly packed up, made a speedy breakfast and was on trail by 7:30. I knew this was going to be a big day. Most of today’s trek would be between 12,000- and 13,000-feet elevation – all above tree line. I could see nothing but blue sky above me but by now I had come to realize that this was just a trick Mother Nature likes to play on hikers each morning in Colorado. I wondered what the afternoon would bring in terms of exposure to lightning and foul weather. The excitement and anticipation energized me.

On my way up to the pass near Tin Cup later that afternoon, I could see a potential storm brewing but I continued anyway up the exposed mountain. The sky was thick with clouds, seemingly within reach at these altitudes. Behind me was a classic tongue of a slowly moving rock glacier coming off the steep sided east flank of Mount Kreutzer. Scanning the horizon, I could see sheets of rain slowly approaching as each successive distant peak disappeared into oblivion. I recall looking at the trail ahead as it zig-zagged toward the ridgeline at nearly 13,000 feet and wondering what my odds were for safe passage. The skies darkened as the wind picked up speed and I felt a surge of adrenalin. I decided to take my chances and make a run for it despite the consequences.

After a frantic half-mile scramble up the steep metamorphic face, a dark curtain of heavy cold rain suddenly caught up with me, followed by an onslaught of hail. In the shroud of this icy deluge, I didn’t notice the lightning but I could hear the loud cracking of nearby thunder echoing against the barren mountainsides. I knew it was time to seek cover, but looking around I saw nothing but the rocky path ahead. Suddenly, I spotted a large rock jutting out near the path. I hastily removed my pack, set my poles aside and with my rain jacket covering me, hunkered down in an upright fetal position next to a large outcrop of gneiss. I remained there for about 20 minutes until the thunder stopped. While still being pelted with hail, I emerged from my faux shelter and continued up the steep switchbacks toward the pass.

Documenting My Journeys

Writing about my adventures has become a hobby for me, documenting my daily experiences in the wild and then compiling my notes along with my geological knowledge and further research. Writing these stories enables me to connect with others who have similar interests or experiences backpacking through wilderness areas. I also want to bring joy to those who may not be able to experience these adventures themselves, by enabling them to join me through my written words.

Since hiking the Colorado Trail, I have continued to seek out new long-distance treks. Here in the east, I completed most of the mountain segments of the Mountains to Sea Trail in western North Carolina, spent a week hiking the high peaks region of the Adirondacks in New York, and took numerous shorter hikes to places like North Fork Mountain and Dolly Sods Wilderness in West Virginia. In 2023, I traveled to Italy to take on the Alta Via 1, a fabled footpath through the Dolomites. This past summer I started in Canada to complete the first 400 miles of the Continental Divide Trail through Glacier National Park and the wilderness areas beyond. My trip was cut short west of Butte, Montana following three consecutive re-routes due to wildfires on the Continental Divide Trail. My plans for 2025 include going back to Montana to continue my southbound trek through the Bitterroots and into Yellowstone on the Continental Divide Trail.

Of course, each of these hikes has a great geologic story to be revealed. So many miles of trail, so little time…

You can read about my adventures and experiences from my geological perspective by visiting my website: RocksRootsandRattlesnakes.com

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