by Linda Sternbach, Charles Sternbach, Dave Lazor
Photos by Linda Sternbach and Kirk Cushing
Click here for details about the 2010 Grand Canyon trip, which is
scheduled for June 13-21. Hold your spot with a $300 deposit now.
The HGS 2009 Grand Canyon Geology field trip in June turned out to be another exciting trip down the mighty Colorado River! It was a “magic carpet ride into deep time,” according to one participant. The annual trip was once again organized by Dave Lazor, retired oil and gas geologist now living in Carbonado, Washington. Dave started arranging HGS field trips to the Grand Canyon in 1994 while he was living in Houston. This year’s trip involved 28 participants, including both geologists and non-geologists from Houston, Oregon, and Washington. The trip started in Las Vegas, Nevada, and traveled by bus to Marble Canyon, Arizona before setting out on the river at mile zero at Lee's Ferry. Our field trip ended pleasantly eight days later at mile 188, after descending nearly 1,500 feet in elevation down 50 rapids. At the end, the participants rode helicopters out of the wilderness, and took planes back to civilization.
Access to the Grand Canyon is highly monitored and restricted by the Park Service. Approximately 21,000 people are allowed to sign up for accredited raft trips down the Colorado each year. Some people, including people on our trip, wait for years to get a space on one of the permitted raft trips. Dave Lazor has been putting together geology raft trips for the HGS since 1994, making sure our society members can experience life on the river. For people interested in the next trip, please get your name on the waiting list by emailing Dave Lazor or Steve Earle (see the end of this article).
Dave Lazor loves the Grand Canyon, and spoke to this year’s trip members about the history and geology of the area during the eight-day trip. He wore two T-shirts, one with a map (Figure 1) and another with a stratigraphic column so that he could point to features while hiking.
Figure 1: Grand Canyon trip leader, Dave Lazor.
Dave has a PhD in geology from the University of Indiana, and has been, among many things, a university assistant professor during his career. He worked as a geologist with Texaco, Cities Service, Valero, and Beaumont Energy. He then did extensive oil and gas consulting along the Gulf Coast.
After picking up participants at the Las Vegas airport, we drove to Zion National Park for a quick stop, then to Marble Canyon (Figure 2). The next morning we boarded the rafts for the first time at Lee’s Ferry, mile zero, south of Lake Powell.
Figure 2: Map of the Grand Canyon National Park (Grand Canyon Park web site).
Our annual field trip is guided by Hatch River Expeditions, a company started by river pioneer, Bus Hatch, in 1934 and is still managed by the third generation of the Hatch family. The HGS field trip takes two large pontoon rafts to float the river with stops each day to view the rocks and scenery. Hatch’s three guides provided expert raft maneuvering, led hikes, and prepared incredible hot and cold meals during the trip.
The field trip participants on this year’s Grand Canyon trip included both geoscientists and non-geologist friends and family members (Figure 3). HGS members on this year’s trip included John Jordan (Anadarko), Dawne Jordan (BP), Tom Mather (retired), Dennis Ferstler (Alpine Resources), Scott Silver (Blackdog Exploration), Calvin Silver (U of H grad student), Linda and Charles Sternbach (Star Creek Energy), Steve Earle (Carrizo Oil and Gas), and Randy Schott (B&S Exploration). Some of the non-geologists included the Ferstler family (Dave, DJ, Tommy and Matt), Randy’s brother Gordon Schott, and Tom Mather’s brother-in-law, Tom Spaulding. The group was joined by Marv Rueck and Jay Brack, friends of Dave from Oregon and Washington State and others.
Figure 3: Grand Canyon geology field trip of HGS members, friends, and family (2009).
This field trip is a real adventure involving white water rapids and daily hikes into remote canyon country (Figure 4). Each day brings the opportunity to encounter wildlife, including big horn sheep, mule deer, beaver, and iguanas (while keeping an eye out to avoid scorpions). We camped out on tarps or in tents with sleeping bags, completely out of contact with phones and news for 8 days, eating the provisions brought on the rafts with no stops for supplies or fuel. This is a strenuous trip with physically challenging uphill hikes! Lucky for our group, the weather stayed cool at 70-80 degrees for a few days, but ended up over 100 degrees in the final days of late June.
Figure 4: Grand Canyon fun and challenges.
Immersion in Grand Canyon History
Dave Lazor made some great recommendations for pre-trip reading about the history of Grand Canyon exploration and geology. One book every participant should bring is Belknap’s Waterproof Grand Canyon River Guide by Buzz Belknap (Westwater Books), which condenses the exploration of the Colorado, the geologic history, the flora, and the fauna into one booklet of 114 pages.
Our trip had a copy of Edward Dolnick’s Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell's 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy through the Grand Canyon (2002), which was read out loud during the camp nights (Figure 5). This book tells the day-by-day story of Powell’s difficult journey of ten months using wooden boats and limited supplies, trying to make the first white man’s documentation of the path of the Colorado River. John Wesley Powell (1834-1802) was a professor of geology, a Union Civil War veteran, and a key founder of the USGS and the Illinois Stat