There you are. Staring at a picture of Alex Honnold completely smashing a route, with zero ropes of course, and you’re wishing you could rock climb yourself. It’s a feeling of desiring to do it, not knowing how to get into it and also not wanting people to think you’re an entirely incapable noob. What if you go to the climbing gym or hit up some outdoor routes and you suck? Isn’t that embarrassing? I know I’ve felt this way, but it’s time to slap yourself out of it and, thanks Nike, “just do it.” Here’s how:
outdoors
Meteorites and Mountains
Note from Cat: I’m a little behind on posts since the post trip relaxation has truly kicked in. Evan will claim it’s because I hate him that these posts are late, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Authored by Not Wanderlust’s head geologist: Evan Dismukes
Quick Vocabulary:
Laccolith: when a pluton is created and makes the overlaying rock bulge upward
The remainder of our sojourn through Canada was spent visiting cities so this post is going to be short and sweet. It does involve engaging topics such as meteors, mountains and magma.
We entered Sudbury. I’m not sure if the depressed vibe was a result of the rain or because the Timmy Ho’s we stopped at for breakfast was entirely comprised of homeless people. Either way, it had the classic post-economic collapse of blue collar towns, an environment we are familiar with being from Pittsburgh. Despite all of this, Sudbury is the “Nickel Capital of the World.” The city is in the middle of a giant crater that was created by an asteroid impact about 2 billion years ago. It is the second largest confirmed meteor impact on earth. For comparison, the third biggest impact is the one in Mexico that killed off the dinosaurs. The rocks in this area are mostly gneiss and fragmented granite. The gneiss was granite from the Canadian Shield that metamorphosed into gneiss as a result of the asteroid impact. The fractured granite are the pieces of the Canadian Shield that were broken up and thrown into the sky as a result of the meteor impact. With the Canadian Shield’s rich minerals and the meteor materials, Sudbury was primed to be a booming mining town. It’s title of “Nickel Capital of the World” after the Big Nickel Company was founded in the area and became the largest producer of nickel in the world. Regardless how it seems, Big Nickel is actually the name of the company and not just what conspiracy theorists call the nickel industry in the town.
A Mixture of Young and Old
Authored by Not Wanderlust’s head geologist: Evan Dismukes
Quick Vocabulary:
Lithified: the process of hardening into a rock
Canadian shield: billion year old rock in the northern part of America made up of mostly granite
Rift valley: place where the Continental Plate started separating
Traveling from the ranches and mountains of Wyoming and the trashy tourist towns in the Black Hills to the flat, buggy and forested emptiness of the Canadian Shield.
Everywhere we went on this leg provided a wide range of geology experiences as well as some other not so positive experiences.
Big Trip (Days 36-42)
This past week, I think we’ve been accepted into the bison community. Stay tuned for updates on how we assimilate.
Day 36:
We left the comfy bed at Jackson and began our trek to the Badlands. Being that it’s more than a one day drive, we sat back, relaxed and popped in a movie. Mainly, it was me making weird faces at Evan. But we did pass a town called Emblem with only 10 people. We’re assuming FarmersOnly.com gets near 100% of that town’s business. Close to that “town” was Greybull where Evan and I set up camp for the night.
See Bags Go 