Ess Cave

Who needs sleep?  Never mind I stayed up until 2:30 am looking at planes for sale on trade-a-plane.com.  Never mind I had to get up at 7:30.  Ben arrived at 8 am and we tossed a few things in the Tacoma and headed south.

South of Midland on 349 is nothing too interesting until you come into Rankin.  Straight ahead you see a large mesa as you descend a hill into town, with ramshackle cool old buildings on either side.  Now the scenery begins.  This is the western edge of the Edwards Plateau, where the mesas are capped with this Cretaceous limestone as far as you can see.  

To the topography-starved geologist, these look like pretty substantial mountains.  Ben and I drooled a lot on our windows as we drove through this pretty desert country.  Castle Gap, which I flew over just a few weeks ago in the Cessna 162.

Mesas.  Mmmmmmm.

Nice bike ride/motorcycle territory.

Ooooooo!

Iraan, TX

We made it into Iraan, when I pulled out the sketch maps.  Whoops, we went past our junction about three miles back.

Camp Ess

A bit of driving around on oil lease roads and we found the crew.  Bill was the only guy I knew.  Everyone else were pilots.  I've never seen so many pilots in one place.  Most of them flew for pipeline companies.

Gorgeous desert.

This area appears to cover an old, shallow oilfield.  Lots of itty-bitty pumping units.

Rocks.  Not caliche.  Real, actual, 70-million-year-old rocks.

Close-up of a rock!

The cave itself was nice enough.  After an hour or so of milling around, we entered the cave and climbed down a little awkward 30-foot drop.  After than the cave was mostly on one level.  We visited Hercules and the end of the cave where climbing ropes dangle down from an upper level.  Ess Cave was known locally as "party cave" before being gated; it was filled with a bunch of junk.  There is a lot of spray paint and damage to formations, but it's still really cool and nicely decorated.  My expectations were low, and this cave exceeded them nicely.

Back to Midland, about 1:20 drive.  A nice little cave but next time I'll camp overnight, do the cave and be out and home by noon.

View Ess Cave, Iraan, Texas in a larger map

An Evening spent Flying over the West Texas Desert

This evening we rented a Cessna 172xp from FlightSource at Schlemeyer Airport in Odessa, TX. At the airport I met up with Josh, my instructor, and our two passengers for the evening, Debi and Tonia. We decided to head west and see Monahans Sand Dunes, and then over to Wink Sink (and smaller Sink), then back to Midland to overfly my house and Ben and Tonia's new home.  Debi served as photographer, so 100% of the included pictures are hers.  Refer to the map below for our detailed route.  Google tells me it was 175 miles!  We flew it in 1.5 hours of engine-on time, so probably closer to 1.3 of air time.  Averaging around 135 mph ground speed.  At one point in a descent, we reached an airspeed of 140 knots, about 161 mph (airspeed, but there wasn't much wind, so very close to ground speed).

View Sightseeing October 2011 in a larger map

Preflighting the plane.  I think this is an early 1980s aircraft based on the placement of the landing lights. (Ed-- they stopped making them in 1981).

The walk-around

Looking at damage to the strut covers, which are non-structural

Josh, right.  Me, left.  Engine start procedure.

Just after take off

A little after take off, looking east toward the stadium in northern Odessa

Making a radio transmission as we depart the Schlemeyer area.

Drilling pads!  West Texas oil country.

Stabilized dunes.

We took off from KODO and headed west and southwest, angling toward I-20 which I know leads to the south end of the Monahans dunes.  I was surprised to see large area of stabilized dunes, where there is little sand movement due to vegetation cover.  Now I realize the dunes cover a much, much larger area than I previously thought.  I think these are post-Pleistocene features, created when the Pecos shrank from a major river to a minor one and the area dried up, freeing up a lot of sand to blow east with the prevailing winds.  I just ordered a publication from the Texas BEG about the dunes, we'll see if it answers my questions.  Otherwise I might have to team up with Malcolm and do some dune research.

As we continued west and neared the town of Monahans, TX, we saw some open dune areas.  I was impressed at how linear the dune ridge tops area.  Why is this dune still mobile, while surrounding areas are vegetation-stabilized?

This is one feature I observed in semi-stabilized dunes.  Plants tend to grow on the dune margins, where they are closer to the water table and can take root in the more stable sand.  As the edges of a dune stabilize, the center part blows out, creating a depression in the center of a raised, vegetated area.

Monahans State Park and I-20, looking east

The park came up on us quickly and I tried to slow the plane down as we descended to take a closer look.  I didn't hand the plane off to Josh, so I didn't get to look at the dunes too much as we were about 700' AGL, going pretty slow.  But Debi got some great pictures and Tonia hopefully some great views.  The sun angle was just about perfect, as I was hoping, and I flew west of the dune so Debi could shoot east over them.

Active dune areas near I-20

Main active dune area.  You can see the campground and the main "day use" 

parking area to the right of the campground.

The north end of the dune field, I think out of the state park at this point.

"Bush islands".  We observe these when on the ground.  A bushy plant takes hold and the sand may blow away from around it, except directly under the bush.  They look cool from the air!

A semi-buried oil pipeline crossing the dunes.

Oilfield!

After passing north of the dunes I angled off to the west to find the town of Wink.  I knew it was southwest of Kermit, near where I go dune riding.  It's so easy to look at Google maps in your office, but much harder when you're in the air, flying into the setting sun, trying to find a tiny West Texas town.  With Josh's help (via the GPS), I identified Wink and Kermit in the distance.  I flew right ahead where I thought I needed to go and suddenly the main Wink Sink appeared a mile or so ahead of us!

Wink Sink.  Formed around 1980 (?).  Look it up elsewhere -- anyway, it's a recent feature.

Around 200-250' deep from rim to base of the water.  Notice the circles -- what made them?  Something that was here before the Sink formed!  Answer in the comments section...

Debi got some nice shots of Wink Sink

Josh took the plane and I looked at the window as we did some 

steep turns around the larger Sink (there are two).

Neat shot of Tonia and the Wink Sink!

The smaller, older sink.  Note vegetation on the sink rims.

I probably shouldn't be looking the backseat while piloting the plane...

It started to get dark outside and we turned back toward Odessa, went past Odessa to Midland, staying clear of Midland International to the north (our transmitter was flaking, 

or their approach control was ignoring us)

172xp tail

Great sunset with crescent moon, but no appropriate camera equipment to capture it.

In Midland we flew over my house.  We could see our Halloween lights outside.  Then we went along the loop and down Midkiff and did a few circles above the new Davis home in central Midland.  Then off along Andrew's highway to downtown, around downtown to the south, north over Midland again and back to KODO.  Our passengers were not bored (a common problem) and they seemed to have enjoyed themselves.  

Apparently the only real scary moment for the passengers was as we turned to final approach, when the inside wing was blocking my view of our landing runway, and I verbalized "I can't see the runway...".  As a student pilot, I'm used to saying anything to Josh, to keep him informed of what I'm thinking.  A habit I need to break to make passengers more comfortable (less scared).  

Map of Summer 2011 Adventures

View Summer-Fall 2011 in a larger map
Blue lines indicate cross-country flights I've done (as a pilot, not a passenger).
Stayed a bit closer to home this summer/fall, except a weekend trip to Santa Fe for the NMOGA conference.

Mt Livermore, Davis Mountains: Texas' #2

I took a week off work.  I was planning to do some backpacking in the Solitario region of Big Bend Ranch State Park.  I got a new Gossamer Gear backpack and a bunch of lightweight gear.  I got a kitchen scale and weighed all my camping gear, putting the values in a spreadsheet.  As I watched the weather the week before, however, I saw it was going to be a scorcher in Big Bend, with daytime temps around 100 F along the Rio Grande.  Because even 75 F is a bit warm for hiking in full sun, I decided to look elsewhere, finally settling on the Capitan Mountains of south-central New Mexico.  This range has fascinated me since a brief visit there last year, after scaling Sierra Blanca Peak above the town of Ruidoso.  An added bonus, I have a good collection of geology papers describing the range and surrounding areas.  But the Capitans are the subject of an upcoming blog...

On the second weekend of my vacation, the PBOC (Permian Basin Outing Club) was running a trip to the Davis Mountains, to scale Texas' "real" second-highest mountain, Mt Livermore, at 8,378'.  Guadalupe Peak is Texas' highest mountain, and #2, 3 and 4 are subsidiary peaks to Guadalupe.  In my mind, those don't count and Mt Livermore is the actual #2 highest in Texas.

Logistically, the Capitan Mts adventure worked out well because I could stop in Midland to drop Anna the dog on the way to the Davis Mts.  Livermore is part of the Nature Conservancy area there (do not know the formal name), and dogs are verboten.  

Set off for the conservancy ranch on Friday around 8 PM, which is an annoying time to drive freeways in West Texas, due to the nighttime speed limit of 65 mph versus daytime of 80 mph.  Driving the MX-5 with the trunk stuffed full of my camping supplies -- the trunk on that thing is really just a big stuff sack.  Went down I-20 to where it joins I-10 and west to the little "town" of Kent, TX, then south on 118 toward Fort Davis.  Dark, sense mountains around but can't see much of them.  Nearly missing a big buck (resulting in one second of well-deserved "hard brake"), I arrive in the camp at 11:30 PM, set up, and read a bit about the Davis Mountains Volcanic Province.  Unfortunately the papers I have with me didn't specifically address the rocks of the Davis Mt high country, but are really a more general West Texas field trip focusing mainly on sedimentary rocks to the north.  Hit the sack and slept like a rock, plenty of folks around camping, no fear of bears, a not-too-long-but-tiring-nonetheless drive behind me.

Camp.  Mt Livermore visible in far background!  13+ year-old EMS tent, zipper #2 is finally dying.

My new $30 Brunton stove works like a charm.  Why did I put up with that heavy, annoying, 

leaky, trouble-prone MSR Dragonfly all these years???

My alarm went off at 8:00 am and I hopped out of bed felling well-rested.  Most of the PBOC group slept on for another hour or so, then slowly began to creep out of tents and start the long, slow process of making and eating their breakfasts.  This group was in no hurry; one of the hazards of a club with a steadily increasing median age.  

I hopped in the Mazda and drove up the road a few miles to get cell signal.  I'd invited nine other people in two groups, but both groups ended up staying in Midland and doing other things.

Now back at camp, it was close to 9:30 am.  I talked with a few groggy PBOC campers and Malcolm, who I knew from Master Naturalist trips early this year.  Malcolm and I decided it was time to get a move on.  We packed up and started up the road, with the idea that the others would come up behind us in pickups some time later.  From camp to the upper trailhead is about seven miles.  The road is gated at five and seven miles.

Up the road toward Livermore

After walking and chatting a few miles, the pickups lumbered up the road and Malcolm and I hopped in the back of Bill's white F-150, joining Olivia and Kendall, who are both in 8th grade in San Antonio.  

Lately I've been having a lot of "I'm getting old" moments.  Recently my doctor told me I could stand to lose 10 pounds.  He's right; I've gone from 135 lbs all through university to 145 lbs in Houston (Lebanese food) to 150 last summer in Midland, to 160 recently.  Also as I've mentioned before that many of the things I own, such as camping equipment, are over a decade old.  Example: my recently-discarded 11-year-old tube of chapstick (it finally went bad...).

Olivia, Kendall, Malcolm and I talked as the truck bounced along the high-clearance dirt road.  Malcolm is the kind of guy who makes much of his own camping/hiking/photography equipment out of things like duct tape, string and tupperwares.  One of the girls referred to his unique setup and I made the joke that Malcolm's middle name is actually "Macgeyver".  Two 13-year-old blank stares greeted my attempted joke.  In the following silence, I reflected on the fact that I am closer to 3x their age than 2x their age.

Thanks for making me feel old, girls.

At the first gate "5 mile", some of the group bailed out of the trucks to do the "long hike" to the top and back -- about six miles round trip.  Five of the trucks continued to the upper trailhead, and the rest of us were left to hike up the road, following in their dust.

Richard, group leader, president PBOC, in a more dignified moment.

Up, up, up.  I never complain about hiking uphill.  Downhill is no fun.  Still, the road was gravelling and rocky and slippy, and the tread on my 3-year-old Sportiva hiking books is worn down to almost nothing.  

Nearing the upper reaches of Mt Livermore, the view began to open up in all directions.  The summit area of Livermore is dominated by a few fins or ridges of resistant volcanic material.  Close-up it is porphyritic and looks intermediate in composition.  I couldn't immediately see if these were flows or intrusions.  I think the age is around 37 Ma: another major Tertiary magmatic feature covering up and/or punching through the older sedimentary rocks of West Texas and SE New Mexico.

View of one of the volcanic fins near Mt Livermore summit

Past the upper trailhead I continued up the road.  I had been walking with the group but at this point I went ahead quickly up several steep, loose sections of road.  I started overtaking stragglers from the group that had ridden in the trucks to the upper trailhead.  After a mile or so, the summit fin of Livermore towered 150' or so overhead.  The trail continues to the right, around to the west (?) side of the summit fin, where a cairn marks a sharp turn toward the left and up the dark brown and purple volcanic rock.  A 30-foot scramble from here brought me to the top.

Radio towers atop Mt. Livermore, Davis Mountains, Texas

The views were pretty amazing, and it wasn't too terribly hazy.  I spent an hour or so munching on snacks, sitting around the sun and talking to PBOC hikers and people from another group who were also atop the peak.  And taking the same photos over and over again...

View to SW

Pretty much the same view, shifted slightly left

View to west; Richard's back; new members Jeremiah and Chelsea

View to west; last to arrive but everyone made it!  Andy, seated right, and Malcolm "Macgeyver", seated.

View to S

 

Similar view as two above but mountains in shade now and foreground different

Rock fin to the north of the peak of Mt Livermore

View SE

On the ridge, heading down

I hiked down as part of the lead group.  When five of us made it to the upper trailhead, Bill drove us back to camp.  

I packed up the Miata and headed north, down 118 for home.  I did notice I was a little low on fuel...  The Miata holds only 10 gallons and it's easy to run low.  My options were to go south, to Fort Davis, where I knew there was fuel -- but that was out of my way.  Instead I continued north toward I-10, where my GPS told me there was a gas station in Kent, where 118 meets I-10.  Alas, when I got to Kent, with my low-fuel light blazing orange for the previous 30+ miles, I found the Chevron station permanently closed, abandoned, crumbling.  No Trespassing or Loitering!  I parked the car, considered my options, and ended up calling roadside assistance and waiting an hour and a half for a wrecker driver from Pecos to bring me fuel.  I didn't technically run out of fuel, but I bet I had only five miles or so left.  After I got my fuel I hopped back on I-10 east and, sure enough, about five miles down the road, perched atop a little hill, was an open Chevron station.