I am as far east as I will get this summer. Roadtrip pops a U-ey at lake Michigan. I guess that means that by distance my summer is half over. Or half remaining. Nic Krueger: optimist.
Last weekend/Monday I climbed rhyolite bluffs over lake Superior. I Wikipedia'd (yes, I'm using a website as a verb) 'rhyolite' just moments ago to make sure this was a real word, not some Midwestern slang for slippery rocky stuff. It is in fact an igneous volcanic rock of felsic (silica-rich) composition. Translation: glassy, scary stuff on lead. All climbing on lake superior is chalk-free climbing and should thus be avoided when 90 and humid. The views were glorious, the breeze off the lake heavenly and the cracks shockingly satisfying. I found it difficult to wrap my traditional mind around rappelling the routes before climbing them. It was great motivation when slipping out of hand jams to know that the only way back to the car was upward. Downward led only to a small talus field follower by the largest freshwater lake in the world.
LAKES ARE COOL TIDBIT: by estimated volume lake superior is not superior. It only ranks third.
Rocks are cool tidbit: rhyolite rock is 69% silica (or SO2) and glass is 75%. Basalt weigh in at around 50 and quart is nothing but silica bound to itself at the oxygen molecule forming solid SO4.
I am a dork. These tidbits excite me.
Well, this post was actually about rocks for once. Maybe the next one will talk about climbing.
Heading back to Colorado on Sunday for some old friends and bigger rocks.
ROc
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