Jessie's First Climb Traditional Cache
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(regular)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
Located on a slightly steep out crop of Red Bluff Granite, where I took my dog for his first climb out here.
I chose this area for two reasons. First, this is where I took my dog for his first hike. I figured he was a big softie, so I did not think he would follow me. I was making my way up the slope, when much to my surprise, he followed me right up to the top, leaving my wife at the bottom. Second, this is an outcrop of Red Bluff Granite, one of the most beautiful rock formations in the Franklins. Here is an excerpt from;
A BRIEF GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE
EL PASO-JUAREZ (ELP-J) REGION.
The oldest rocks in the El Paso-Juarez area were deposited along the shoreline of a shallow tropical sea. Oldest of these is the Castner Formation which is exposed in a number of places along the eastern slopes on the east side of the Franklin Mountains. These rocks record deposition of lime-rich muds. Later, they were metamorphosed into marble.
Overlying the Castner Marble is a thin basalt flow known as the Mundy Breccia. It is, in turn, overlain by a thick sequence of quartz sands which have been metamorphosed to the Lanoria quartzite. Many features of the Lanoria are similar to those seen in modern beach systems such as the Texas Gulf near Padre Island. This quiet scene ended abruptly about 1.1 BY ago by an extended period of geologic disruption and violence. Chief of the destructive processes was magmatism -- intrusion of great volumes of molten rock. Magmas were silicon-aluminum rich and produced six varieties of granitic rocks, collectively called the Red Bluff Granite. Magmas intruded into the Castner, Mundy, and Lanoria formations, heated them, and sometimes ripped chunks of these rocks from the magma chamber walls. These chunks formed structures called xenoliths within the solid granitic rocks. At some time, some of the granitic magma breached the earth's surface to initiate a series of volcanic eruptions. These eruptions included pyroclastic ash-flow tuffs (the sort of eruption that destroyed the ancient city of Pompeii in 79 AD) as well as numerous lava flows. Collectively, these volcanic units are called theThunderbird Group.
Now that the history lesson is over, get out there and enjoy a nice hike with your most faithful best friend, and we hope to see pics of them at the top with you!!
A permit was granted by Texas State Parks and Wildlife for this cache, and it is on file at Franklin Mountain State Park Headquarters.
Original Items Include; 1st. A.D. Patch, American Flag Patch, Guitar Pic, And a unique FTF prize!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
V ybbx fyvtugyl bhg bs cynpr, abg pbzcyrgryl ng gur gbc. Xrrc lbhe rlrf crryrq ng TM naq gnxr n ybbx qbja!!
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures