Placed with permission from Domeland Wilderness. Park on Chimney Peak Rd at the listed trailhead coordinates. Hike due west along the dirt road until it ends. Continue hiking up to the ridge where the cache is located. Areas to the southwest of the trailhead waypoint are private property. If any artifacts are found, leave them where they are and report it to the Bureau of Land Management. This is a wilderness area, so any trash needs to be taken out with you. (Cache In, Trash Out).
While hiking to Canebrake Overview, I stumbled upon this formation. Originally, the rock vein looked so uniform that I wondered if this was ancient masonry. It was only when I tried to figure out why someone would build a structure here that I noticed it went further into the rock. Mother nature was the architect of this masonry!
This vein formed during the very last stages of solidification. The granite around it solidified but there was a little bit of liquid rock left. The pressure in the magma chamber was so great that the granite hydro-fracked (just like in oil!) and then the last bit of liquid rock solidified in the crack and became a vein. The Sierra granite doesn't exhibit much deformation/tiliting, so this vein originally formed vertically.
Logging Requirements
In order to mark this cache as found, send answers to the questions below.
- List the name of this earthcache
- Estimate the thickness and height of the vein in the exposed granite rock.
- Are there signs of the vein outside of the exposed granite rock?
- There is another vein on the east side of the rock. Is this vein similar to the main one? How thick is this vein?
- In your Found log, post a photo showing you were at the site.