GC1KHFV Boulders Boulders Everywhere
Type: Earth | Size: Other | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: vorticity @ | Hide Date: 01/06/2009 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N39° 01.367 W105° 01.244 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0
               

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Just a hundred feet or so off paved Rampart Range Road up a steep trail.

How did all these boulder fields form?

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If you do much hiking to the North and North-Northwest of Pikes Peak, you will come across boulder fields with rocks the size of houses. For 5 years I have been certain these were glacial deposits left behind after the Ice Age. I was wrong. In Colorado, these formations are unique to the Pikes Peak region—a manifestation of the “Pikes Peak Batholith.”

Pikes Peak is a solid mass of pink granite – Pikes Peak Granite that extends in a 50-mile diameter ellipse from just east of Cripple Creek, CO to west of Castle Rock, CO. It’s actually all one mountain. Not visible, the granite extends another 50 miles to the Southeast under the plains East of Pueblo

Pikes Peak Granite is pink with interlocking crystals of quartz, mica, and flat-faced white and pink feldspar. The rock also contains hornblende and biotite. The rock is “Precambrian.” It formed around a Billion years ago as a giant mass of magma that pushed and melted its way up through overlying rock. Through the Pennsylvanian period this batholith formed the core of a Precambrian Mountain range, but eroded and was covered with sedimentary rock during the Paleozoic period. There is clear evidence of this layering visible in Williams Canyon where the pink granite can just be seen in the creek bed with 5 layers of ancestral layering over top. The Pennsylvanian layers are the creamy cliffs looming above.

The erosion (conversion of rock to soil) of Pikes Peak granite can be seen anywhere you walk in the region. The mica and feldspar decompose in a chemical reaction (that also forms clay) when exposed to moisture. This loosens the quartz crystals in a sort of “swelling fashion.” Water seeps into the cracks and freezes into ice. Over time, the rock become soft … sort of “rotten granite.” It eventually falls apart into “decomposed granite” or grus, the bane of every hiker’s existence.

This process makes the rocks have rounded corners because the weathering, the erosion, attacks the rocks from three directions simultaneously. It is particularly effective on sharp corners and in cracks in the rocks. Over millions of years, jointed rock is rounded into separate boulders. The process is most prevalent where moisture is highest and temperatures are highest. So high up on Pikes Peak, where water in liquid form is available less often and lower temperatures slow chemical reactions, the rocks do not exhibit rounding (from weathering) to the extent they do at lower elevations.

There are four things you need to do to log this Earthcache:

• Define "Spheroidial Weathering" in your own words.
• From the coordinates, how many individual boulders can you count?.
• Post a photo of yourself at the site.
• Send me the answers.
• 
  

07/04/2019 By nvgoldfish
Took a drive up Rampart Range Road to Devils Head so we could hike to the Fire Lookout. Stopped to pick up this great Earthcache.

Message with Answers sent - Photo posted.

Thank you.

05/17/2019 By SipesFamily
TFTC! Answers were sent. Took some time after work to grab a cache or two. There is logging operations up on rampart range and afraid a few caches may have been lost. I love rock formations and thank you for brining me up here although it was a bit steep and slow going. Thank you for the smiley face on the cache map.

04/06/2019 By SeekDaCache
We had made plans to attend the Creation Celebration: Woodland Park Create-a-Cache Event, and stay overnight to work on our Creative Carnival Souvenirs Happily we earned all of our souvenirs early on, but decided to follow through with our plans We had a very lovely weekend in the Colorado Springs area with beautiful weather and fun caches.. We also had a great time at the event learning some new things, winning some amazing items, putting some faces to names and making some new friends!!. Me the climb up and was thinking what am I going to run into. uploading answers shortly

Thank you vorticity for placing this cache for our enjoyment.

12/03/2018 By chihuahuajill
Fun Earthcache; boy that hill was steep!! I had to come down on my butt!! Emailed answers to CO. Thanks for placing this cache for me to find. TFTC.

09/12/2018 By kiekefretter
The climb is steep, but easy. We did it early in the morning when the forest was still cool. We reached the boulders, made our observations, and moved to Rampart Reservoir where we saw many more rounded granite boulders. Thanks for this informative earthcache!

10/08/2017 By LLYN-lhvwn50
That was steep, with gruesome grus! It was very interesting to learn about the chemical weathering that creates those behemoths. My bighorn friend escaped unnoticed from my pocket on the way down and I had to go part-way back to retrieve him. Thanks for putting this earthcache together. Email sent.

07/16/2017 By Kerewin0430
Short but steep hike with RPieperCO, Button, and Marauder Jude after the Mary Hyde event! What an excellent spot to retreat to and take a moment to breathe...just off the beaten path. The kids found several nooks and crannies that they asked to explore :-) Answers and picture sent via email! Thanks for this earthcache!

07/16/2017 By RPieperCO
Thanks for the fun earthcache! Stopped here with Kerewin0430 after the event in Woodland Park. We climbed up here with the kiddos and did our best to count all the boulders and to discuss some of the weathering and erosion that created this pile. Kids might have been a little too fascinated with the lichen and moss growing on the boulders. Snapped a couple pictures and saved our answers. It makes me really sad to see graffiti on such awesome rocks. Sigh... Awesome find though! Grabbed the clue to the letter box on the way too! Thanks again for bringing us here and a fun geology lesson!

07/13/2017 By okls1596
Thanks! Those are some big rocks!

07/12/2017 By hortcacher
OKLS 1596 and I visited this site today. We went to the nearby traditional cache first, then came here. I was the leader of the pack and I think I had OKLS 1596 a little confused about where I was going and how we were getting back to the cachemobile. I had a plan, but sometimes my plans do not turn out exactly as expected. This one did turn out OK though. Thanks for. Resting and maintaining this earthcache!