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GC3KEPP
Pillows aren’t for sleepingType: Earth | Size: Not chosen 
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| Terrain:  By: Roskoe52 @ | Hide Date: 05/15/2012 | Status: Available Country: United States | State: Colorado Coordinates: N37° 20.922 W105° 03.559 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0 
Traveling east or west on US160 you junction onto CO12. Before the junction onto CO12 you have wonderful views of the East Spanish Peak, the West Spanish Peak, and the Sangre de Cristos Mts. Traveling CO12 you are virtually at the base of the West Spanish Peak. South of La Veta you are up-close and personal with dikes, sills, and of course the uplifted Dakota Sandstone that you actually drive through. You can actually touch a dike. What a sight to see and enjoy! It’s a pleasure to be here. County Road 415 off of CO12 is busy with tourist, residents, climbers, campers, or drivers taking the Forest Service road short cut to or from I-25 at Aguilar. Many people pass the road cut where the pseudo pillow basalt is seen up close and personal and never realize what they have seen. Some may pass and wonder what kind of rock that is, or make a comment that they have never seen rock that look like bubbles or pillows. There are a few who will stop at the road cut for a closer look and will promise themselves to look later in some book to explain what they saw. See Figure 1. A few miles north of the community of Cuchara on CO12 you can see North, Middle, and South White Peaks. South White Peak is about 1.5 miles northwest of the pseudo pillow basalt. The White Peaks are a very thick sill that flowed west. It is suspected that part of the larger sill spread south and west, thinning as it flowed. A sill is magma that flows horizontally forcing itself between two rock layers and spreads the layers apart. A dike is magma that flows vertically forcing itself between several rock layers that have vertical cracks. The sills are 20-22 million years of age. The magma more than likely came from the West Spanish Peak stock. There is evidence that the flow of magma that produced the bubbly pillow shapes stopped not too far away from where you are standing and looking at the pseudo pillow basalt. You may have noticed that the edge of the road on its west side drops straight down. Figure 2 shows the very steep drop-off at the edge of the road. Figure 3 shows the edge of the road and the angle of decent that is reducing. Figure 4 is about 60 feet below the road that shows the angle of descent leveling out to about 30 degrees as the slope descends to the to the valley bottom about 200 feet below the road. The magma on its westward journey forcing its way through horizontal rock layers finally lost steam and stopped. The magma and toothpaste have something in common. Have you ever noticed how the toothpaste comes out of the tube like the beginning of a bubble? Ah ha! You can see how the magma produced the bubbly shapes in the basalt from a similar squeezing process. You probably noticed that the basalt bubbly shapes seem to have one or more pillow cases around it. What store do you think the magma bought pillow cases for its pillow? Sorry, no store available. The magma did it all itself. The first magma making the bubbly magma pillow shape cooled. More magma continues to flow at tremendous pressure from its source. Sometimes it has the opportunity to flow in another direction to form other shapes. Sometimes it flows in its original direction and forces itself to flow around what had cooled, making the bubbly magma pillow case. There can be just one pillow case or several pillow cases. See Figure 5. Why are the definitive bubbly magma shapes at the Forest Service road cut? You could salute the persons who wanted a road there and used a bulldozer to form the road surface and made what is called a road cut. The nicely shaped bubbly magma pillows and some with a magma pillow case were exposed by road construction very close the where the westward flow of magma terminated. A mile or so on the road in either direction there are other road cuts that expose basalt that is roundish, but not near as good as the EarthCache location. These “pillow” are not for sleeping, but give you the opportunity to see a neat and not often seen geological formation. Look around and see what other neat geological features there are in Huerfano County. Within Huerfano County there are many sills that may have developed pseudo pillow lava. Million of years of weathering and erosion may have removed any exposed pseudo pillow lava, and/or vegetation covered it. I have traveled most all of the county and forest service roads in Huerfano County that are close to or cross dikes and sills and did not see what you are looking at on FS Road 415. It’s a pleasure to visit and live in Huerfano County. Please answer the following question and email them to me. 1 What process produced the basalt pillow case(s)? 2 There is light colored soil on top of and adjacent to both sides of the basalt sill. What are your thoughts from what or where the soil came from and what process brought the soil to this area and nearby? 3 Why do the “pillow case” layers flake off the bubbly pseudo pillow basalt?
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The Bride and I had weddings in Kansas City on June 21st and then another one in Omaha on June 29th. I told her I really wasn’t interested in driving to Kansas City and driving home for 9 hours and then a few days later drive all the way back same direction for 13 hours. So we decided we would take a mini vacation in between weddings and head to Colorado for a week. We rented a car, but little did we know the car was going to be a Cadillac sedan, and I’m thinking this is going to be my caching mobile for this trip.###So over the course of the 11 days, we visited 10 states. I was able to get 5 caches that were Year 2000 including Mingo. I was able to get the oldest cache in 3 states…Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. Colored the state of New Mexico RED and put 3940 miles on the rental car. ### This trip started out in Kansas City as the wedding was on Friday. So we cached the morning of Friday and did the Powercat challenges near Gladstone area. Loved walking the sidewalk, we did get a downpour on us, so hoped into a local spot for lunch and then once the rains lifted we went hiking again. Then went to the wedding on Friday night. Then next day on Saturday, went caching with Gnomecat, Louinliberty and Debrajean grabbing a few caches that I had handpicked out. Was great to see my KC friends for the 2nd weekend in a row after the previous week in Indiana and by the end of this trip it will be 3 weeks in a row. Had an amazing dinner at Gnomecats and enjoyed the great hospitality.Then on Sunday June 23 is where the journey begins. We headed towards Colorado Springs and grabbed Mingo on the way there. This day was about 9 hours of driving and grabbed a few caches in the Colorado Springs area before meeting up with friends in the afternoon.Monday June 24 was always going to be a big day both driving and hiking. We started it off by going to Paul Barkley (2nd 2000 year cache). Got lucky as that section of the park was closed to people on Tuesday due to electric work being done. Then from there the Cadillac took us to Geocache (3rd 2000 cache). Then after that we headed to Albuquerque, New Mexico.Tuesday June 25 we cached in Albuquerque in the morning doing a few wherigos and then headed over to the oldest cache in the state. Found the place to park and made the short hike up the hill. Then went across the way and did the Hangman hiking series. After we completed that we headed to Santa Fe to visit and then back to Colorado Springs.Wednesday June 26th, we got up and headed off to Tarryall (4th 2000 year), those that get nervous about driving well the Cadillac made it just fine. After that we headed to Pikes Peak, it opened late because the car race practice was that morning. We drove up to mile 16 and then shuttle to the top because of the renovations to the new visitor center at top. After this we are now heading back East. We get to Kansas and find Airakee and then spend the night in Kearney. I was able to watch on the phone Vanderbilt win the World Series…Go Vandy BoysThursday June 27, drive to Omaha and meet the KC crew for the 3 week in a row and we drive to Sioux Falls to get the State Bird.Friday June 28th, finish the last 21 of the Ficks Fizzy we had left. Bad news was on 61 Gnomecat fell in the ditch and went over his head in the water. The ditch had probably 8ft of water. Then headed to Omaha and did some challenges and parted waysSaturday June 29th, some light caching before wedding and then came home on Sunday 13.5 hour drive.Thanks to all the hiders. Earthcaches and Virtuals have sent answers. Challenges will either have a picture or available via public profile. Was able to leave my signature pencil in a few caches. Thanks for the cache-signed log.
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