Field Notes:
3rd Location at Dry Falls: Longitudinal Grooves
Sunday, October 14th 2012
Audio:
Very quiet
Almost (but not quite) far enough from the highway not to hear it
Voices of other teams are heard but they are not in sight
Weather/Atmosphere:
Overcast, with slight rain, cold and windy
Measurement:
150 feet or less
15-20 feet deep
Composition:
Mostly light yellow dry grass inside groove
Rocks and stone dispursed
Mostly rock and ever-present shrubs outside of groove
Cattle feces
Fallen leaves and branches inside groove
Colors:
Red-purple, green-gold, yellow-white, gray-gold, brown, tan, pea green, bright yellow spores
Lots of dark brown
Yellow is a recurring theme
Texture and Shapes:
Rocks are generally rough and uneven
The area and the groove itself are not straight (more zig-zag)
Culture:
Cattle feces, no cattle in sight
Jeep tire marks
The ground is now dry but there are depressions in mud where cattle have walked, jeep has driven
As always, power line in the distance
Other notes:
Wind is more prominent here than on the bottom of the plateau
Rocks here currently look wet
Unlike the rocks, the grass growing here still looks very dry
We are now seemingly level with the museum building
The jeep lines almost accentuate the longitude of the groove
We spent a long time looking for this location: “Looking for longitudinal grooves…” was driven into my mind as a search object and now I am noticing lines in everything
Cattle feces in combination with the dry grass makes me feel like I am in the country, like a farm niche
Outside of the niche are the broken rock surfaces and sage shrubs to remind me of where we are
Very different places, outside and in
Smell of hay
The cows (judging from their hove marks) seem to have followed the already present jeep trail, just as we followed cattle and deer paths much of our way here
The presence of birds has diminished
Most barren, least active of the 3 locations