Lehigh University Athletics
The Traveling Man
7/14/2008 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
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Greg Mortka, a rising senior on the Mountain Hawks baseball team, is in the midst of a summer he’ll never forget. Mortka recently returned from a cross country trip to
Overall
My first entry comes exactly a week after my departure from Lehigh as I continue my journey out west. My only expectations for this trip were to learn how to be a better geologist and have fun meeting new people along the way. In only a week we have reached our first multiple day campsite in the Badlands,
The Badlands contains a range of clay mountains, which is very unusual. It gives the place a distinctive look though and I was in awe of it for the first few hours I was there. I just stared in amazement of this place I had never heard of. This was until, in the matter of minutes a storm with sustained winds of up to 60 mph rolled in. After spending 45 minutes holding my tent down to keep it from blowing away I decided to break it down and spend the night in the vans we were driving on the trip. I was actually very comfortable until everyone else showed up at about 4 am due to an advisory for baseball sized hail that had been forecast. Luckily those never came and we continued our night of sleep after about an hour in the vans. We spent most of the next day and a half climbing these mountains and generally exploring the origin and remains of what had been in this place originally.
Devil's Tower,
Devil's Tower is a volcanic intrusion that cooled as it emerged from the ground it was encased in. Its appearance is due to its cooling upward as well as out to the side, creating joints that are generally hexagonal called columnar jointing. It stands about 5,000 feet higher than the ground it sits on. Being at the base was amazing; looking up and realizing that it was once underneath the ground I was standing on. It is also a very sacred Native American area of worship. They believe that it had risen from the ground to protect seven children playing amongst the area when a large bear tried to attack them. The land rose from the ground around it and the bear jumped at them clawing the sides of this rock. They believe this is how the columnar jointing was made. While we were in this area we also stopped at
We arrived in Pinedale amidst terrible weather as most of the first two weeks were. Here we camped just beside a glacial lake that was over 600 feet deep at parts. We were here for a week and it was the first of three camps that we would be at for an extended period of time. While we were here we hiked glacial moraines, which are essentially mountains created when huge glaciers push the ground they are moving through to the sides. We mapped these to attempt to understand the history of the area that we were camping in. Just a side story to what we were doing. The third day of mapping is a day that will live in infamy. Our goal was to first hike up a large moraine on one side of the lake and eat lunch there and hike across a large flat area to yet another moraine on the other side. Once we reached the top of the first moraine, a hail storm ensued. We had been experiencing horrible weather and this was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. When we realized we still had a long hike and another moraine to climb people were on the brink of revolt. As we climbed down the first moraine into the valley the hail turned to rain. All the time it is rather cold and windy outside. As we reached the other side we were scattered. As I reached the second stop it began to snow golf ball sized flakes. Just after this we realized one of the other people with us had fallen due to hypothermia, needless to say we were pulled out of the field wet, cold, and not in a very good mood. Everything worked out OK and the trip continued with no other incidences like this one. This was a memorable moment on the trip and I thought I would share it with you.
This was our last stop on our trip out west. This was the least geologically eventful part of the trip in my opinion. The most memorable part of this stop was spending time with the entire camp in town, singing karaoke and enjoying our last few days together as a group. I'm still in contact with some of the people that I met there and we plan on meeting again in the middle of August back at Lehigh. The camp was overall a lot of fun and the people I met were good people and I was glad to get to know them. Our trip home only took two days; we drove for 36 hours straight at one point and then another 24 after an 8 hour rest stop. I took the 8 pm to 3 am shift keeping the driver up both nights we were driving. That was a lot of fun, but also sort of difficult. It was nice to return to Lehigh and all in one piece.
