Monday, May 31, 2010

May

Through a complicated series of events I flew back and picked up the the van in St. George, UT, not Colorado. I had several days to explore the area before setting off. This is Snow Canyon.


It has great examples of petrified sand dunes (Kayenta Formation), lava flows and Navajo Sandstone.


Being near the south border of Utah at the start changed my trip plans significantly. I decided to drive up the 'steps' of the Grand Staircase. It rises 6,000 feet from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in five alternating plateaus and cliffs, exposing over 200 million years of geologic history.

This is the Colorado River cutting into the Kaibab Uplift (Kaibab limestone - Permian, 245 million years old) which is geologically the same as the top of the north rim about 50 miles downstream. Behind it are the first two cliffs. The short Chocolate Cliffs (Moenkopi Formation - Triassic, 200 myo) and the taller Vermillion Cliffs (Moenave and Kayenta Formation - Lower Jurassic, 165 myo) behind.


Another view of the Vermillion Cliffs. This is a site where California Condors are released from captive breading. Their numbers declined until it was decided in 1987 that the only way to save them from extinction was to capture them -- only 22 birds were left at that time. Now, of 384 living individuals, 188 are in the wild. (I saw one last year in Zion National Park while hiking -- with a 2.5 - 3 meter wing span, it's an impressive sight.)


National Monument and Bureau of Land Management areas allow dispersed camping, which, around here, means you are by yourself.


The White Cliffs (Navajo Sandstone - Upper Jurassic, 145 myo).


I drove up north through the Grand Staircase National Monument along the East Kaibab monocline -- known as the Cockscomb. Miles of dirt road.


The Grey Cliffs (Dakota Formation - Cretaceous, 100 myo) with the Pink Cliffs (Claron Formation limestones - Tertiary, 60 myo) in far distance.


The Pink Cliffs -- best viewed at Bryce Canyon National Park. All this is capped by the Paunsaugunt Plateau, less than 1 myo.


From Bryce I drove back into Arizona, across Nevada and to Santa Barbara, CA, to pick up my daughter from college. The real goal of the drive was to take a week trip bringing her home for the summer. It was a great time traveling together.

First destination was Yosemite (she hadn't been before), then up part of the Oregon coast. Mountains, water, green, cool, were all great after the desert.

This is the Fallen Monarch of the Mariposa Giant Sequoia Grove -- it fell over 300 years ago after standing for a couple thousand years! It's first picture is from 1899 with U.S. Cavalry officers and their horses up on top.


Long exposure from Tunnel View well after sunset.


Lots of water coming over the falls, standing in the meadows, and flowing down the Merced.



Watching the climbers on El Capitan gives you get an idea of the size of the granite cliffs. Six climbers here on 'The Nose', a 2900 feet, multi-day climb. You can see the lights of their hanging camps at night.


When I returned, I put the last layers of carbon on the ruder. I had left it with two non-overlaping layers and the uni. I put a layer down the leading edge to tie these together, an extra layer under where it sits in the rudder case, and then wrapped the whole thing in a continuous final layer. Here it is untrimmed, just out of the bag. Fairing and paint sometime in the future.


The centerboard ready for shaping.


From my experience with the rudder I was less worried about making two passes with the router to separately mark elevations and then remove material. Given its larger surface, it was easy to remove each step in one or two passes.

Flat contour of the trailing edge with resin groove exposed.


Rounder shape of leading edge.


There's not much left of that top layer of Corecell, but without a uniform top layer this technique wouldn't work.

You can also see how I relieved the forward edge, which remains in the case. This was noted by Menno and addressed by Ian in an update. I estimated the angle of the hull at this offset location from the full-size pattern of the bulkhead just forward from the case.

Cutting carbon after final sanding and routing of groove for uni on first side.


I proceeded with the other side and its first layer of carbon in a similar fashion.