It was a lovely wee adventure...regardless of what we found (or didn't find) We are spending the last few days here going back to places of interest. A few days ago (day 13) when exploring and mapping the northern section of the caldera I had noticed what appeared to be a large, deep and steep gully. From the roadside (where we were mapping at the time) I could see the land seemingly drop away about 1km away. When I pointed this out to Helen she couldn’t see it. We looked at the map and it clearly showed there to be a steep gully. Apparently I have ‘ridiculously good eyesight’ but I think it is probably more to do with the fact that I am quite used to trying to see (and avoid)cliffs when high in snow covered mountains.
Looking toward the 'gully' from the roadside... can you spot where the land in the foreground appears to drop away? From what I could see it looked as though this was a very narrow gully with steep, near vertical walls on both sides; the opposite side from where we were stood was the caldera wall. I thought this could possibly be the collapse fault and for some reason either during or after the collapse it had been pulled away from the caldera wall. If this was the case then this should be our best chance yet of finding some good structural information to map and measure. So today we decided to venture along to this gully and attempt to get down into it. The km or so between the road and this gully was in places densely vegetated. Going through this I was a million miles from the cowardly person following Lucy thorough the vegetation just a few days ago. I was still aware of the risk of snakes, but it didn’t bother me in the slightest; I was more than happy wandering through, leading the way much of the time.
Not sure what happened to my fear...but today I was more than happy to venture into the dense vegetaion! Vincent however, was still throwing rocks and bashing the hammer in fear of the snakes. It didn’t take us long to reach the edge of this gully, but we were met with disappointment when we got there. It wasn’t narrow by any standards, from the point where it looked (from a distance) as though it dropped away to the caldera wall was in fact about 400m. Even at the base it was about 150m wide.
At the base of the 'gully' it wasn't quite what we were expecting or hoping to find! Not only was it not the narrow gully it looked to be, it also wasn’t nearly as steep as it had appeared. Most disappointingly there wasn’t a decent rock surface in sight. We weren’t getting any structural information from here.
At the top of the 'gully' looking down. There wasn't any rock exposures from which we could collect some stuctural information... only a few bits of lava that is younger than any of the stuctures. Although disappointing in a geological sense, it was a great, challenging walk through some beautiful scenery. An adventure I thoroughly enjoyed. On the walk back to the car there were a few steep lava flow faces. The temptation to climb these was hard to fight, but Vincent wouldn’t allow it. His reason being that “this is where the rock pythons live!” Thankfully in less than a week now I will be enjoying the mountains in Glencoe. Seeing as there are no snakes in Glencoe I can wait until then to clamber up the rocks.