The start of the trail up Monterey Peak: I haven’t hiked a trail like this in a long time. A really long time. Its only 2 miles long, but with two sections of 20+ grades, it is far more than I was ready for, and probably more than I should have tried to do. Nevertheless, once I start, I don’t often quit… even if I should. So up I slogged, head scanning for wandering copperheads and singing birds alike. I saw interesting geology, this is a pretty complex area.
Technically, the Valley and Ridge Province of the Appalachians is an ancient folded series of sedimentary beds of the coastal province before the Appalachians began to form. In the Alleghany Orogeny, some 250 to 300 million years ago, a continental collision between Euramerica and Gondwana (two super continents) formed one giant continent, Pangaea. In the process, the sedimentary rocks along the edges were greatly deformed, raising mountains as high as the current day Himalayas! Time has deeply eroded those mountains, leaving our gentle, generous Appalachians. Boy is that a simplification of the process, but if you want any more info, just look up Appalachian Mountain Geology. You’ll get an eyeful!
So most of the rocks of the V and R should be sedimentary, and indeed are…but I saw gneiss and slate as well as quartzite and greenstone, none of which classically belong to this province. Greenstone. Now, that was not what I expected after reading up on the South Mountain Province. Greenstone is a rock pushed up from great depths during a colllision involving island arcs being squished between two continents. Think Pacific Northwest. Think California weird coastal mountains. I could see finding it in the Blue Ridge, but not expected in the Valley and Ridge. But there it was, innocently laying there for me to see. Tiny, eroded. Dark and mysterious. Green.
I really look forward to learning more about the geology of this area….like all mountain ranges, there are always surprises, always new things to learn. I cut my geologic teeth on Appalachian geology (though in the southern High Appalachians) but there’s still so much to be learned here. So much to see. I will leave you with some of the beautiful scenery I saw along that far too steep path to the crest of Monterey Peak!
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