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Vent: My whole weekend field trip got washed out by a freak storm in the Mojave.
We drove six hours to map a specific basalt flow, and a flash flood turned the whole access road into a river of mud. I spent two days in a motel in Barstow watching the Weather Channel instead of collecting samples. Has anyone else had a key geology trip completely ruined by weather?
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jessica9216mo ago
Look at it as a free lesson in desert hydrology, honestly. You got to see a real flash flood event in action, which is way more rare than that basalt flow. The mud on that road is a sample all by itself, telling you exactly what gets moved during a storm. Sometimes the best data comes from the trip that falls apart.
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the_jenny6mo ago
Ugh, that sounds so frustrating. Honestly, I used to think a little bad weather was just part of the job, but getting totally shut out like that is a different story. I had a whole stratigraphy project get snowed in for a week once, and it completely changed how I plan trips now. Tbh, watching the Weather Channel from a motel is the worst kind of field work.
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emmamason5mo ago
Right there with you, the motel Weather Channel loop is a special kind of defeat. @jessica921 is right though, that flash flood is a solid data point, you just have to be in the right headspace to see it.
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