kareina

On Friday evening, just before leaving for the day, one of my colleagues mentioned to me that two of them would be heading on a field trip on Monday, and would I like to join them? For that sort of question there is only one answer possible, and I was given this much advance information: Meet the other colleague at the Milan Central train station when she arrives from Geona at 07:40 on Monday to catch the 08:00 train to Como, where we will meet the first colleague, get in a car, and head to the field.

So I did. clovis_t accompanied me for the walk to the train station, and for the ride up to Como, where we went our separate ways for the rest of the day--he to explore Como and then board a train for Lugano, in Switzerland (he'd never been to Switzerland before) before returning to Como in the evening to meet us at the station again.

I joined my two colleagues and a new graduate student for our adventure. This was mostly a reconnaissance trip, to introduce the student to his field area. We first drove for about an hour along the western shore of the lake to Gravedona, where we stopped at a sore to pick up some stuff for lunch, and then went up hill from there,
first to Dossa del Liro, then on to Caiaso. At our first stop we walked a short way up the gully and spent a pleasant hour looking at the various metamorphic rocks which have been dropped there by the stream in its rush to the lake, mostly to familiarize the student with the many lithologies which are present in his field area, but mostly to introduce he and I to the ( peridotite ) so that if we were fortunate enough to find it "in place" later, we'd recognize it. We had along a copy of a 1968 paper which documents peridotite from the valley we'd be hiking in, but none of my colleagues were quite certain where in the valley we'd find it.

The hike itself was wonderful--it was a lovely day. Sure, it was hot, but it has been hot every day since I arrive in Milan, so I'm coping better, and I don't think it was quite as hot at that elevation (the sign at the trail head said 1000 meters) as it has been in the city. Driving up the hill to the trail head I kept seeing lovely old stone houses, and was delighted that there was one at the trail head, and quite a number of them ( along the trail. ) Some of the cottages have obviously been abandoned and are in poor repair, but one of the houses has a solar panel on the roof, so I think that one is still in use today.

Walking up the valley we stopped to admire various rocks, such as the ( garnet migmatite ), which is a metamorphic rock which went so far down a subduction zone that the pressure (and heat too) caused partial melting. We also admired some lovely ( folds in the rocks ) We hiked far enough up the valley to reach a tiny ( glacier ) which is surrounded by beautiful ( peaks ).

But before I actually reached the snow-patch, I got distracted by some truly yummy ( wild strawberries )

All in all it was a wonderful day, and I am so very glad I went. It was a joy to get out of the city, and to see some mountains! It was interesting listening to the various lectures on the rocks given in Italian, as there are a number of geologic terms which are the same (or close enough to the same) in both languages, so I was able to understand more of those talks than of the random conversation bit that were scattered across the day. (Though both of my colleagues speak English and remembered to include me in conversations on a regular basis). There are more photos from the day in my Facebook album for those of you who are interested...