Roc Doc Travel

Beartooth Highway, Montana, Part 2 Explore the high-country geology along one of America's most scenic roads!

Beartooth Highway, Montana, Part 1 Explore the spectacular high-country geology of one of America's most scenic roads!

North Cascades & Oso Landslide  See some of America's best scenery at Mt. Adams and North Cascades National Park in Washington!

California Landslides & The Great Flood of 1964 Discover where & why California has so many landslides, and learn about the biggest flood ever - the Great Christmas Flood of 1964!

Oroville Dam, California At 770 feet, this is America's tallest dam, and one of the largest earthen dams in the world. It's the cornerstone of California's water system.

Mouth of the Columbia River "Graveyard of the Pacific" Explore the biggest river on the Pacific Coast, the goal of explorers for two centuries, and the graveyard for over 2000 ships! The Columbia River is a major shipping route, and as such is lined with industrial facilities all the way to Portland. But in these green hills, even docks and warehouses look pretty good!

City of Rocks National Reserve, Idaho See two granite bodies a billion years apart eroded into spectacular towers and ridges -- on the California pioneer trail!

Yosemite National Park's Tioga Pass Road Explore the glaciated granite of the high country on the High Sierra's best road!

Best Geological Sites on the Northern California Coast - Part 3 Ferndale - Mattole Road - Cape Mendocino -   Tectonic Triple Junction - Eel River - Point Arena

Geological Sites on Northern California Coast - Part 2 Discover tectonic plate collision geology in the Crescent City region!

Northern California Coast See cool geologic sites that you may overlook otherwise!

Glacier National Park, Montana Visit one of America's most spectacular landscapes, and home to one of the world's most incredible roads!

Burney Falls, Northern California Bet you couldn't name California's most beautiful waterfall -- 129-foot hybrid river/aquifer Burney Falls between the Lassen and Shasta volcanoes!

25 Amazing Geological Places Discover the surprising facts behind 25 beautiful geological sites!

Grand Teton National Park Discover the amazing geologic story behind one of America's most scenic places!

Yellowstone Lake to Cody, Wyoming See some of the region's best scenery and geology!

Grand Canyon South Rim and Bright Angel Trail Caution:  Visiting the Grand Canyon will make you want to move out West and become an explorer and photographer!

Guatemala Volcanoes See Pacaya, Fuego, and Atitlan in this incredibly active volcanic chain!

Central Salmon River, Idaho: Autumn From Stanley to Salmon, Idaho Discover the varied scenery and why I call this America's strangest river!

Upper Salmon River, Idaho: Autumn See America's longest undammed river in its Autumnal splendor!

Yosemite Up High Yosemite National Park as seen from Glacier Point

Medicine Wheel, Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming Visit the millennia-old, mystical religious site 9600 feet up in the Bighorn Mountains

Lassen Volcanic National Park Visit this highly under-rated active volcano in northern California!

Mt. Rainier: Sunrise You've got to see the big volcano's east side! Visit Sunrise on the park's highest road. The sun rises on Mt. Rainier.

20 (or so ) Awesome  Places in  Idaho and Montana Sometimes the places I explore don't fit into one particular field trip, so I put them into a post like this. Enjoy! Eastern Idaho The Snake River where it enters its namesake Snake River Plain in eastern Idaho. The river here is a hybrid braided and meandering -- meandering because of the low topography, and braided because of its seasonal heavy sediment load. The current is fast enough for terrific fishing and boating, but slow enough to be easy. Location: between Rigby and Ririe, Idaho.

12 Cool Geologic Sites,  Western U.S. This is another collection of photos of great geologic sites that don't fit into other field trips. This collection is from Montana, Oregon, Washington, and California.

Vaiont Dam, Dolomite Mountains, Italy This landslide pushed a reservoir over Europe's tallest dam and killed over 2000 people in 1963. 

Burgess Shale, Yoho National Park, British Columbia Visit the world's most important fossil quarry!

20 Cool Geology Photos Mostly on the U.S. West Coast Some of the pictures I take while traveling don't fit neatly into distinct field trips, so I'll group them into posts like this. They still tell the fascinating story behind the scenery!

Belize Belize is home to the largest reef in the northern hemisphere! It's an inexpensive, friendly subtropical paradise - and they even speak English, so what are you waiting for? We'll explore the reef, float through an underground river, and visit a unique jungle zoo.

25 (or so) Cool Geology and Landscape Photos A A curious traveler at 10,100 feet in the Lemhi Mountains of central Idaho. The high slopes and valleys were glaciated in the last ice age. The near bedrock is Paleozoic continental shelf limestone, silt, and shale.  The far mountains are Eocene (about 40 million year old) volcanic rocks. Wherever I travel, I take a lot of pictures. Not all of them fit into any particular field trip, so it occurred to me to post them in a "trip" of their own!

Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho Visit America's best preserved volcanic features at Craters of the Moon National Monument in the middle of Idaho -- cinder cones, spatter cones, fissures, tree molds, pahoehoe and a'a lava flows, and of course awesome lava tubes! There's something for everyone!

Mt. Etna Volcano, Sicily, Italy Visit Europe's highest and most active volcano, Etna on the island of Sicily. And see how the people of Catania have lived with their lava-spewing neighbor for more than two millennia!

Yellowstone SW, Early Spring Madison River, Firehole River, Grand Prismatic Spring, Old Faithful Come see Yellowstone like few see it - in early Spring before the grass turns green, before the animals completely lose their winter coats, and before the crowds arrive. This trip covers southwestern Yellowstone from West Yellowstone to Old Faithful.

Guadalupe Mountains and the National Park, Texas and New Mexico Visit the best preserved ancient reef on Earth!

Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Part 2 These stalactite blades are just fascinating! When I was a boy I pictured what it would be like to be here in an earthquake. Chop! Chop! 

Car lsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico Explore this giant cavern network that developed in an ancient reef!

Salmon River, Idaho Early Spring Tour North America's longest undammed river, the Salmon in Idaho, from its headwaters to the canyon where Lewis and Clark had to give up and turn around. In this trip, we'll see it in early Spring when the snow has just melted off the lower valleys but still caps the peaks. I'll take you there in Summer and Fall in later trips.

Buffington Window, Nevada Explore this scenic geologic wonder just 32 miles NE of Las Vegas, Nevada, next to Valley of Fire State Park.

Mexico City A Geologic Perspective See what happens when you build a city on a lake and pump out the water!

Venice Subsidence and Flood Control As one of the world's most beautiful and historically important cities, Venice is certainly worth saving.  What is being done, and at what cost?

Venice, Italy Isn't it about time you checked this one off your bucket list?  Visit Venice, Italy and see how one of the world's most beautiful and historic cities lives with subsidence and perilously high tides.

Banff National Park, part 2 This place will exhaust your vocabulary!

Banff National Park, part 1 When you visit Banff National Park bring a thesaurus, or you'll run out of synonyms for "WOW!"

Kananaskis Trail, Highway 40 In addition to having some of the best mountain scenery in North America, the Kananaskis Trail (highway 40) south of Banff is a Mecca for geologists.  Take a road trip to see this world-class scenery through the eyes of a Geologist!

San Andreas Fault, San Francisco Area Take a day trip to see California's most famous geologic feature in the San Francisco area!

Bucketlist Trip: Pompeii I didn't expect it to, but visiting Pompeii affected me deeply.  I don't look at ancient calamities the same way any more.

The Frank Slide, Alberta Come see Canada's deadliest landslide, one of the biggest and most accessible rock avalanches anywhere -- the Frank Slide in Alberta.  It even has its own visitor center!

Lemhi Mountains, Idaho Upcoming posts in 2019-2020 will include: USA :   More about Yellowstone and its neighborhood (several trips) The Alps of Switzerland (several trips) Geology of The Matterhorn Geology of Germany's Rhine River In the Footsteps of William Smith - Geology of England Geologic sites in England Geologic sites in Scotland Newberry Caldera   Donner Pass Bryce Canyon National Park the Wasatch Front, Utah Wind River Mtns Wyoming The Sinks State Park, Wyoming Hamilton Dome, Montana ... and more! Pompeii, Italy Tidbits to Wet Your Appetite: Some of the best things to visit at Yellowstone are outside the park -- I'll show you! The Cascades volcanoes are a lot more dangerous than they look.  It is nearly certain that you will see another eruption or two there during your lifetime. There is a chunk of oceanic crust and mantle sitting along the Smith River in northern California! The lower half of The Matterhorn in Switzerland is oce...