Summer on the Rocks By Mildred W. Green Khalil Odouli, a slight, dark-haired you man from Iran, awoke to the splendor of snow-capped peaks and towering pines tipped with sunshine. But the early-morning beauty of the Colorado Rockies left Khalil cold. Forced out of his bedroll by the clatter of pots and pans and a schedule that allowed him little sack time, he shivered his way to the chow line. With chattering teeth he warned his fellow students, "Don’t touch me … I’ll fracture." Odouli and 41 other geological engineers were enrolled in the 1965 Colorado School of Mines summer geology field course, the oldest geology camp in the West, whose roster each year is a small United Nations. A warm-blooded Iranian is not without sympathy as he bemoans how slowly the Colorado sun gets down to business. With him usually are students from Afghanistan, Indonesia, Brazil, Colombia, India, Egypt, Canada and Venezuela. Most of the United States students are from the East. For all of them, camping out in the Colorado wilderness and exploring the state’s mineral and scenic wealth is a rugged and revealing experience. While almost every school that offers a degree in geology or geological engineering sponsors a field camp, usually in the West, Mines is unique in that it is mobile. The six-week course, starting in early June, takes students more than 2,000 miles through world-famous mining districts starting in the silver-rich San Juan Mountains and winding up at Fairplay. Trail boss of the camp is Dr. Robert J. Weimer, head of the Geology Department of the School of Mines. A graduate of the University of Wyoming with a doctorate from Stanford, Weimer is a veteran of Wyoming’s field camp. "Purpose of the camp," says Dr. Weimer, "is to observe and record geology in the field, an important facet to a career in the exploration of mineral resources." He adds that it is also a short course in living and working in rough terrain. "In each of the six area we cover," says Dr. Weimer, "we give the boys a problem to solve and put them on their own. For most of them, it’s the first time in their school career they don’t have someone watching over them. It comes as a school, but it’s just a sample of what they’ll have to face on their first job after graduation." Planning the physical facilities of the camp is a large job in itself. Last year’s exceptionally large enrollment enabled a professional caterer, Hatch Farnsworth, to be hired to provide the food. Farnsworth, who operates out of Delta, Utah, specializes in serving field camps with hearty fare. Presiding of he trailer was cook Lee Sanderson, a successful prospector, akin to the vital need of hard-working "miners." The chuck wagon, stocked with the basics in Delta, followed the caravan through the hills, stopping along the way to replenish its perishables. Mines provides a large tent, folding tables and chairs, and a portable generator to supply light at night. All of this gear, plus surveying equipment, is stowed in a two-wheel trailer, which protests regularly with flat tires. Volunteers are just as regularly designated to provide repairs. Campsites are chosen in advance – a new one each week in an area convenient for many side trips. At 7 a.m. the men left for the field. The students supplied their own transportation; the professors supplied the day’s work. Sample problems: measure a stratigraphic section by compass and pace traverse; map and describe sedimentary structures for use in determining transport direction of ancient streams; map formations on aerial photographs and topographic maps by us of plane table. Lectures on special geologic features were delivered via megaphone – an effective means, also, of scattering the bighorn sheep or mountain goats that threaded to steal the show. At the close of the six weeks, the students have behind them an intensive look at Colorado’s mineral heritage, which will probably be more appreciated in retrospect. For under graduates the course carries six semester hours of credit; for graduate students, one hour. So concentrated is the work that one graduate student pleaded with Dr. Weimer to release him form the camp’s final week. "I have to rest up for my thesis," he explained. From The Mines Magazine May 1966