On the road in California 3 - tafoni yet again

I’ve done a couple of posts on tafoni, the exotic and wonderful natural
sculpturing of, commonly, sandstones. As I was putting together the piece on the
ways in which Gaudi
was inspired by natural forms, I came across photographs of the spectacular
tafoni in the El Corte
de Madera Creek Open Space Preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San
Mateo, and I later realised how easy it would be to incorporate this into the
itinerary for our final day wandering around the ever-alluring state of
California. A little more than a mile hike through the woods brings you to the
outcrop (having taken careful notice of the instructions on what to do when
confronted by a mountain lion – I particularly liked the advice that, if
necessary, you should “fight back”). Then there it is amid the trees, a great
rounded knob of the thirty million year old Vaqueros Sandstone, the unevenly
distributed calcium carbonate cement stimulating the natural processes of
weathering to create their art, exploiting the softer, less cemented sandstone
beneath the outer crust; there is a viewing platform and a very well
put-together explanation. The tafoni are extraordinary and diverse – I shall
simply leave the photos to speak for themselves. SIGNATURE

Comments

Marian Fortunati (2009-06-04):

Beautiful…
It seems there is nothing man can create that can compare with what is there naturally.
I would like to visit. Thanks for the heads-up!!

Sandglass (2009-06-04):

I agree - but sometimes it also seems like a continuum - nature as medium, muse, and inspiration for man.
This location is indeed well worth a visit!

Originally published at: https://throughthesandglass.typepad.com/through_the_sandglass/2009/06/on-the-road-in-california-3-tafoni-yet-again.html