As one of the rotating images within its website header teases, what has 72 feet, covers 3,000 miles in 16 days, can earn 3 graduate hours of credit, and is more fun than summer vacation when you were a kid?

The answer is G-Camp, an outreach program for teachers offered through the Department of Geology and Geophysics in the College of Geosciences at Texas A&M University. As the ultimate in immersive summer extravaganzas, the two-week camp sets off for a variety of sites across Texas, New Mexico and Colorado, teaching the principles of geology in the field by allowing participants to explore and experience first-hand the processes and environments of planet Earth from past to present.

Texas A&M Center for Mathematics and Science Education research scientist Dr. Carolyn Schroeder serves as one of G-Camp’s instructors. Prior to coming to Texas A&M, she taught earth science in Texas public schools for 30 years, earning Texas Earth Science Teacher of the Year honors in 1986. This past year, she returned to the classroom, teaching introductory geology courses at Texas A&M in addition to her duties with CMSE, which include serving as director of the Texas A&M-College Station Regional Collaborative for Science.

Our G-Camp tour guide, Carolyn Schroeder, pictured here at Otto’s Point, Colorado.

“Once you have taken a field trip with a geologist, you are hooked for life,” Carolyn says. “That’s what happened to me on my first one with Dr. Mel Schroeder back in 1974, and I continue to love learning about geology and sharing that love with others, both through the classes and workshops that I teach and by informal means as well.”

Consider this your two-part vicarious pictorial education, courtesy of Carolyn and G-Camp 2014! While you’re waiting for Part 2, feel free to stop and smell/see the flowers Carolyn experienced along the way and/or follow the group on Facebook for bonus pictures and information, if not points.

In the Beginning: Hiking in Palo Duro Canyon in a place aptly named — Canyon, Texas. Beautiful scenery and not as hot as I would have expected in mid-July!

A lizard lounges in Palo Duro Canyon.

The Teepee Buttes northeast of Pueblo, Colorado, formed by methane seeps when this area was at the bottom of the sea during the Cretaceous.

From the top of Pike’s Peak. We came through hail and are in clouds, so not much view from here. But lightning all around caused people’s hair to stand up.

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

This flat lander is reminded of the importance of abundant oxygen in the atmosphere. As we do some hiking through Garden of the Gods, I run out of stamina quickly, but it is so beautiful. The once-flat sedimentary layers (sandstone and shale) were uplifted by the igneous intrusion that formed Pike’s Peak and, after exposure to the elements over millions of years, have eroded into these lovely formations.

We could actually see Pikes Peak this morning! It’s beautiful and cool as we travel through the mountains toward Twin Lakes and then on to Leadville. We are traveling through terminal, recessional and lateral moraines formed at the end of the Ice Age about 10,000 years ago.

Twin Lakes, Colorado, dammed up by recessional moraines.

Our lunch location, for my chemistry geek friends!

We just traveled through beautiful Glenwood Canyon on our way to Grand Junction for the night. The Colorado River flows through the canyon, and some places had unbelievable white water. We saw some faults, an erosional unconformity and a great angular unconformity.

Collegiate Peaks Overlook.

Today at the Collegiate Peaks overlook, a mom and dad bluebird were trying to feed their babies, and we were disturbing them. I was excited to get some good pictures since birds are not my forte. In fact, at Angelo State University, Alvin Fleury’s (a herpetologist) entire lecture on birds in my vertebrate natural history class was “Birds has feathers.”

Good morning from Colorado National Monument! I can’t believe I’ve never been here before. As Kevin Gamache says, this doesn’t suck!! The power of running water carves amazing canyons and landforms.

More Colorado National Monument, where we saw tafoni weathering, cross bedding in the sandstone (preserved sand dunes), numerous canyons, and many spectacular features formed by weathering and erosion. One of the rock formations exposed here, the Morrison, contains many fossils of Cretaceous dinosaurs!

Colorado National Monument.

Colorado National Monument.

Colorado National Monument.

Colorado National Monument.

Colorado National Monument, Serpent’s Tongue.

Colorado National Monument, Serpent’s Tongue.

The view from my back porch at the Hot Springs Inn in Ouray, Colorado, where we will be for the next several days. What I can’t reproduce for you is the sound of the river over the rocks!

A series of breathtaking views from our hike down to Otto’s Point in Colorado National Monument.

Our G-Camp tour guide, Carolyn Schroeder, taking in the view.

A robin at the edge of the snow pack at Silver Basin and Yankee Boy Basin.

And a doe grazing.

We took a jeep trip up to Silver Basin and Yankee Boy Basin today. We saw glacial lakes, rock glaciers, stupendous scenery, and gorgeous wildflowers.

A river runs through it.

Streams and waterfalls.

Waterfall, closer up.

Streams and wildflowers.

Hiking among the mountains, rock glaciers, pine trees, glacial lakes, etc.

One of the beautiful glacial lakes.

Another of the gorgeous blue glacial lakes.

Ever wonder where they got their ideas for Indiana Jones? This is just above Ouray!

What a day! Another jeep trip, this time to Red Mountains and Silverton. The lake is Lake Como. We got rained on and hailed on and nearly froze this afternoon but it was a great day. I found a huge piece of rhodonite which is a pink stone found up in the mountains.

Bird’s/armadillo’s eye view of Lake Como.

Lake Como is a tarn, or glacial lake. Although the glacier is no longer there, the lake still exists.

Lake Como’s temperature is a chilly 12 degrees Celsius — brrr! Its beautiful color is due to refraction of sunlight by suspended sediments (silts and clays, or “rock flour” ground fine by the glacier) in the water.