Pike's Peak

    As part of this class I thought it would be fun to take my daughter over to red rocks.  I thought it must be a great place to find some igneous rocks, with how big and weathered some of those formations were.  Unfortunately for me I discovered quickly that the red rocks were in fact sandstone and therefore sedimentary rocks.  This became much clearer when examining the formations up close, as you can clearly see the  made from the erosion of the ancient rocky mountains according to the information plaques in the park.
  Now, you would think that I would do a little more research before heading out again, but instead I decided to just head down and take a family trip to the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.  Low and behold, according to the park information booths and posters, Garden of the Gods was in fact also sandstone created from the erosion and weathering of the ancient rocky mountains.
  Not to be deterred, the family and I decided to try head over to Pikes Peak, which thanks to the unusual lack of precipitation in the area this winter was no problem.  We didn't go up the entire mountain, however we did run across some interesting looking rocks that had the color of the sandstone in Red Rocks Park, but a much different texture and appearance.  It was much more course grained than the sandstone.  I didn't think to bring any of the lab kit tools, and since my knowledge of minerals is still very elementary, I could not for sure say what type of minerals it was most made of.  I can however say from the coloration that feldspar (according to our textbook) had to make up a large part of rocks.  Further research after some prompts from the information centers in Pikes Peak lead me to find out that it is in fact known as Pikes Peak Granite.