Ralph "Tex" Mock

Ralph G. Mock was born in Prescott, AZ to Kemble (Roy) and Gilbert Mock. Ralph’s early years were spent in small mining towns in Nevada where his father worked as a miner and his mother often taught school. He was an only child and following the death of his father in 1956, he and his mother moved to Bishop, CA where he discovered downhill skiing at Mammoth Mountain. In high school, his track coach and civics teacher Dave Sharp introduced him to backcountry skiing and mountaineering in the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains. After graduating, he left Bishop to pursue a Geology degree at the Mackay School of Mines (University of Nevada – Reno), earning a BSc in 1967. He then started on his Msc degree and met his lifelong partner Linda Hadley who was an undergraduate student at Mackay. In 1969 Ralph’s student deferment was revoked, and he was off to an unplanned sabbatical in Vietnam. He served in the 101st Airborne Division as a fire direction controller for the 105mm howitzer cannons. Most of his tour was served on firebase Veghel in the A Shau Valley between 1969 and 1970. After returning from Vietnam, he completed his Msc degree in early 1972. As a celebration to commemorate his return from Vietnam and graduation, he and two friends skied roughly 200 miles along the Sierra Nevada crest from Mt. Whitney to Bridgeport, CA over the course of 49 days in the spring of 1972.

Ralph then joined Linda in Golden, CO where she was working on her MSc in Geophysics at the Colorado School of Mines. Ralph was hired by Chen & Associates Soil and Foundation Engineers as their primary geologist. He became well known in the Denver geological community and was active in the Association of Engineering Geologists throughout the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, serving as President of the Rocky Mountain Section of AEG in 1980. He worked on a wide range of projects throughout Colorado, Wyoming and Utah including dams, pipelines, planned unit developments and many ski area developments. After the sale of the company in 1987 and restructuring, he remained with Chen-Northern until 1993 when he rejoined two of the original Chen engineers at their company Hepworth Pawlak Geotechnical (H-P Geotech). He continued working as their senior geologist and served on many Denver area engineering committees and participated in numerous symposiums until retiring in 2018. His contributions to the engineering geology community, particularly the Colorado Geological Survey, included collaborations on special mapping projects such as sinkholes and subsidence in the Eagle Valley Evaporite where he co-authored several papers and field trip guidebooks, including a paper in the GSA Special Papers No. 355 collection on Late Cenozoic evaporite tectonism and volcanism in west-central Colorado. He was also recognized for his expertise with collapsible soils in western Colorado, swelling soils in the Denver metro area, mine reclamation and earthquake hazards throughout Colorado. He was committed to excellence in mapping geohazards and finding ways to mitigate their effects on engineering structures. His deep understanding of geomorphology (landforms) and hydrology gave him unusual insight into identifying geologic hazards and working with project engineers to mitigate their effects.

During the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, Ralph and Linda enjoyed square dancing and honkytonking during the week and spent most weekends in the mountains. Summer weekends were spent hiking the high peaks in the Front Range and winter weekends were spent telemark skiing in the backcountry, always followed by a tailgate beer or two. Longer weekends were spent climbing many of Colorado’s fourteeners or skiing into one of the many 10th Mountain huts in the winter with friends and family. Extended trips also included the occasional jeep/camping/beer drinking/firedancing and or skiing trip with the many lifelong friends they made while working at Chen and H-P Geotech. Ralph was also fascinated by western history, from the early exploration of the West by fur trappers, the westward expansion of the nation and on into the Indian wars, the Civil War and both World Wars. Vacations were often spent driving thousands of miles of backroads to retrace immigrant trails and visit the many forts and battlefields throughout the west. In their later years they swapped their hiking boots for a Jeep Rubicon and continued to explore and enjoy the landforms of Moab, Canyonlands, the Great Basin and the Rocky Mountains. During the past decade or so, Ralph and Linda expanded their travels to see in person the major tectonic plate boundaries throughout the world, including Iceland, Europe (the Alps), New Zealand (Mt. Cook), China/Tibet (the Himalayas) and South America (the Andes). Ralph’s lifelong passion was beer, especially craft-brewed IPAs. The revolution in craft brewing and the evolution of the sidecut Telemark ski were the two things that he was eternally thankful to have witnessed and enjoyed in his lifetime.

There will be a party to remember Ralph on August 10, 2024 from 2-7 pm at 1840 Mt. Zion Drive, Golden, CO 80401. Please RSVP to Linda at geophysica@aol.com or call (303)587-2959