How far up we get ...

....the distance (based on the sketch of the new planned route) is over 7Km....

Here are three circular views made from Jan's panoramas...

The drive on Sol 1111 stopped early after just over 15 meters because we were driving over rough terrain and part of the rover’s suspension exceeded the allowed amount of tilt (this is not a physical limit, just a threshold in the software that tells the rover to stop and check with Earth to be safe). The rover is fine and we plan to drive again in the Sol 1112 plan. Meanwhile we are trying to decide where in the area we want to drill to maximize the science return. There are a lot of options because we’re surrounded by interesting geology!
Before we drive, we have some ChemCam observations of targets “Dakota”, “Conrad”, and “Firemoon”, plus two Mastcam mosaics of a potential drill target. I was on duty as ChemCam sPUL today, so two of the three targets are ones that I chose, which is always fun. I didn’t choose the names (someone else was quicker with the naming list than I was), but I especially like the name “Firemoon”.
After the drive, we have our standard post-drive imaging to allow us to choose targets on Wednesday. On sol 1113 we won’t have the sol 1112 data back yet, so we have some untargeted observations, including some ChemCam passive calibration measurements, DAN passive observation, and a Navcam 8-frame movie looking to the north.

....The light blue dots mark a rough outline of Curiosity's future path.

I know they are no plans to climb the mountain,

I am pretty sure someone from the team said the long term goal ( 10 years + ) was to climb to the top of the mountain, if it's possible and the rover survives long enough.

That's cool... Any plans to include that 'planned' route in your next KMZ?

any guesses as to how long have such like these sol1110 breached slope topcrust been almost but not quite just yet ready to slip? curious what process congeals the topcrust to hold it together? seems that covering is held together enough that loose sand leaks from out under.. here are a couple of crosseyes fwiw

Just that as early as Viking 1 the surface was recognized, in places, to have a "duricrust" that was much more cemented than the granular fines just beneath.

The 14-meter Sol 1112 drive completed as planned, and the rover is in a good position for contact science. There are flat areas in front of the rover that are suitable for drilling, so the Sol 1114 plan includes DRT brushing, MAHLI imaging, and APXS measurements of a target named "Big Sky." Before the arm is deployed, ChemCam and Mastcam will observe Big Sky and "Big Rock." I'm MAHLI/MARDI uplink lead today, so I was busy planning MAHLI images of Big Sky before and after brushing, making sure that the post-brush images will be well illuminated by the sun. This required working closely with the rover planners as they modeled the illumination of the target with the MAHLI placed close to it. After the imaging of the brushed spot is completed, the arm will be pushed against the potential drill targets to confirm that they can be drilled, and low-resolution MAHLI images will be taken to look at the imprints of the drill prongs. The APXS will briefly measure the chemistry of an area offset a few centimeters from the center of the brush spot, then will be placed on the center of the spot for an overnight integration.

Planning is restricted again, so we planned 2 sols of activities today. On Sol 1115, Navcam will search for dust devils, ChemCam and Mastcam will observe targets named "Heath," "Leigh," and the distant slopes of Mt. Sharp. Mastcam will also acquire mosaics of "Amanda" and the "Bagnold Dunes" toward the southwest.

thanks, i hadn't read up much on whether duricrust was seen as mostly mechanical lock, molecular adhesion, cementations by dissolved minerals, or something else entirely. I'd suspect Mars dust has very rough texture to maximize mechanical lock aspect, but im holding out hope for enough water, though we haven't spotted frost in the Sharp environs as far as i know. The dust crust here may perhaps be just mechanical/van der Waals since these are suspected to be relatively fresh deposits.

Rock remnants and Pareidolia from sol1112 Navcam excerpts presented in parellel. Seems we finally get a good view of the dark sea of dunes ahead.

I seem to remember earlier on in Curiosity mission they detected either dew or condensation/frost on a few occasions. This link is to one a few years ago: http://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/5633/...ian-surface.htm about the salts and perchlorates, as well as saying the water vap condenses...but for some reason I want to say they had taken images of what appears to be small dew drops on parts of the lander.

It’s time to drill again! After much deliberation, we have decided to try drilling the target “Big Sky” at our current location, in hopes of getting a good sample of relatively unaltered bedrock to compare with some of the altered rocks we have seen nearby.....

[...] I'm hoping that one of the accomplished contributors to this forum will create a better stitch and maybe even colorize it so we can all enjoy it properly (hint - hint)

I'm sorry to come back to this. Paul's image two posts above is on Flickr and downloads just fine. Thomas's image one post above is on Flickr, but it requires me to join Flickr to get it. What is the difference? Is it the way the image is defined on Flickr?

Phil

I was not aware of this annoyance. To prevent FlickR from asking to join it, I'll put the URL heading to full set of sizes from now on.

....GO for drilling “Big Sky” on sol 1119! The hope is that this location will provide a good sample of the “typical” rock in the area to compare with some of the interesting alteration we’ve been seeing. Along with the drilling, there will be a bunch of MAHLI documentation images of the hole from varying distances and angles....