Epic Storm

This week I was able to experience the craziest monsoon storm I have ever seen on the Trail. It came in two parts. The first part, Jeremy my windwalk, and I were trying to out run while trying to move vehicles from drop points to Final D. Jeremy was driving behind me and said he wished he could have gotten a picture of me driving into the storm as lightening is flashing down in front of us. I must admit it was a little terrifying driving towards the lightening, but I had to get back to where the bands could reach me. As the rain began, we picked up the pace just in case the creek flash flooded and we were not yet across it. Despite the roads being little rivers of their own, we were able to get to the top of a hill for check-ins just as the rain let up. The second part of the storm came very suddenly. One minute it was pleasant and looking like a quiet evening and then the trees were whipping around us, the rain was pouring in sideways and lightening was exploding every couple seconds. It looked like a hurricane mixed with mother nature's strobe light. Jeremy and I were able to get off the top of the hill just in time, good thing becase I'm pretty sure lightening hit the hill we had been on, but we still had to stay up high in case the bands needed to radio us. At one point, I had to look down because the flashes were coming so quickly it began to make me sick. It was pretty terrifying. During the storm I made a call to Hillary, the field team member on-call, for the evening check-in. I couln't even have a conversation with her because Jeremy and I kept yelling things like "Holy crap" and "did you see that one" and "I felt the explosion." Needless to say everyone back in town was worried about all of us on the Trail.

I'm glad Jeremy and I were able to get across Cherry Creek when we did because we got a radio call from one of the girls bands telling us the creek had risen by several feet. Those poor bands got drenched. Normally everyone has to sleep under their own shelters, but some people were so cold from being wet that two or three huddled under one shelter to stay warm through the night since no one could get a fire started. Once again we were watched over by the Creator and everyone was safe.

Yes being the crazy person I am, I had to get a photo of the lightening. I have wanted a good lightening picture since I moved to Arizona 7 years ago. I did wait until the storm had moved a couple miles to the west and the rain let up before I tried getting any shots (mostly because I didn't want to stick my head out of the suburban while it was pouring).

Dust Storm

I got to see the coolest dust storm yesterday evening. It was a massive haboob, arabic name for such storms, that was 50 miles wide. I watched it from my house as it come up from the south. It was a wall of dirt and dust probably close to a thousand feet high. It was a little creepy because it was silent as it moved towards me and then it hit. There was so much dust; I could feel it in my mouth and all my clothes were covered. It got so dark that the street lights turned on. It was awesome!

How I spent my july 4th weekend

Yesterday Sam, Devin and I hiked to the highest point in Arizona. It is a mountain called Humphrey's Peak in the San Francisco Mountains above Flagstaff. It is part of an old volcano that was almost 16,000 feet high before it blew its top a few thousand years ago.

We left Tempe at 6 am and was hiking by 9 am. It is 4.5 miles one way and you gain 3500 feet in elevation. That is more elevation gain per mile than when I hiked out of the Grand Canyon. Even though its just a steady uphill climb, my knees felt it on the way back down, but I feel great today. The peak is at 12,633 feet. This means I have broken my personal highest elevation mark by over 1,000 feet which was set previously when I was backpacking in the Uintah mountains in college. I did get some altitude sickness but when it began to go from a headache to feeling neauseated, I was only a quarter mile from the top. If I was that close, I was going to summit. While at the top, we watched the monsoon clouds bring rain to the dry forests along the mogollon rim and around the mountain. Normally it is always chilly and windy at the summit, but we could not have had a better day for hiking. It was probably 75 at the summit and barely a breeze but when it did blow it felt wonderful. The thunder clouds of monsoons came in just as the sun was becoming uncomfortable but it only sprinkled on us just as we were beginning our descent and there was no lightening.

Sam, who is starting her first week as a trailwalker on wednesday, asked me to do her fire stepping and I was happy to oblige. We had the stepping at the top of the mountain. It was awesome to do that for her while looking over Arizona. I would have done her rabbitstick stepping up there as well but there were no trees for her to throw her rabbitstick at. There was alpine tundra with beautiful little wildflowers. This means the life zones of Arizona go all the way from sand dunes through the chapparal flats to juniper/pinon to ponderosa to tundra. Along the hike, I even saw fireweed and bluebells which grow in Alaska.

After the hike, we drove to Snowflake to attend the Taylor rodeo. I wore my pearl snap shirt, jeans and leather belt complete with belt buckle. I would have worn my new cowboy hat but it was already dark by the time we arrived so I didn't have a need. You could tell we were in mormon ranching country when they announced that one of the bullriders was one of the local bishops. The rodeo clown compared Obama to one of the bulls that wouldn't get out of arena. He said we got him in there but now we can't get him out. The announcer responded that we'd get him out by roping him just like the cowboys had to do to the bull. They also had fireworks before the bullriding and many people sang along with the patriotic songs including myself. I had so much fun! I wish I could go to the one on July 24 because they have a lot more silly events as well as the usual ones but unfortunately I will be on the Trail.

After the rodeo we headed home and I got back to my house about 1:30 am. It had been an eventful day and we had driven across quite a bit of the state but it was worth it. I love that places seem to be so accesible in Arizona.

Ridgewalk week of June 22

This week on the Trail started off terrific but ended a little crazy. I keep waiting for a completely mellow week but maybe then I will get bored. This week's hike took the bands up the East Verde through the Mazatzal Wilderness. A wilderness area does not have any roads through it so the bands were on their own for most of the week.

I got to spend all Thursday morning in the girls band hanging out with them and working on skills. It felt good to be in a band. Then I spent the rest of the day roasting in the ridge vehicle.

Friday I had to drive around to Pine Creek, which was Final D for the week, to meet with rabbitstick. This meant I got to drive across the Verde River, along Fossil Creek, and through the towns of Strawberry, Pine and Payson. I stopped for lunch at an adorable cafe in Pine. I felt a little guilty that I was having a philly cheesesteak while the bands were eating things like rice and lentils.

Saturday I got to explore some jeep trails and actually got a little lost for about a half hour.
When I was trying to get unlost, I had a quarter mile section that I had to reverse the whole way because there was no room for me to turn around. I'm getting pretty good at driving on dirt roads when I have to keep doing maneuvers like that.

Monday got interesting because one of the girls bands stopped hiking in the middle of the wilderness area. Windwalk and I happened to be hiking to some Indian ruins when we got the call. We were within 100 yards of the ruins but had to turn around so I still have never seen them in the seven yeas I've been at Anasazi. I had no idea what to do to help that band so Jeremy and I prayed right there on that hill top. That girls band never did start hiking again that week so three trailwalkers agreed to come out a day early and hike into the band.

Tuesday night I was woken up around 1 am with the news that a youngwalker was having an asthma attack. The band did not have a rescue inhaler so the trailwalker went searching for the other bands to find one. Eventually we had to take him to the hospital. I had quite the time giving directions on how to get from their camp to where I was while I was still half asleep. I ended up hooting to give them directions which didn't really help because I didn't account for it echoing off all the cliffs around us. After the doctor visit, we got back to the Trail just as the sun was coming up. I was grateful it happened at Final D because if it had happened during the hike when there were not bands or myself close by, I don't know how bad it could have gotten. Later that morning, I gave some entertainment to one band when they checked in. I was mostly asleep while talking to the trailwalker and I had to ask them at switchout what I had said. From their account, you would think I had just woken up from surgery or been on drugs.

Wednesday one of the vehicles that was bringing trailwalkers to the Trail broke down in Payson. Thankfully this Final D was only 10 miles away from there and I was able to help bring in the trailwalkers and gear so that we didn't have a late switchout. While driving to Payson, I got to see a bobcat. That was the first one I'd ever seen in the wild and I was surprised at how big it was.

It was interesting for me that even though we had a couple more interesting events take place after Jeremy and I offered our prayers, everything worked out perfectly. Like the fact that the girls band trailwalkers got switched out early which meant that the vehicle they used was back at the office just in time to be sent out to replace the vehicle that broke down in Payson. Or that the second girls band got into Final D right at dusk so that all the rabbitstick trailwalkers could go home. Or that one of the boys bands was delayed just long enough that we could step the girl dawnstar into her family camp and then the boy dawnstar without having to do any additional tactics to keep them from knowing each other was in family camp. Or that because the two trailwalkers went off early it meant we had enough seats in the switchout vehicle for a family to come home early because the mom was badly dehydrated. There were many such instances in the last four day I was on the Trail that showed to me that the Lord was listenening to our prayers even though things continued to be crazy.

Another awakening that I had involved the bugs that were flying into the cabin lights of the ridge vehicle. I thought about how they fly to any source of light even if it means it might kill them like in fires. We could take a lesson from them about our search for light in our life. That just as they will sacrifice anything including their life to be near light rather than stay in the dark, we should desire light and truth just as strongly in our lives as well.

This photo is Squaw Butte under starlight. The cloud looking thing is a band of the Milky Way.

On my drive around from the Squaw Final D to the Pine Final D, I got to go past Fossil Creek. Its an amazing travertine spring. The rocks on the left I jumped off into that beautiful pool which felt phenominal because it was almost 100 degrees that day.

This is one of our intern shadows. She saw this old cottonwood and just had to climb it. I climbed that same cottonwood and took a nap in it almost exactly a year ago.

You know those people who can get a party together with no problem. That no matter what the activity or how short notice, people will always show up. I am not one of those people. So when I actually had a good group that was going to come to the movies with Sam and I, I thought my luck was changing. Then a transformer in Mesa blew-up and the movie theater lost power. I'm not making this up; I have the worst luck.