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).