Mount Graham

Suzanne and I spent part of the weekend in Safford. It's not your typical tourist destination. In fact, it wasn't easy talking Suzanne into going there. I think the thing that convinced her was the fact that there was going to be snow and ice up on the Mogollon Rim, which was her first choice. We'll go there when it warms up a little.

The reason we went to Safford is because it's next to Mount Graham, which is a really big mountain that I've been wanting to check out for several years now. There's a road to the top, which is really nice since I don't think I could get to the top of a mountain that is over 9000 feet tall without a road. Unfortunately, the road is closed near the top this time of year. That wasn't too big of a deal today, though, because the top of the mountain was covered in cloud. If we could have gone further on the road, we just would have seen more fog.

Click here to open a new window with a map/satellite view centered on where I took a short hike while up there. You can zoom in or out and pan around to check out the area. Safford is to the NNE.

Click below to see the pictures. I didn't get any really good ones. I'll just have to go back and try again.

Mt_Graham_2006_12_17

The first picture is what Mt Graham looked like at 8:30 this morning. I took the picture despite the bad location in case the clouds were gone later. I needn't have worried about that, though. Next is a pine tree covered in frozen fog. The wind was really blowing up there and the cloud droplets were freezing on the trees. I saw 3 or 4 snowflakes, too. Click here to see a video of clouds blowing through trees.

It was pretty cold up there. I saw my thermometer get down to 30 (remember, I'm from "the valley"). That didn't keep the turkeys off the road, though. No, not the numbskull drivers. Real turkeys. They're in the next picture.

Next is the view from a short hike I took. It kind of reminded me of the view from the South Rim in Big Bend. I wasn't prepared for that hike. It was 35 degrees there and it seemed like I always had a 20 mph wind blowing in my face. I tried to smile for the next picture (a self portrait) but my face was a little stiff. I'm wearing the earmuffs that Suzanne gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago. My ears were toasty warm. Oh, so nice. I wasn't prepared for hiking in such cold, windy weather, so I didn't go far and was I very very careful to note landmarks every few feet and retrace my steps exactly (no shortcuts) to get back to the truck. The camera and batteries got so cold that it wouldn't take pictures. I had to keep it inside my jacket. I could take 2 or 3 pictures before it would give up again. I called Suzanne from the end of the trail (she wisely waited in the truck) but I think the phone isn't designed to work in very cold weather, either.

The next picture is the only part of the trail where I wasn't buffetted by wind. It felt so nice, I took a picture. The last picture is one of several squirrels we saw up there. You can also see a little bit of snow at the bottom of the picture. There were small patches of snow here and there.