Spooky Canyon

That isn't its official name. That's just what I call it.

Yesterday there were some high clouds in the late afternoon. I went for a hike hoping that there would be some today, and there were. Bad for photography, but great for keeping the blazing sun from frying you. I headed for a small peak I had decided I should climb a few weeks ago. The summit was only 223 feet above where I parked my truck, but I was huffing and puffing all the way up. I thinks it's the Flomax. When my free samples run out I'm going to quit taking it. I don't think I need it and I don't like the way it makes me feel.

Anyway, I hiked around to the hill and was about to start up a ridge when I was overcome by this feeling of dread. When I looked up the canyon I had this feeling that something very bad had happened there or that there was something very bad there now. Fortunately, I have learned from past experiences like this that it means nothing at all. I'm not psychic. There was probably just something a little odd about the canyon that I wasn't consciously aware of, but somehow I was aware of it.

I continued up the ridge and stopped to check for echoes. The sound vanished as soon as I made it, swallowed by the desert. It's very unusual to find a place with no echoes. It reminded me of that movie based on a Steven King novel, "The Langoliers" or something like that. There's that spooky feeling again.

There was a very nice breeze at the summit. I stayed there for about half an hour enjoying the view and taking pictures and a movie. I came down in a kind of round about way not shown on the map. Oh, the map. Click here to see a map of the hike. Click on the blue icons to see a description and pictures.

On the way back to the truck, I hiked up the canyon a short ways. It was eerily quiet in there. I hiked to a large rock in the middle. I was nervous so I was being very careful, looking all around for rattlesnakes. I was standing there when I heard a growling noise. I was looking around for the monster when I realized it was a car or motorcycle engine being revved in the distance. I heard a loud hissing and looked around for the giant snake, and saw a bird fly by near me. I was telling myself to quit being so jumpy when I heard a loud, inhuman moan coming from up the canyon. It was an awful, terrifying sound, the kind that makes wish you could quit hearing it and forget you ever heard it. Before it ended, though, I realized it was tires on a road in the distance. The canyon seems to funnel in sounds from a couple of miles away. Maybe the reason it "looked" spooky when I first saw it was because it didn't sound right. One of the reasons I hike in the desert is to enjoy the quiet, but that canyon was too quiet, except for the occasional sound piped in from who-knows-where.

Not all of the pictures are on the map. Unfortunately, movie resolution is lost during upload. Here are all the pictures and the movie.

BC_2007_06_10