One more hike before Thanksgiving

Date: November 19, 2007
Location: Bulldog Canyon
Time and temperature: Start - 1707, 76
End - 1805, 63
Distance hiked: 1.3 miles
Elevation change: 360 feet
The numbers:
14 Pictures taken
2 Movies made
1 Mylar Pooh Bear and Tigger balloon extracted from the desert.

Ramblings: On my last two or three hikes, I've been close to heavily traveled roads or roads with ATVs and loud people on them. I haven't been able to enjoy the quiet of the desert. I decided that today I had better find a quiet place and give my ears a rest. I thought I would try to get to the top of a ridge in Bulldog Canyon before it got dark. It was after 5 when I left the truck, and sunset was at 5:23 today. I got to the ridge in 17 minutes, which amazes me. It looks like it's far away when you start out and you have to cross 2 deep washes and a bunch of smaller ones before you even start climbing. My heart was pounding on the steep part, but not as hard as it did last summer when I was walking slowly up small hills in 107 degree heat.

I didn't take many pictures on the way up because I was in a hurry. I didn't take many on the way down because it was dark. I made a couple of movies at the top to try to capture the quiet, but that doesn't work. When I watch them, I turn up the volume and discover that my camera makes all sorts of noises I had never heard before. At the end of the first video, I quietly whispered, "Silence". After I had downloaded it, I was watching it and turned the volume up to listen to the camera noises. I could hear it zoom in or out now and then, and I heard the lens cap swing and bump something, and there was a constant wunk-wunk-wunk-wunk-wunk in the background. I don't know what that might be. I was trying to figure it out when the video got to the end and I jumped out of my chair at the not-so-quiet "Silence".

On the way back to the truck, I figured I would have to get a flashlight out. On the way down into the first deep wash, though, I noticed that I could see my moon shadow. Strangely, no Cat Stevens songs popped into my head.

Once I got off the slope of the side of the ridge, every wash and dip, even the shallow ones, was filled with cool air, at least 3 or 4 degrees cooler that the high spots between them. It made all the ups and downs more fun than work.

BC_2007_11_19