Dodging a storm

When I woke up Saturday morning, I felt a little cool. I wondered it it had cooled off outside. It was 73. Not as cool as I had hoped. In the afternoon, I was laying around being lazy and felt cold and decided to go for a hike to warm up. It was a little cooler outside than it has been; 98. I headed out to the end of Meridian road. Ever since the last time I'd been out there, I have been wanting to hike all the way up to the pass and get pictures of Bulldog Canyon.

During the drive, I saw two small rain showers to the east. Nothing to worry about. Then I saw a bolt of lightening hit the ground. OK, maybe I'll worry a little.

As I started up the trail, I could hear thunder rumbling in the distance. Still, the storms didn't look very big. I would be disappointed if I aborted the hike because of storms and they fizzled out 30 minutes later. Also, there was no wind from the storms, so they couldn't be too close or very big. Here's what they looked like.

From Meridian_2008_09_27

Early in the hike, I came upon a zebra tailed lizard. I finally got a video of one wagging his tail, though it isn't very good. They only wag their tails after they run, and I had to walk towards him to get him to run, so the video is really shaky.

Here's a picture of him posing. Looks like he has recently regrown his tail.

From Meridian_2008_09_27

I was keeping an eye on the storms. The clouds were spreading towards me, and getting darker. The thunder became a continuous rumble, but it still sounded far away. I wanted to get to the pass and get some pictures, so I walked as fast as I could, which isn't very fast when I'm going uphill. I've seen people run up these trails. I must be a wimp. There was no breeze. Sweat ran down my face and dripped off my nose. When I finally reached the pass, a gentle breeze was coming up the other side. Boy, it felt nice. The edges of the clouds were directly overhead and moving west fast. I sat on a rock to drink water and take pictures. A honey bee was bumping me, which makes me nervous ever since I read about killer bees doing that to decide whether or not to attack. Here's part of the view of Bulldog Canyon OHV area. You can see sun rays from the edge of the clouds.

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Here's the edge of the clouds. The storm is bigger than I thought. It extends north for quite a ways.

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This is the view towards town. It looks pretty peaceful in that direction. One tiny puffy cloud.

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I had been at the pass for less than 10 minutes when the wind started blowing. First, I heard it coming down the mountain to the east, whistling through the palo verde branches and saguaro needles. The clouds were beginning to look ominous.

From Meridian_2008_09_27

I wanted to rest for a while and enjoy the view and the breeze, but I didn't want to be a lightening rod or even get rained on. Oh, I forgot my backpack. It has my rain gear in it. I'm halfway up a mountain with nothing to protect two cameras and a phone from rain, and a storm is approaching. About halfway down the trail, the trail parallels a wash for a while. The wash has hollows carved into its sides, far above where water would flow during most storms. I thought that if I could at least get to there before the rain hits, I could put my stuff in one of those hollows until the storm is over. I started hurrying down. I was in the shadow of the mountains to the west and had a strong breeze now, so it felt cool. Shortly after I got back out into the sun, the clouds covered it again.

From Meridian_2008_09_27

It isn't easy to hurry on the upper part of the trail. It's very rocky. You have to be careful so you don't twist an ankle. Every once in a while I could hear a gust of wind coming down the mountains behind me and I worried that it would bring rain with it. It was a relief when I got to the smoother part of the trail, which also is where it runs next to the wash. Still no rain, though, so I hurried on.

I looked towards the storm once and saw a rainbow. Of course, I had to get pictures. Photomatix (or maybe it's just HDR images) isn't very good at bringing out rainbows, so the rainbow pictures have some HDR images and some plain old vanilla pictures.

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From Meridian_2008_09_27

When I was almost back to the truck, I looked out over the valley and could see dust blowing over it. I was so busy hurrying down the trail, I missed the leading edge of the dust as it covered the valley.

From Meridian_2008_09_27

I made it back to the truck before the rain hit. There was lightening flashing back and forth between the clouds to the east. I put the camera on a tripod and set it up for a 25 second exposure, hoping to catch some lightening. The first shot missed it, then it started to sprinkle. I had barely beat the rain to the truck.

Click below to see all of the pictures. Some of the HDR pictures aren't very good. Photomatix can compensate for camera movement and for movement of objects in the pictures, but my heavy breathing, pounding heart, and windblown ocotillos and palo verdes pushed it beyond its capabilities. Still, the pictures do show the clouds and their colors, which is what I wanted to capture.

Meridian_2008_09_27