Sunset from Lone Mountain

Wow, it's been a busy week. So much going on. I got a Spot Satellite Messenger for me for Suzanne's early Christmas present. It's a GPS receiver that uses communications satellites to relay your position. Works when cell phones don't. Great for solitary hikers. I'll get into more details later. Anyway, I wanted to try it out in tracking mode, and I really had to go for a hike today (long story), so I raced the sunset up Lone Mountain. (I won, and the sunset even had a head start!)

I have lots of pictures to process and tracks to generate, etc., etc., but I'm too tired now. Maybe I'll have a chance tomorrow. In the mean time, here are a few pictures. The first is a view of the Fountain Hills fountain from near the peak of Lone Mountain.

 

Next, a couple of pictures of the Superstition Mountains.

 

 

And finally, the setting sun.

 

One quick story about something funny that happened on the way down the mountain. I was getting close to the bottom of the mountain. It was pretty dark by then. I was having a little trouble seeing the trail even though it's well worn (almost got a flashlight out). I was mostly watching where I was putting my feet (didn't want to step on a rattler in the dark) but would glance ahead now and then. Once when I looked up, there was a teddy bear cholla just to the side of the trail, at a spot where the trail curved, so with a quick glance it looked like the cholla was on the trail. Under certain lighting conditions (twilight, stormy weather), the needles of teddy bear chollas almost seem to glow. Their trunks are usually dark brown or black. So I glanced up and saw this thing on the trail. It's shape made it look like a man wearing a white shirt dark pants. I was slightly surprised to see somebody coming up the trail in the dark.

Have you ever noticed how, if you don't get a very good look at something, your brain will try to help you out by filling in the details? My brain had already filled in a lot of details by turning this indistinct, almost glowing shape into a hiker, but it didn't stop there. Nope, it's got more imagination than that. I also believed that I saw the hiker's left leg moving forward, and his right arm swinging forward. Wow, such detail from just a glance in the dark. Well, my brain must have been so busy filling in visual details that it neglected to do anything about sound. Here's a hiker walking up a rocky trail (crunch, crunch, crunch), uphill (pant, pant), lots of movement in baggy clothes (swish, swish), but I heard absolutely nothing. Nothing * at * all. That's what freaked me out. As soon as I had moved my eyes back to the trail, my brain had filled in loads of visual detail but left out the sound. I immediately looked up to figure out how he could be so utterly and completely silent and saw the cholla. Whew! I don't have to run back up the mountain.