Black Canyon to First Water Creek

Sunday was a pretty day, and it wasn't very hot (probably below 100). I felt bad about not going hiking. On the other hand, with the dew point over 60, hiking didn't seem like a really good idea. Anyway, I felt so bad about being lazy that I did go for a hike on Monday, despite the mugginess. I went down Black Canyon to First Water Creek, to see if there was any water down there after Saturday's torrential rain. Well, it was torrential in some places. I could tell that there had been decent rainfall out there.

People that drive out to Canyon Lake may recognize this view.

The first thing I noticed is that millipede season is here. I saw a small one and took a picture, then saw a larger one and took a picture, then saw a larger one and quit taking pictures of them. I probably saw about 10 of them, which is a lot for such a short hike. They must have been out and about because of the recent rain.

A smallish millipede.

The sun was bright and the canyon was muggy, without much of a breeze. But it was a beautiful day. Also, wonderfully unbelievably, there were no gnats! Being hot is much more tolerable without gnats.

There were puddles, so I had to get pictures of reflections.

I was the first person to go down there since the rain. There was water trickling slowly through some puddles and spending at least half of its time underground. It seemed that I had to stand in some precarious positions to get any pictures and was wobbling around on rocks and trying not to fall in the puddles. It's tough to take pictures for HDRIs when you are having trouble standing still, but they all turned out OK. I think that's probably attributable to the ability of Photomatix to compensate for camera movement.

I like this one.

I kept having to stop to cool off on the way back up Black Canyon. Fortunately the sun was low enough by that time that I had lots of shade. Then I got sidetracked to look at some fresh pieces of a car scattered on the south side of the canyon. It must be quite disheartening to realize that you've left the road and are plummeting helplessly down a steep, rocky cliff. On the other hand, if you're as drunk as some of the people that do that must be, maybe you're just thinking about complaining to the county about the potholes in the road. Anyway, after checking out the car pieces, I didn't feel like taking the down and then back up route to get to the truck. Instead, I decided to follow the scrape marks left when the largest piece of the car was pulled out of the canyon. If a car was pulled up there, I should be able to climb up there, right? As it turns out I was able to get to the road that way, but it wasn't easy. I need to add to my list of hiking rules that I shouldn't try to follow cars out of canyons, because they have help that I don't have. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2012_07_16