Flash Flood Followup

 We drove past the site of the flash flood a few days later, and this is what we found: a puddle. No flowing water, and unless you are paying attention, you could easily miss that water had been running across the road and desert.

The ground still looked damp on the uphill side, but there weren't any puddles.

I scrambled down to take a look at the culvert. The four-foot diameter culvert was pretty much dry. It wasn't quite big enough for a few hours, but for the other 8760 hours of the year, it looks mostly like this.

Fortunately there was no damage to the road, so life in the desert continues with only a few realizing this sudden event even occurred.

Flash Flood on the Highway

As we were traveling home from a trip to the city, I noticed something looked strange on the highway far ahead, a light colored swath across the highway. What was it? It had to be water. We had seen some storm clouds, but the sky was currently only partly cloudy. A four-wheel drive truck flashed his lights at us when he passed, confirming there was something strange ahead. I slowed down, and soon we reached the water. I pulled over to take a closer look.

What we found was a culvert completely engulfed with water and a whirlpool. Further ahead, the water covered the highway. We could see that the water had been a little higher, so it was nice to know it was going down (and we weren't going to be washed away!).

The downstream side of the culvert showed a raging stream where usually there's no water at all.

 Usually I think of flash floods as being more in canyons, but we were many miles from canyons. Where it was nearly flat, a raging stream swept through the desert.

I wasn't sure how deep the water was on the highway in front of us, or if part of the highway had gotten washed away. We watched a semi slowly move through the water, and I was impressed with how high the water reached on the truck. I wasn't sure how our van would do, so I decided we would stay put a little longer.

Then we saw a pickup truck start going through at a slow speed. An SUV came roaring up to the water, the driver totally unaware that something unusual was going on. I watched her face as she showed surprise that there was water on the highway and slammed on the brakes. She was still going fast enough to make huge rooster tails as she plowed through the water.

We watched a driver from the other direction take it too fast, then decided we would follow a couple other cars.

The water was one to two inches deep, and I could feel the force of it pulling the van to the side of the road. We stayed in the middle of the road, the high spot, enjoying our slow progression through the water. Until some idiot from the other direction appeared, going way too fast and coating our van with muddy water. The kids heard an earful. And then repeated it.

Well, hopefully they learned a little about what to do and not to do in flash floods. Fortunately the highway didn't get washed away, but if you ever encounter water flowing over a highway, don't count on the highway necessarily still being intact! The power of water is immense, and we felt lucky to be able to see some of that.

Memorial Day Weekend Trip Day #2: Canyoneering, Tadpoles, and Flash Flood

 This is a long post. But it was a long day, full of good memories, and something I want to preserve when I print out my blog (blogging is a wonderful way for me to keep my photos and thoughts organized!).

So the day started with hopping into a vehicle and driving an hour and a half to Capitol Reef National Park. We hiked up a beautiful trail and I kept stopping to take photos.

Within an hour, we reached this gorgeous arch. Lots of other hikers were around, too. But they planned to go back to the parking area the same way they came. We planned to go down the canyon via seven rappels and get back to the parking area in about five hours. We could see some big puffy clouds forming, but the sun was shining and this canyon had a very small drainage area, so we felt like we weren't taking on too much risk.

We rigged to a small tree and took turns going down the 130 ft drop. I watched. (This photo and the next are Randi's--thanks for getting such awesome photos!)


Here's Jeff starting down. It was an awesome rappel.

From the bottom, this is what it looked like.

Here's my friend Randi. She's the one who was responsible for me being there, and I am so grateful! What a terrific experience.

The second rappel was just a short distance away. It was 140 ft, but didn't seem so long as it was split into two parts, the first along this cliff...

…and the second part dropping into this sweet alcove. One thing I like about canyoneering is that everyone gets a bottom belay on the longer drops (and on shorter drops if they want). That's a nice added safety measure that hardly takes any extra time and no extra gear.

Then it was time to pull the rope and bag it, along with the pull cords. We ladies had it under control.

We progressed a bit farther and rappelled through this arch.

And soon after we had to squeeze through this slot to finish the rappel.

A short downclimb followed, where I fell off the slippery branch but managed to land on my feet. Whew. Sometimes a small mistake can lead to big consequences, so I was grateful that I didn't even get a bruise from that incident and vowed to be more careful watching my footing.

Around a couple more corners we had another rappel, where our leader Lisa posed for a photo.

This was one of the most beautiful rappels (this photo and next are Randi's).

There was a fun little swing at the bottom that I just had to do a couple times.

We rounded a corner and had a short traverse.

This led to a nice rappel over water. I was actually surprised how little water we were seeing in the canyon as it had rained the entire previous day.

This little puddle of water did a nice job reflecting the rappeler.

We had one more rappel, and we weren't in a big hurry to do it, as we were having so much fun. After we were all down, we paused for a photo, which was a great idea. (This is Lisa's photo.)

But fortunately the fun wasn't quite over. Around another corner we found this cool little cave.

We started playing around with silhouettes, and then Randi told me I should go do a headstand. I accepted the challenge (and ended up with sand in my hair for days!). Ah, the goofiness. (Randi's photo)

From there we just had a short hike back out to the road and our vehicles. What a lovely canyoneering trip! The raindrops started falling as we walked back.

They stopped as we popped into the little store to get pickled asparagus and observe the gorgeous scenery.

The drive home was pleasant, and we all had a glow from a beautiful canyon trip.

When I got back, the kids and my husband had returned from a trip to playgrounds in Escalante and a drive along the Box-Death Hollow Road. We got out the bikes and biked down to some pools we had seen, where we discovered tadpoles.

We started wandering from pool to pool, following the channel.

In one we found mating frogs, and in another, frog eggs on a tumbleweed.

The kids couldn't resist burying themselves in the sand.

The storm clouds were gathering, but there was still a little bit of sunlight.

We trudged up the hill (Desert Girl insisting on pushing her own bike the entire way), and went to the delicious dinner. Lucha Libre Mexican wrestling was the theme, and the kids got into the spirit of things. Thanks so much to our wonderful hosts, Gary and Mike, for sharing their house, plus everyone who made the tasty food. Yum!

After dinner a brief hailstorm ensued. Then someone called out, "Look at all the waterfalls!" Sure enough, the previously dry rock now sported torrents of water. We watched as the streams joined and made boiling currents of water. Places we had hiked the day before were now a river. We could only imagine what was happening to all the tadpoles and frogs.

We were all in a safe place, so we could enjoy the view of this marvelous flash flood. And Desert Girl couldn't resist walking barefoot on the hail.

The night ended with some thumb wrestling.

What a day! But we still had one day left of our vacation...

Memorial Day Weekend Trip Day #1: Anasazi Museum and Lower Calf Creek Falls

 So the weather forecast for Memorial Day weekend basically stunk. Rain for three days, it said. I said we're going anyway. We had gotten an invite to a canyoneering get-together in Boulder, Utah, a place I had never been and wanted to see. We took off Friday night after work and after driving a few hours it got dark and rainy and we decided that instead of pushing through and setting up our tent in the rain, we would stay in a motel for the night.

The next morning we got up early and headed towards Torrey, Utah. I had driven through once years before but really didn't remember any of it. Then we headed south over Boulder Mountain, a road that was paved only in 1985. As we ascended towards the pass (at about 9,000 feet!) the rain turned into snow, and at times we crept along at only 15 miles per hour. At one point we stopped and Desert Girl and I had a little snowball fight.

When we rolled into Boulder, we decided we would check out the Anasazi State Park Museum, where we found interesting displays. Outside we found a pit house.

Desert Girl liked going into one of the buildings.

Then we headed to our meeting point, set up our tent, met old and new friends, had lunch, and decided to head out for a rainy hike with friends to Lower Calf Creek Falls, part of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. To get there we took the spectacular Highway 12, which follows the hogsback (top of the ridge for a number of miles), with dramatic dropoffs on both sides (and very few guard rails).

We turned into the popular campground eponymous with the falls, grabbed rain jackets and umbrellas, and started off on the 6-mile round trip hike.

We stopped for a family photo in this neat (and dry) alcove.

Along the hike were numbered stakes, and we followed along with the brochure. One visitor told us the pictographs were hard to find because they were so small. When we got to the viewing point, I was amazed at how large they were--nearly life size, just far away.

The rain let up a bit, but the skies stayed cloudy. I had fun looking at flowers and birds on the way.

Primrose with raindrops

We could hear the waterfall before we could see it. Then suddenly, through the trees, there it was.

As we got close, a cold wind pushed us back. But Desert Girl braved the wind and walked to the edge of the pool. The falls were huge, swollen from all the recent rains. It was a beautiful sight and kind of made up for the fact that we couldn't go into canyons that day.

 I spotted this blooming cactus on the hike back.

Desert Girl was really tired, but she perked up when we reached this little cave.

Desert Boy tried to get in too, with a little help from Dad.

It ended in lots of laughs.

It was a great way to spend a rainy afternoon. We made it back to camp just in time for a delicious dinner and then it was off to bed to get ready for the next day's activities.