Late summer rain over the Grand Canyon as seen from the South Rim
I’ll be honest… When I first stepped up to the scenic overlook at the South Rim my first thought wasn’t of the beauty of the vista, rather it was (Homer Simpson voice) “Holy Cr@p! I’m going to hike to the bottom of that in the morning?!” Continue reading
Afternoon sun near Black Mountain
We have been wanting to try out a backpacking trip with REI Adventures, and with the Superstition Mountains being local we thought this would be a good opportunity. Since the Phoenix area is already starting to warm up, this was the last scheduled trip till after summer. Being less that two weeks after the Alaska trip, we were prepared for a bit of temperature shock – it turned out to be a record setting week with highs in the 90’s, which is only 120ºF warmer than our coldest outings up north. Fortunately, we had time for a couple of day hikes to get re-acclimated to the desert prior to starting out.
White Sands National Monument
Last March we went camping at White Sands National Monument for the first time. The weather was fairly mild although a bit brisk in the morning. The winds were impressive. It turns out that 50 mph gusts are not unusual in the windy season. We enjoyed the trip, but since we only stayed the one night we didn’t get to do as much hiking as we would have liked, so we decided to return during the off season. With our schedule it turned out the second half of January was a good time, and watched the weather and the launch schedule for the missile range to plan the date. This last week the weather was perfect for photography – cloudy with rain in the forecast and temperatures unseasonably warm with to lows above freezing, and no closures scheduled. Off we went…
The Missus enjoying a late afternoon walk while west Phoenix gets some rain in the background.
When you live in the southwestern desert you learn to accept that much of the summer is just plain too hot for outdoors activities. That’s not to say one is housebound the entire time, but aside from morning and evening walks hiking is not on the schedule.
In late September the weather starts to change, and we start getting out a little more. The town we live in has opened a new park recently, so we took an hour or so to take some pictures and enjoy the weather.
Havasu Falls the evening we made camp.
Last week we took a five-day outing with Arizona Highways Photography Workshops to Havasupai in the Grand Canyon. The workshop was led by Suzanne Mathia and supported by Tyler, A.J. and Todd from Arizona Outback Adventures. It was a great trip with some excellent hikes, spectacular photographs, and lots of fun!
More after the break… Continue reading
White Sands National Monument
One of the few down sides to the photo trips we take is that we have to leave our dog Trix behind. True, she stays in quite the pet resort and seems to enjoy herself but we still have that pet owners guilt thing going. We’ve talked about bringing her along on some of the shorter trips, and since she’s been successful going on our day hikes with us we thought it was time for a camping trip. White Sands National Monument is about an eight hour drive from here, so after a little research we decided to give it a try.
Phil Ryan Photography 