Arizona Wild Bird Photos

THE RAINS FINALLY COME TO THE HARCUVARS

AS STATED IN THE PREVIOUS PAGES IT HAS NOT RAINED HERE FOR MANY MONTHS.

I though when they do come it is really going to a dussee.

AND IT WAS.

On September 7 about 4:30 P.M. I went to my spot on the or in the Harcuvar Mountains. A storm had just pasted through and left a few flooded areas on the roads. One being about a mile plus long. After navigating that one I figured I was water proof and continued on. With in a mile or so I was confronted with more road flooding. Inasmuch as the road base is very rocky/sandy I chanced my getting through and that proved to be true.

About 6:30 I could see very dark clouds forming in the Southwest and closing in very rapidly on the area I was in. Not wanting to spend the night out here I quickly finished what I had to do and headed for home. Navigating the road lakes I made it back to the highway in good shape.

AND NOW FOR THE REST OF THE STORY

The very next day my good friend Ralph and fellow desert rat decided he would make the trip to his desert location about a mile beyond mine. I would not be able to say it as good as he has so I have asked him if I could put his image of the road and story here. This was an E-mail that Ralph had sent to me describing his encounter with rain-desert-& road conditions he encountered.

"09/08/02 Report on the Sunday flood follows:

Quote

Rain has finally come to Arizona! The remnants of Hurricane Hernan
have brought us four days of wet weather. Our house got over 2 inches
of rain in 48 hours, more than twice as much as we received all year
prior to then.

The desert has also received some rain, so when we prepared to visit
Sunday we checked the Weather Service radar as a precaution. No sign
of any significant weather in or approaching the Harcuvars, so off we
went.

The following account of this expedition is a little about what
weather can do in the desert, some questionable decisions, and
a lot of luck.

When we reached the desert we could see that a very black-looking storm
had developed in the area of the Harcuvars. By the time we reached
Aguila we could see that the storm was moving from southwest to north-
east, looked like it would involve the area of Chuparosa Camp, and
looked like it might be gone by the time we got there.

The land here slopes to the south, so north-south roads do dual duty
as roads and watercourses. In most cases, floodwaters running down
the road improve it, smoothing out bumps and washboarding. Some spots
are muddy, but most are sandy, and all have a solid undersurface of
caliche, the calcium carbonate conglomerate that is the bane of desert
gardeners. The only caveat is that vehicles should not use it while
the water is using it.

We reached the north-south road, turned into it, and watched the storm
as it passed in front of us. It seemed to be slowing down, and when
we were about three miles in when we ran into the south edge of it,
and encountered very heavy rain. I parked where the road crossed a
flood control dike about six feet high. Two of these dikes were
apparently constructed many years ago to protect the farmlands. They
run east-west, and are intended to coax any southbound floodwaters into
turning west, where they would eventually flow into the Centennial
Wash.

We parked to wait out the rain and see what developed. It was now
about 3 p.m. In about 15 minutes the rain stopped, the storm began
receding into the distance, and we started north again. We had gone
about 100 yards when I noticed the road ahead of us looked white. As
we approached we could see that the white was foam, representing the
leading edge of a considerable head of water coming down the road
toward us. I turned around, and we went back to the dike, parked and
watched. Water was not only coming down the road, enough to make a
respectable trout stream in Montana, but water was also running across
the desert. When it reached the dike part of it turned west, but a
bigger portion of the stream looked like it was going east, and I
began to hear a roaring up in that direction that probably came from
it going through a breach in the dike.

Water like this usually subsides within about a half hour after the
rain is gone, so we settled down to wait, still planning to continue
our trip. To our surprise, after an hour, it was still running strong,
and we decided to give it up. About two miles back down the road we
were unpleasantly surprised to find water running across the road
and into the little ditch on the west side of the road. We continued
for about 100 yards and found a bigger stream, also cutting across
the road, filling the ditch and flooding the right side of the road with
rapidly flowing southbound water.

We waited, and watched the water, and pondered. It seemed to be
slowing and receding. After about a half hour I decided to make
a scouting trip on foot to check out the road ahead. The point where
we were stopped is about 700 yards north of the second of the flood
control dikes. This dike is about 200 yards north of the county
line road.

For the first 200 yards ahead of the car, the road runs on kind
of a ledge, with a bank on the left, and the one or two foot deep
ditch on the right. The road is quite narrow in this stretch, and
it is made a little hairier in these conditions by the fact that
the "ledge" slopes down to the right a little, meaning that a
vehicle sliding in mud would tend to slide into the ditch. About
100 yards ahead of the car some misguided soul a couple of years
ago dumped a load of concrete blocks into the ditch, hoping that this
would slow water motion and cause it to drop silt, widening the road
surface at that point. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect.
I found that the water backed up by the concrete blocks was going
around to the left and rapidly cutting into the right edge of what
little roadway was there to start with.

Making a mental note of this, I continued on. By now I had removed
my shower shoes (my normal desert footgear), because muddy spots kept
sucking them off my feet, and was continuing on the journey barefoot,
which turned out to have its advantages. After the "ledge" stretch,
the ditch on the right side of the road ended and the water ran straight
down the road, filling it about ankledeep, and running about 6 to 8
mph. This is where being barefoot was an advantage because I could
feel with my feet that the bottom was hard caliche, rough enough to
provide perfect traction. This stretch, which covered a few hundred
yards, looked liked it presented no problems. In the last 200 yards
before the dike, the water began to slow and pool, before reaching
the dike and turning right. In this stretch it appeared to be about
seven or eight inches deep, and the bottom was mud, but with a hard
surface a few inches underneath.

I decided that the road was probably doable, especially since by the
time I got back to the car the water would have additional time to
recede. On my way back to the car I began to think about poor Boonmee,
left there alone with the car, and I had been gone quite a while. When
I reached about the halfway point I started to hear distant rushing
water. Probably coming from the point where the concrete block dam
is, I thought, but it's odd that I don't remember it being that noisy.
I then took a better look at the water I was walking past, and began
to suspect that it was deeper and faster than a few minutes ago. About
that time I heard the plaintive beep of the car horn, and came to the
unpleasant conclusion that a new head of water had arrived.

A new and much stronger stream of water had indeed arrived, from some
tributary upstream. When I reached the car I found a rather unhappy
Boonmee, surveying the newly risen water level, and pointing out to me
that out to our west there was a big, dark thunderstorm that looked to
be headed our way to add to our troubles.

By now it was about 5 p.m., and the options were not looking all that
good. We could go back north, to either the Alamo Road or out the
east-west road that runs 15 miles out to Highway 71, but the main
part of the storm had passed directly over those roads, and there
was a good chance that they would be damaged by flooding in one or
more areas.

More waiting seemed the best option, but that was made less palatable
by the possibility that the new storm would give us more flooding, and
that sundown was in less than two hours, and the water was continuing
to cut into the side of the road at the concrete block "dam".

Wait we did. And our luck started to change for the better. The
new storm skirted around to the south of us, and we didn't get enough
rain to bring out the tarp at a ballgame. By about 6 o'clock the
water appeared to be receding. I had jammed sticks into the mud at
various points to measure the high water point, and these, after being
almost submerged, were now several inches beyond the water's edge.

I made another foot reconnaissance, found about the same conditions as
before, returned to the car, and we decided to chance it.

At this point you might want to scroll down to the attached still
photo, to see what was ahead of the car. This is looking south.
The water is still quite high, covering most of the road. You can
see a little bit of the left side of the road in the "ledge" area.
By the time we left, the water had receded enough so that the roadway
was uncovered in the "ledge" area. This is in relatively flat,
creosote bush and scrub mesquite desert.

Off we go! We had a few "pucker-string tightening" moments on the
ledge when the rear end started to slide down the slope in muddy
spots, but each time the wheels grabbed better traction and straightened
out. Hugged the bank on the left and negotiated the narrowest area.
No problems with the caliche-based rapids. The final, deepest
200 yards looked very long, but we went with the flow, crested the
dike, and sat there looking at wonderfully dry road ahead of us, and
had a moment of celebration.

We turned on to the countyline road, went about half a mile, and saw
ahead in the fading light...water in the road. Now any sensible
people at this point would have gone back to the intersection, camped
for the night, and waited for dry road. I consulted with Boonmee.
Boonmee is the only Thai that I know of that is a Type A personality.
She is always in a hurry, and this caused her to weigh in for making
a try at it. We had done a similar thing on this road before and got
away with it (albeit with a wet distributor after exiting the water).
The advantage is that it is a very level road, with no big dips or
holes, and the surface, though dirt, is firm, even when flooded.

Dumb and Dumber, off we went! At first the water was quite shallow,
and we felt pretty good, but as we progressed it got deeper and
deeper. I was occasionally opening my door to judge depth by how
far it was below the door sill. When there was about a half a mile
to go it was running between six and ten inches deep. In one of the
ten-inch stretches I was ready to call it quits, until I thought of
how foolish it would be to try to stop and turn around in this depth
of water. Committed (to the attempt, that is, although to the asylum
might not be a bad idea, either, after this performance).

The hump in the road that marked a drainage boundary, and safety,
looked an impossible distance ahead, and I had an irrational, almost
irrestible urge to step on the gas and try to close the gap more
quickly. For a change, brain outweighed impulse, and we plodded along,
trying not to make waves. We made it, and having crossed the hump, on
dry road again and safe, we said prayers of thanks to various deities
and continued on our way home.

Boonmee later opined: "Our car does very well as a boat. Something
like the cars in the James Bond movies." I have to agree with her.
For an ordinary-looking stationwagon, it does quite well. Some things
about it are deceptive. It doesn't look it, but it has eight inches
of clearance in front, 13 inches in back, and a skidplate to level
out the humps in the road.

I should point out that at no time were we in any danger of death or
serious injury. What we dreaded was massive inconvenience, humiliation
and embarrassment. Arizona has what they call a "Stupid Motorist Law".
They got tired of pulling dumb people out of washes, so the law states
that if you are foolish enough to attempt a crossing of an obviously
flooded wash, and you require rescue, you will be billed for the cost
of the helicopters, etc, involved in rescuing your foolish hide.

We have always supported this concept, but three times in the past 15
years we have played "Stupid Motorist". So far, very lucky!

End quote - Photo attached

Regards,

Ralph"

I might tell you that Moonmee is his wife.

Here is the photo he sent me showing the road we take to get to our No Where Desert Place.

What would you have done if you had encountered an on coming river of water such as this while driving on the desert???

Well; I'm waiting for your answer.

In the meantime why not order one of Ralph's professionally make videos of the Harcuvars
"Spring Comes To The Harcuvars"

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Just in case you can't see the recommendations at the bottom

Order it, you'll love it and want to get one for all of your friends.

It is a 60 minute video and I do not know its cost.


You can order it from Amazon.com I think it's $29.95

I get nothing for this. But I just could not resist telling all about it.

After the rains.

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