start of the winter rains
Posted by Zonie on December 12, 2021 at 04:01:15
It rained Thursday night. NWS had correctly predicted that. They forecast, however, that the amount would be "less than a tenth of an inch," so I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about it in advance. Fortunately they were wrong. The airport got 0.35", but I was more concerned about rain gages closer to my mudding areas. Deer Valley is on the west end of Reach 11. They got about the same, 0.36", but north Scottsdale got 0.5", and they're at the east end of Reach 11, so I figured I'd hike the east segment and that most of the mud would be east of the 56th Street Bridge.
Today was clear and calm with a temperature range of 41°F to 66°F. I got to the Tatum trailhead at 9:20. As I started to hike, an old man walking his dog was headed back to the trailhead, and he warned me that he had seen a pack of seven coyotes. I was a bit surprised by this, and in the entire hike I saw only one coyote, crossing the trail far ahead of me. Maybe the pack was staying up late and had gone to bed by the time I reached the area where he had seen them.
As I expected, there wasn't a whole lot of mud for the first mile and a half of the trail, but things got better east of 56th Street. I got to one point that was shaded by a mesquite thicket, and there was thick mud and mud puddles the width of the trail, but there was a narrow social trail into the thicket. This is what happens when people walk around mud puddles instead of through them. There was one fellow walking his dogs, and his dogs were wiser than he and wanted to go into the mud, but he restrained them with the leash and led them along the social trail. I happily slogged through, but as he was beside me and others were behind me, I didn't get in a good mud puddle jump for fear of splashing those who didn't want to be splashed. On the way back I passed there and was alone so I jumped in with both feet and gave a satisfactory mud splashing to my overalls.
I didn't see any total trail washouts, but there were a couple places where it was being undermined. I was a bit uneasy, as in the back of my mind was the thought that there are very few hikers over 300 lbs. and I might be the heaviest person who walked over it, but then I contemplated that my boots were size 13 so that the ground pressure wasn't all that much higher than average. I was in luck and nothing collapsed under me.
After reaching Scottsdale Road, I turned southwest and headed to the arroyo area. The arroyos weren't terribly muddy, but this was the first rain since late September, so it's understandable that the ground just soaked the rain right up. I then headed back towards the trailhead, reaching it, unfortunately without many more mud encounters at 1:45.
NWS says we'll have more rain Tuesday night, but again they predict less than a tenth of an inch. I hope they're wrong in the same way this time.