Rain!
Rain!
Nothing is more satisfying during the incredible heat of summer than the coming of the summer monsoon rains. We call it a monsoon, but I suppose that people who live in an area with real monsoon rains would reject this description. The Canyon produces its own weather. In the afternoon clouds begin to gather as the heat from the Canyon rises and combines with cooler air above. The clash of the heated and cooled air results in brief, but torrential rains.
Yesterday, at 3:54 p.m. the Canyon weather combined to send 0.1 inches of rain down in 15 minutes. The rain continued for about an hour and a half and then stopped – a usual occurrence with this kind of weather. The temperature dropped about 20 degrees during that time, making it hiking weather again, at least briefly.
Rain brings – water for plants, relief from the oppressive heat that pinned me down in Kanab Creek drainage, and cooler sleeping weather. It’s what makes it bearable to live within the inner canyon. Rain can also bring flash flooding to the Canyon. Any rain of an inch or more in an hour can move rocks and dirt and water down the narrow drainages of the Canyon.
Flash flood kills people just as heat kills people. But while heat drains your body of the water it needs, flooding puts way too much water were it is not needed. The force of this water can tear all the clothes from your body and carry you 30-40 miles or more down the Colorado River. So in both case, it probably isn’t that good an idea to be hiking in drainages.
It’s a kind of “how do you want to die†scenario.