damp desert

Yikes - that was a quick week!  It completely got away from me.

H should have been a meteorologist.  Not the local news weatherman but the scientist with the data and the readings and the forecasts.  I almost always ask him about what the weather is going to be rather than checking the weather apps on my phone.  Almost always: last weekend when we were down in Moab, I brought my raincoat.  H, he was working off an outdated forecast that showed 50s and partly sunny through the week.  I was right.  Maybe I should be the meteorologist!

It's starting to get green

Saturday morning, the actual forecast made it look like we might have a window of opportunity for a quick hike in the morning.  We got our hiking gear together and drove over to the Moab Rim trailhead and just as we pulled in, it started sprinkling.  We sat there for a little while - Milton wondering why we weren't getting out of the car - and then H decided that he didn't really want to hike in the rain.  40s and raining is our second-least-favorite kind of weather, so I completely understood.

Watermelon rock

Milton and I still needed some exercise, however, so H drove us down to the Hidden Valley trailhead, where there were several other vehicles with people sitting inside, staring at their phones.  Milt and I got out; I put on my rain poncho; we waved goodbye to H and started hiking north on the Pipedream trail.  Once we got going, I was plenty warm, even taking off my gloves so they wouldn't get too damp.  The rain sprinkled on and off - and so I put on or took off my poncho accordingly - but never amounted to much, all the way to the Jackson Street exit.  We'd only been out for an hour (hadn't seen anybody) so I texted H that we were going to do the northern half of the trail too.

Precip

The trail was in good condition actually, never wet enough to rut up or get muddy.  At one point, nearing the upper end of the trail, the precipitation picked up briefly, showering us with sleet/graupel.  It didn't last long, however, and by the time we met a couple of labs and their trail running people, I had my poncho off again.  We left the trail at the Aspen Street exit, walking back along Kane Creek Boulevard and lower Main Street, and the rain held off again until we got home.  We timed it just right: from about noon through 4 p.m., it rained a LOT, segueing into huge, wet snowflakes for short periods, filling the gutters with run-off and completely drenching us from the knees down when we ventured out for a quick, socially-distanced beer at Woody's around 2 p.m., raincoats and ponchos notwithstanding.