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| The Granite Mountains adjacent to the Mojave National Preserve |
Actually it was a great many bangs. I shall explain...
Let's start with some basic statements. It's the Mojave Desert. It's almost summer. It doesn't rain in deserts, sort of by definition. I plan these excursions to avoid the monsoons of the Desert Southwest. And as the host at our first camp told us, "average June rainfall is 0.01 inches". We'll get back to this interesting meteorological situation shortly...
The first day of our trip was a traveling day, somewhere around 400 miles to get us out of the Central Valley and well into the Mojave Desert so we could reach the Grand Canyon the following day. My marvelous and courageous crew consisted of 17 students and several valued and faithful volunteers who have been making these trips possible for many years. We had a wonderfully diverse group, with some in their late teens, and others in their 60s, 70s, and one incredible traveler well into her 80s.
All adventures devolve quickly into several basic questions: where is the nearest restroom? Where is the next mini-mart/gas station? How far do we have to camp? Sometimes, to my delight, there is a question about some geological feature visible in the distance: Is that a volcano out there? What's that weird white rock? Our expensive walkie-talkies ($9 each on Amazon) kept us in touch.
We made good time, and even had time to stop and have a look at the vast open pit mine at Boron (source of around half of the world's production of borax minerals). We pulled up to camp about 5 pm and started setting up.
The setting was dramatic. We were tucked in a small draw at the base of the Granite Mountains, which by incredible coincidence are composed almost entirely of granite. This granitic rock has the same origin as the famous granite batholiths of the Sierra Nevada, having been intruded into the continental crust as a result of subduction along the coast of western North America. The sinking slab of oceanic crust heated up and portions of it melted to form the granite magma that forced its way upwards through the crust where it eventually cooled. The subsequent history of the rock was different, however. Where the Sierra Nevada rose as a single massive block of crust sloping to the west, the Mojave twisted and deformed into a series of individual mountain ranges of more moderate elevation.
I guess I should have known what was coming. In my trained scientific experience, if there is a storm anywhere in sight, it will find a way to hit us. Despite the summer temperatures, skies were overcast, and there was a lot of energy in the clouds around us and rain was falling on the distant horizon. Camp was set up and we were preparing our dinner for the night when our phones simultaneously chirped, giving us a flash-flood warning. It was no spurious warning, either. Moments later, the sky opened up with the most intense hailstorm/rainstorm we've ever experienced in 40 years of field studies.
In mere moments the ground was covered with more than an inch of hail, some hailstones as large as quarters (the hood of my Subaru has dozens of small dings on it now). Every small gully and watercourse was filled with flowing water, including our entrance road. And the lightning was constant and terrifying (I didn't grow up in the Midwest, so these intense kinds of thunderstorms are new to me).
What had been dry sere desert moments previous was now coated in a covering of ice. There was enough hail left on the ground the next morning to use in my ice chest. It was a stunning storm.
The next morning as we left for Arizona, we realized we were lucky to be able to leave. Our access road had transformed into a river overnight, complete with braided stream channels, and some mud puddles remained that we carefully forced our way through.
Rivers had flowed over Kelbaker Road, but thankfully had not washed out the pavement.
Some nearby roads had been washed out and were closed to traffic, but we were able to reach the main highway and continue our journey east.
How did my students fare in such an incredible storm?
I should backtrack a bit and explain what happened a few weeks earlier. In past trips we've always stayed at Black Canyon Campground in the Mojave National Preserve. It's a nice spot, and even has a shade structure that could have served as shelter from the downpour when it came. But I was poring over the maps and noticed the Sweeney Granite Mountains Desert Research Center. I remembered touring the place several decades ago, so I looked it up and discovered they had a cabin for use by students and researchers on the north slope of the Granite Mountains. On a whim I asked if they could accommodate our crew, and they were able to do so.
During the worst of the storm, we were lounging in a nice dining/study area in a cabin!
The Granite Mountains Preserve is administered by the UC System, and covers around 9,000 acres of granite mountain slopes covered by pinon-juniper forests (and an uncomfortable amount of jumping cholla). They do research on all aspects of the mountain ecosystems. There are several different kinds of accommodations for researchers, including the Norris Cabin where we stayed (below). It is a wonderful setting for field work in the desert!
And thus the first 24 hours of our two-week trip was done. The crew had been tested against the single worst storm our program had ever experienced and came out ready for more. Our next destination was the bottom of the Grand Canyon!
