Some Salt news

Loyal Blog Reader Nancy McC. sent along the photo at left.  It was sent to here by Don S. a guy who has pretty much inherited the Title of Mister Salt.  Anyway, the scene here is looking downstream on River Right toward Cibecue Creek.  This land is on the White Mountain Apache Reservation.  It shows the damage to the road that hugs the Salt River bank and crosses the creek.  Obviously, the recent storm rendered it impassible.  Whether it gets rehabilitated by the Tribe is rather doubtful.  Most of their permit income is generated on the stretch of river above this creek crossing.  Chances are The Tribe will leave it "as is." I'm going to go on record here with this fearless prediction: "The Salt River Day Stretch is going to be a complete Zoo Scene this year."  The Day Stretch Road is going to resemble Loop 101 during rush hour--one weekends it will approach total gridlock.  Dehydrated tempers will flare and road rage (such as it can be on this road) is almost a guaranteed certainty.  

I don't think I'd want to be anywhere near this place on a weekend or during Spring Break.  The Apaches don't have enough law enforcement manpower to maintain order there this year.  It's going to be mayhem!  Be forewarned.

One thing you can also take to the bank--unless an unusually high elevation warm rain washes away the snowpack in the White Mountains---the Salt River whitewater stretch is going to be going strong throughout the month of April and will almost assuredly be raftable well into May!

The Baldy SNOTEL shows an amazing piece of data today--the snowpack has SHRUNK A FOOT while the Snow Water Equivalent HAS RISEN AN INCH!!!  This is a rare anomaly, one not seen in drought-stricken Arizona for many a year.  Click here to see the data yourself. 

Bear in mind that the Salt River's snowpack is at a much higher overall elevation that the Verde River's snowpack.  Typically, the overnight temperatures throughout the bulk of the Salt snowpack will keep it frozen for much longer.  Likewise, when there is a huge snowpack and one that is essentially turning into a mini-glacier, the snowpack itself become self-insulating.  So, even if there is a VERY warm day (or days) it isn't going to really dent the snowpack until the seasonal cycles bring about much warmer night time temperatures.

In the Old Days, the average annual peak of the Salt was April 18.  This year (barring that drenching warm rain) I'd expect to see the 2010 peak flow occur even later than April 18.  It's shaping up to be a great year--shirtsleeve and sunscreen rafting ahead!

To shoe or not to shoe?

As I sit here on a snowy Idaho Falls Sunday morning, my thoughts turn to snow shoeing.  We both love stomping around in the snow.  It's delightful fun.  Note on the left side of your screen the embedded Twitter account.  (You can click on this embed to see a lot more of the recent Tweets.)  I am using this Twitter mostly to throw up some shortened links to various data sites from Arizona.  Eventually (perhaps) I will create some way to organize them and make them all more accessible.  For now, it's the best I can do.

Anyway, I have been looking at the snowpack down on the Rimlands.  It's a great snowpack.  What strikes me is that the snow is consolidating.  It's water content (called "snow water equivalent" SWE) is remaining essentially steady while the depth of snow itself is shrinking.  At Happy Jack, for example, the snow has shrunk 15% while the SWE has remained nearly unchanged.  If this trend continues, teh snow will turn brick hard on the surface crust.  Such a snowpack could be a real treat for snowshoeing.  The shoes would prevent "postholing" into the deep snow below the crust but the crust would make for easy walking without having to break trail through deep powder or new snow.

I remember one such winter in Flagstaff back in the mid-1980's.  Late in the season--March, as I recall, we were able to go out on Highway 180 and goof off in the aspens.  We skied at will blissfully anywhere we wished without having to worry about breaking trail.  The snow crust was slicker than snot, of course, and you dared not step on the snow with a cross country ski boot.  It was some of the most fun I can recall goofing off in the snow in the mid-1980's.

Hum...well, those memories and today's snowpack data have me wondering and pondering whether to take our snow shoe rigging down to Arizona.  I am sure we are going to be watching this data much more closely than normal as the weeks ahead unfold.  It could be a real unique opportunity.  We shall see!

Wet spring in store?

The two graphics here are from the NWS Climate Prediction Center.  Both the One Month and the Three month computer models are showing above average precipitation in the Southwest Deserts.  I would suspect this means that periodic storm fronts will move in out of the Pacific bringing a mix of snow & rain through March and mostly rain from late March onward.

It's a good thing we will be down there this spring--this is ideal habitat for the profuse tumbleweeds that are certain to explode from our disturbed soil.  This will be our first chance to attempt to deal with them.
We really are clueless as to how to proceed with the weeds.  It's definitely going to be our biggest challenge with the Arizona property.

The other nice thing about the long-range climate prediction is that we probably won't be dealing with Sahara-Style dust.  Dust is a fact of life in the Southwest but it's always nice when a wet pattern can knock back the dust for a few weeks.  Hopefully, it won't be a mud pit either.

We're thinking about bricking a much larger area at the entrance to the Straw House.  The soil will be a lot easier to work if it is a wet pattern.  Anyway, that's what "they" say it's going to be like during our visit--we shall see if "they" are correct.  (Remember--you can click on the small graphics to see the large versions.)

Crank it up

Gee, what a difference a month can make!  We put this blog to bed four weeks ago yesterday and, poof, now it's rising up from its slumber as a new chapter begins.  About 5 weeks from now we will be back in Old Airy Zonie, once again.  Time to don our Snowbird Persona and crank this blog back to life.

We will maintain dual blogs for the foreseeable future.  The Daily News blog is a great venue for just about everything that's happening in our lives.  This blog is going to be a tad more "Arizona Specific."

We are already very excited about being about to be Double Dipper Snowbirds this season.  How good is that?  This trip promises to be a whole lot more fun that the last trip which was 100% all work and no play.  We can promise you there will be a lot of play in the upcoming trip.  There's stuff we will have to do to the property but it won't be as all encompassing as the Nov-Dec. trip was.

It's exciting to know, for example, that our internet connection is there waiting for us.  The power is live and turned on and ready to roll.  The propane tank and heater and waiting for the turn of a valve and the click of a switch.  This time we will be able to tow the Nissan down, too.  We'll take our bicycles, river gear, hiking stuff, cast iron inventory, BBQ and a whole lot more.  YAAA--WHOOO!

One of the biggest potential joys of being in Arizona this spring is the possibility of a gang-busters whitewater rafting season.  There's a HUGE snowpack sitting in the High Country down there right now.  If a tropical storm doesn't come along with a big warm rain and wash all that snow off, the runoff season in the Salt & Verde Rivers will be one to remember for a long time.  There are a ba-jillion rafting, canoeing and kayaking possibilities for this upcoming high water season.  We're really looking forward to it.

It should be a pretty danged good wild flower year, too, so the hiking possibilities are very exciting.
I've already put in a call to Max C. the manager of the Verde River Greenway to see if we can volutneer to update the canoe guide we prepared in early 2007.  Nancy McC. and I spent some time in the Middle Verde but the water was SOOO darned low we didn't get much accomplished.  Maybe we can remedy that this year during her Spring Break. 

We have also set the stage for some potential volunteering at Montezuma Well National Monument and we will be doing some advance legwork in that regard before we head south.

As you can already see, this blog really needs to come back to life to chronicle our prep and ideas for the Arizona trip.

The Snowbirds are BAAACK!

Time to hibernate this blog

This blog exists for use when we are traveling to and from Arizona or when we are actually in Arizona.
Now that we are back in our Idahome, we're going to put this blog into hibernation.  We have a ba-zillion blogs, as some of you already know.  However, we created yet another blog at 5:55 am New Year's Day for the specific purpose of writing about our daily activities.  We are excited about the upcoming year and want to "journal it" both for our own recollection and for the edification of our loyal and astute readers.  You can find the new blog here:

http://y2ten.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading--this is the last post on this blog until we head south again someday.  Cheers!  J&S

@ Home on New Year's Eve

Here are a couple more photos.  They are pretty obvious.  In the top one we are etching out a parking area for the big green truck.  We've learned that if we drive over the snow even once, it is compacted for the remainder of the winter.  Your best bet is to take the snow right down to the grass level and then continue to keep after it all winter long.  Otherwise, a sheet of ice will soon appear in the parking spot and you will be slip-sliding for months.  The bottom picture is our little bungalow, all tucked into its winter coat.  We are so happy the place survive our absence in such great shape and style. The next big trick will be to see if we can bring the parked Suzuki Sidekick back to life.  We're not sure its antifreeze was rated good enough to have survived that sub-zero cold snap that took place while we were gone. 

The Legacy Parkway

Here's some photos. The first picture at right is the Legacy Parkway looking north. Note that there is not even ONE single vehicle in sight.  Is this Salt Lake or what?  The Legacy is really amazing--no trucks are allowed and the speed limit is 55 mph and people actually OBSERVE the speed limit.  It's beautiful there.  The second photo is looking into the rear view mirror where we see one lonely vehicle.  Bear in mind this is New Year's Eve.  It's truly surreal on The Legacy.  Even though The Legacy is only 13 miles long (13% of the metroplex gauntlet) it change the entire equation of driving through Salt Lake City.  It's so totally much more relaxing and less stressful.  It boggles our imagination that a conservation state like Utah could have spent the 100's of millions they did on this stretch of highway.  Peaceful, pastoral, bucolic and many other laid back words come to mind in thinking of how to describe The Legacy.  We look forward to this piece of the SLC mayhem.