[Day 17] Devil Winds

Fourteen days remain before I head back to California. Now, at this point, I realize this trail won’t be finished in a fatal swoop without risking timeline. I’m not hiking long enough days. But, I’m good with it. The 25-mile-a-day schedule has been a relieving change from expecting 30’s. Ten hours of daylight isn’t allowing, and I’d prefer at least the start or end of my day to have some amount of daylight. My fitness is there should I want to push 30 miles a day. But, I don’t want to. Plus, if I were to elect for bigger days, this blog would be the first thing cut, and I can’t afford to disappoint my three person readership. Now, stop stroking your ego Jaród and let’s get on with the day.

After a bit of morning climbing, I started on a large-scale downhill run, with a few bumps in there, between the Mazatzal and Four Peaks Wildernesses. The temperature grew as I descended from nearly 6,500 feet to 3,300 feet over the course of 22 miles. Lunch break — Chex Mix, Slim Jim’s, and Red Vines — was 14 miles in at a trickling creek. Descending in and out of the Mazatzal boundary, a truer Arizona desert became apparent today.

I reached Sycamore Creek, my final water source for the day. A change in the environment was apparent — a dryness. A dryness that keeps you licking your lips. A dryness that almost rings in the ears. A dryness that flairs the nostrils and agitates the nasal cavities in the upper cheeks. Santa Ana.

The Santa Ana “Devil” Winds that frequent coastal Southern California from late summer to early spring form between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada in Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. The deserts evolve high pressure systems in the lower atmosphere, since the higher ground temperatures cause for hot air to rise and cooler air to sink. The high pressure of the interior deserts escapes entrapment in the Great Basin whipping over the path of least resistance — the Peninsular and Transverse Ranges of Southern California and Mexico — towards the lower pressure system over the Pacific Ocean. It’s entropy perceived: our localized atmosphere of the southwest working towards energetic equilibrium through mass flow. Air moves from high pressure to low pressure.

Why did the senses of this Southern California kid notice this only now? I figure for a couple reasons. For one, I’ve cleared the Colorado Plateau locale and mountains along the rim, which is the boundary of the Great Basin Range and Desert. For another, my latitudinal position is below that of California’s Transverse Range, which forms the southern cusp of the Central Valley with the Sierra Nevada. These winds are flushing over the Peninsular Ranges and southern Transverse Range, and I’m in the jet stream south of the Transverse Range. The thin, porous nature of these Southern California coastal mountains make the prime pathway for flow. Otherwise, the lower atmosphere of the Great Basin would have to hop the Sierra Nevada into the Central Valley (which probably has a high pressure system itself), then hop the Coast Range of Central and Northern California to meet the climate of the Pacific. My odd attraction to the southwestern landscape locked between the Pacific Crest and Continental Divide is flagrantly showing.

As my high school English teacher, Mr, Cunningham, said, the winds of the Santa Ana turn you reptilian — uncomfortable and uneasy in lizard skin. He cited an increase in homicide, suicide, and crime rates in Los Angeles with the blowing of the devil winds. Though data is lacking, I do not doubt the large-scale, irritable effects of this notorious weather system.

I’ll blame the Santa Ana’s for this one. I walked a mile backwards today, a total cost of an extra two miles. I accidentally took a spur trail from Arizona Highway 87 that paralleled the AZT on the east side of Sycamore Creek and eventually merged back — no problem. My mistake came when I jumped the creek at the merge, thinking the trail remained on the west side of Sycamore Creek. After watering up, the AZT initially started in a southwestern direction — seemed on track. After about 15 minutes, my internal compass threw a red flag, noticing my direction was all too northbound. Oh well — a few miles of mistake are inevitable and inconsequential in the scheme of 800.

After my two-mile mistake, I rolled into the night truly southbound, on edge from that Santa Ana dryness. After pitching a quick cowboy camp, I cooked up some refried beans and tortillas in the Arizona desert — true southwest fashion.

Signing off,

Zeppelin

“Freak on a Leash”