A mountain lion and "impassable when wet"

While we were in the desert, it snowed at our home. During the string of snow storms that have been pummeling us, a mountain lion passed one of my wildlife cameras. The camera is pointed at a bear "whammy tree" which is right behind the lion. The lion showed no interest in the tree and just padded softly by it. Notice the naked neck - the wildlife agency hasn't caught up with this guy yet!

Believe it or not, it is still snowing here. We got a water-logged 8" of snow last night and it's still falling. It's hard to be happy about snow in May but this is helping with our drought.

At the very same time as the mountain lion was passing my wildlife camera, we were on our trip, starting with an excursion to Rattlesnake Canyon and later going to the San Rafael Swell. Rattlesnake Canyon is a site in western Colorado with the highest concentration of natural rock arches outside of Arches National Park. Because it sits on BLM land, the Labraduo was allowed to join us there.

To get there, we passed some beautiful sights. Rock cliffs and spires sat above a nearby town.

When we looked more closely we saw that climbers were on the spire. If you look closely, you can see two climbers descending in the evening light.

You can see that the skies looked fairly benign at that time. There was a small chance of rain but we surmised that we were in the desert, where it likely wouldn't rain. So, we didn't worry about the fact that the maps said that the 4WD road into Rattlesnake Canyon "may be impassable when wet".

Alas, very shortly after arriving, an angry bank of clouds surged toward us.

We could see torrential downpours in the distance.

The wind started howling.

We retreated to our van but I stepped outside during every lull to look around.

We had heard that the area where we sat had received almost no rain all year. So, we sat tight, assuming that we'd awaken to sunny skies the next day and be able to go see the arches. During breaks in the torrential and freezing rain, I explored the desert bloom near our van. What a sight for someone who has been mired in winter for so long!

We weren't yet focused on the "impassable when wet" roads that stood between us and civilization. Needless to say, this visit to Rattlesnake Canyon wasn't going to proceed as planned.