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| Hiking | 6.00 Miles |
480 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.00 Miles | 2 Hrs 30 Mns | | 2.40 mph |
| 480 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | I was hoping to take advantage of the overcast and light rain to capture some nice lighting for viewing the textures out in the dunes... but, the sun broke through just about as soon as I exited the car, and the nice browns all bleached to white. Still, it is always a treat to head out cross dunes. The hike was uneventful until the winds increased from their interesting 10-15 mph, to 25-30mph... and the area turned all fuzzy around the edges. The dunes were alive and shifting. Next, the nice views of the surrounding mountains blurred out, and the walking became something of a challenge. It was easiest to move head down directly into the wind, which was fine until it was time to turn around and head back towards the truck... then, the wind decided to step it up a notch... 40mph winds blasting gypsum sand into a flurry that put me into a white blizzard. Visibility was down to quarter mile... then 100 yards. I could barely walk on a traverse to the wind... it was catching my pack and spinning me. Oddly enough, this was the first time I'd ever taken a GPS out with me into the Dunes. I was not using it for routing, but it was nice to know that I had it in case the sand storm continued. It didn't.
I cut off across the dunes to intersect the Alkali Flat trail, just to make it simple to return to the truck, and it was interesting to note that once on the trail, all the footprints, even from the hikers out today, were all gone, washed away in just that short hour of high winds. Normally, I don't like to hike that trail because of all the prints in the sand. Not a problem today. A virgin desert reborn. |
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| Ageless Mind... Timeless Body... No Way! Use It and Lose It. Just the way it is... |
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