Tag Archives: desert

Poppies

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Three quick shots.

Today was a photography day. Not only did I finally get my POV.1 camera to produce some good and interesting aerial video, but I went out in the desert and photographed wildflowers and other desert things.

Here are three photos of poppies that I took today. I believe they’re California Poppies, although I’ve heard people refer to them as Mexican Gold Poppies. Whatever. They are so plentiful this year that I can actually see them from the air as I fly over the desert: yellow carpet on the south-facing hills around Wickenburg and Phoenix.

All of these shots were taken in the desert just east of Vulture Peak, south of Wickenburg.

I think this is my favorite photo from today’s shoot.

The blue flowers mixed in here are lupines. Absolutely gorgeous but there are far fewer of them than poppies.

This one just says it all: Welcome to an Arizona spring.

Moments to Remember

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A drive through the desert on a starlit night.

Ever have one of those moments you wish you could remember for the rest of your life? I’m not talking about simple recall here. I’m talking about remembering with the detail you need to relive the experience in your mind.

I had one of those moments [again] on my way home from Phoenix last night. I’d driven down in the afternoon to pick up my husband, Mike, who had driven his Honda down that morning to pass it on it its new owners. I took my Honda S2000, which is a convertible, and because the weather was so perfect yesterday, I had the top down. After dealing with traffic on the afternoon drive through Phoenix, I finally connected with Mike on Chandler Avenue (or it is Boulevard?) in Ahwatukee. From there, we headed back into Phoenix, to one of our favorite restaurants: Tarbell’s on 32nd Street (I think) and Camelback. After a wonderful meal full of interesting flavors and textures, presented with perfect service, we climbed back into the Honda and headed northwest for home.

Tarbell’s is probably about 60 miles from Wickenburg. We took Camelback west to the 51, followed that north to the 101, and took that west to the 17. Then north to Carefree Highway and west to Grand Avenue and northwest to Wickenburg. I had my iPod plugged in, playing just below distortion volume on my Honda’s very disappointing stereo system. (The 2003 model year did not include speakers behind the headrests; what were they thinking?) I’m used to the less than satisfactory sound quality competing with road and wind noise, so I enjoyed the classic rock — mostly 70s and 80s — that I made Mike listen to. (The rule is, the driver chooses the music.)

The drive north on the 51 at night is always interesting. On most nights, you can see the landing lights of the jets on their way in from the north to Sky Harbor Airport just southeast of Phoenix’s downtown area. Last time I took this route home, I’d spotted at least eight aircraft, lined up into the distance. But last night, there were never more than four.

We stopped for gas at Carefree Highway — last gas for about 30 miles. My Honda gets between 25 and 30 miles per gallon, depending on how I drive. Because I don’t drive it very often, I tend to drive in a way that gets me lower mileage. (Hey, girls just wanna have fun, right?) But on a long highway drive, if I keep my speed down near the speed limit, I can go far more than 300 miles on a 13-gallon tank of gas.

Then came the part of the trip I’d like to store in my brain for periodic detailed recall: the drive west on Carefree Highway. It was about 7:30 PM, and even though it was a Friday night and Carefree Highway is a favored route for the Phoenix to Las Vegas crowd, there weren’t many people on the road. Once I passed the new Game and Fish Building (with its deplorable new traffic light) and rounded the bend at Lake Pleasant Road, I brought the car up to speed, set the cruise control, and drove while classic rock blared out into the night.

It was dark out there — it usually is at night — and a slim crescent moon hung in the sky, bright side down. I say “bright side” because the sky was so dark, you could clearly see the entire moon, even though most of it wasn’t illuminated. The crescent hung there in front of us, surrounded by stars, sinking ever lower into the sky. Above us, the sky was black as — well, black as night, to use an appropriate cliche. There were more stars than a city dweller could imagine; so many, in fact, that it was difficult to pick out the standard patterns of the Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt, and the Pleiades among them. And being that the sky was perfectly cloudless, those stars stretched in every direction.

What I should have done was pull over to a safe spot off the road, killed the headlights, and spent some time just looking up. Because frankly, when you’re driving 65+ miles per hour on a two-lane road in the middle of the desert at night, you really can’t steal too many glances at what’s directly above you. What’s in front of you is far more important to monitor.

Yes, it was cold — probably in the low 50s. Although the top was down, Mike had his window up and the heat was on. And yes, I hate the cold. But the cold was part of the entire experience: dark night, fun car, open roof, loud music, crescent moon, countless stars, cold wind.

The moon dipped behind a hill as we got onto Grand Avenue and drove the last ten miles to Wickenburg. In town, the carnival at the Community Center offered a bright contrast to the otherwise dark night. Town was surprisingly empty at 8 PM on Wickenburg’s big Friday night of the year.

I drove home, coming down from the kind of high you can only get from having real fun.

Chasing Desert Racers

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At the Best in the Desert/BlueWater Parker 425.

I spent this past Saturday doing one of the things I really love to do: chasing racecars with a helicopter.

The venue was the Best in the Desert Racing Association’s BlueWater Resort & Casino Parker 425, which featured highly modified trucks, cars, and buggies racing on a 140+ mile dirt track through the desert. My client was a television producer who videos these events from multiple cameras and turns them in TV shows. For this event, they had a total of 15 cameras, includibut thingsng one in my helicopter and several in the trucks out on the course.

I flew the helicopter with the cameraman and my husband, Mike, working as a spotter, on board. The cameraman sat behind me with his door off. Mike sat beside me.

We started before dawn at the Parker Airport. I started up at 7 sharp and was warmed up and ready to fly by 7:15. The police escort was leading the 300+ participant vehicles to the starting line on Route 95 in downtown Parker when we began circling about 500 feet overhead. The cameraman had a list of 15 targets he needed to video. The first one was the 15th truck in line at the start. Racers were released 30 seconds apart. When our first target was released, the fun began.

Desert Racing TruckI chased the car down the paved road and onto the dirt track, descending as I left the downtown area. Soon, we were racing beside it just 70 feet up on the long straightaway that heads due east. Mike kept an eye out for wires, calling them out as he saw them. My attention was split between the truck, the wires, and the track in front of me. I worked the cyclic and collective hard, climbing, descending, slowing, speeding up. Both arms and legs worked automatically to make the helicopter do what I needed it to do. Spectators below me went by in a blur. The track made a 90 degree turn to the left and I paused at the inside of the curve just long enough to pivot so the cameraman could keep the camera on the target. Then down the short straightaway to the edge of a steep drop with high wires on one side. The truck descended the hill while I climbed over the wires. I met the truck on the other side and we raced together through a tree-filled dry wash.

“Okay, peel off,” the cameraman instructed.

I turned away from the target and followed the road back. Now we had to find the next target. All we had were numbers — we didn’t know much about how the vehicle looked, other than what class it was in. I had to fly low enough to see them. The first one of us to see a number, called it out. We got the next target halfway back to town. I lowered the collective to slow down and made a sharp 180 degree turn. Then I was on that truck, following it to the wires and into the wash.

We repeated this process about seven or eight times, each time picking up our target a little farther away on the track and ending a little farther down the track. I got to know exactly where all the wires were. Sometimes, I’d look down in time to see a spectator wave up at us or snap a photo. I think there were more photos taken of us that day than of any one racer.

This went on for over an hour.

Then, suddenly we could no longer find any of the targets we needed to video. That started a search up and down the track, flying low enough to read the numbers. Every once in a while, the cameraman would pick out a “trophy truck” or a vehicle driven by someone well-known, and ask me to follow it. I’d follow as closely as I dared, putting the cameraman close to the action. Inside the helicopter, through our noise-reduced headsets, we could sometimes hear the engines of the racers below us or the sirens of the vehicles preparing to pass. We watched one driver slip off the track and race along beside it, scattering spectators who had been standing too close. We shot some video of a modified Hummer flying through the air after a particularly bad bump.

I suppose I should mention here that I wasn’t the only helicopter at the event. There were at least five others: 2 R44s, an Astar, a Eurocopter, and a Bell Jet Ranger. In most cases, they’d been hired to follow a specific race vehicle or team. Once they left the area, they didn’t come back for a while. So keeping an eye out for aircraft wasn’t a serious issue.

After two hours, we headed back to the airport. I shut down and placed a fuel order. Then we drove over to the BlueWater Casino for breakfast. The cameraman the cameraman met with some of the folks he works with to see how many vehicles on his list were still in the race. Each vehicle had a transponder and satellite communications device so it could be tracked from headquarters at the Casino. According to the cameraman, fewer than 50% of the vehicles finish the race. Most of them break. And if you saw the track, you’d understand why.

With an updated list, we headed out again just before noon. We were expecting one of the target vehicles in the pit area, so we stayed nearby. There was a “serpentine” area just east of the airport, with winding, bumpy tracks in a big field surrounded by spectators. I think there was about 5 miles of road there, and it was so twisty that even from the air, I had trouble figuring out the route. We spent about 15 minutes there, filming the action of vehicles skidding around the sandy curves, throwing dust high up into the air. At some point, I realized that I was probably putting on a better show for the spectators than the cars and trucks were.

We spotted a target vehicle as he was leaving the pits and took off after him. More chasing at low level, avoiding wires, slowing when the truck slowed, speeding up when it speeded up. We peeled off and continued down the track, looking for more targets. That’s when we started seeing the breakdowns. Trucks and cars and buggies on the side of the road with parts peeled off of them and drivers bent over their innards. One team was changing a tire. Another was taking the hood off the car. We saw a fender alongside the track. Later, we saw a prone driver with his companion performing CPR. (The rumor I heard was the driver suffered a heart attack or stroke while driving and died on the race course. I have not been able to confirm this yet.)

Desperate to find one last vehicle on the cameraman’s list and looking for exciting footage, we followed the entire 140-mile course. It stretched from Parker through the empty desert as far east as Cunningham Pass (north of Wenden) and around Planet Peak (near the Bill Williams River) to the northwest. This much-reduced map gives you an idea of the distance — I’ve highlighted the track in light red so it’s easier to see.

Parker 425 Map

Much of the course was pretty boring from my point of view — lots of long, straight stretches. In one area, the road ran alongside a set of high tension power lines, making it tough to get low enough to see car numbers. But things got interesting on the last 4 or so miles, when the track headed into the mountains south of the Bill Williams River. The cameraman got some excellent footage of a car winding its way down a narrow canyon. I had to stay high — there wasn’t enough room for me to fly alongside it. But when the canyon opened, I dropped down so he could get some close-up shots.

After trying a few more times to find the missing buggy — we were in touch by radio with the satellite tracking people — we headed back to the airport and I shut down.

We’d flown a total of 5.0 hours. The sky had clouded up and lighting wasn’t as good as it had been earlier in the day. Although we’d planned a third flight for the finishers, the cameraman. The cameraman decided to skip it.

It had been a great day. Not only did I do a lot of flying, but it was the kind of flying I really love to do — challenging, exciting, and with a goal other than going from point A to point B.

Why can’t all my gigs be like this one?

Note: If you were at the 2008 Parker 425 in February and have photos or video footage of a plain red helicopter (no stripe) flying with the cars, please let me know. I’d love to show them off with this post or elsewhere on this site.

February 7, 2008 Update: I added a photo Mike took during the flight to give a better idea of what was going on at Parker.

Some Photos from a Desert Trek

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A handful of photos.

I don’t usually put a lot of large photos on this site, but I thought I’d give it a try today. Yesterday, Mike, Jack the Dog, and I went for a combination Jeep ride/hike out in the desert northeast of Wickenburg. All of these photos were taken within 15 miles of my home, so it gives you an idea of the landscape I live in.

Winter is a great time for enjoying Arizona’s Sonoran desert. Oddly enough, however, our party of seven (including Jack the Dog) didn’t run into anyone else along the way.

We started at the Rodeo Grounds on Constellation Road in Wickenburg, then headed out on Constellation Road. We made the left hand turn just before Monte Cristo Mine, followed that road for a short while and took a right where it forked off. We drove through one drag gate, closing it behind us to keep the cattle on their appropriate sides of the fence, and continued down the road. Eventually, it merged with Slim Jim Creek. We followed the dry creek bed as far as we could, maneuvering around and over two nasty places where the last flood had scattered boulders in the wash. When we reached a point where we could follow the creek no further, we pulled onto the side and parked our pickup and two Jeeps. The road continued, but there were two narrow places just beyond where we parked. Besides, it climbed away from the creek, which was our intended trail.

We geared up with drinking water, lunch bags, and cameras and headed down the creekbed on foot. I figure we walked about 1-1/2 to 2 miles. The creek wound through some of the most beautiful Sonoran Desert scenery before ending abruptly at the Hassayampa River. Although there isn’t a drop of water flowing under the bridge in town, there was quite a bit at the mouth of Slim Jim Creek.

Here are my favorite photos of the day, along with some captions.

The south-facing hills were absolutely covered with saguaro cacti.

I played with my fisheye lens here. This rock face was actually quite flat, but the lens makes it look like it curves out into the river. Not very realistic, but it looks cool.

Here’s Jack the Dog with that fisheye lens again. He found some quicksand near this spot and almost got stuck in it.

The river flowed a lot higher earlier in the week. This sand shows the pattern from the receded water. It was still quite wet.

Believe it or not, this is the skeletal remains of a type of prickly pear cactus. (We also found the decomposing body of a javelina, but I didn’t photograph it, primarily because it was really gross.)

This is the windmill near the remains of Sayer’s Station, which we passed on our way on Constellation Road. The road climbs past the windmill and I took this shot from the road, just about level with the top of the windmill. I like taking photos of windmills.

Comments? You know where to put them.

Fire Hazard Weather

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High wind and dry conditions are a bad mix.

I’ve been watching the northwestern Arizona weather carefully for the past few days, checking National Weather Service forecasts for Wickenburg (where I live) and Kingman. I had a flying gig at Wickieup this weekend and although I didn’t expect much revenue from it, it was an opportunity for Mike and I to escape home responsibilities for a few days and camp out with some extremely unusual folks. Wickieup is 2/3 of the way between Wickenburg and Kingman, so I figured that if I extrapolated between the two, I’d get a good forecast.

The forecast wasn’t good. It called for high winds — 30 mph or more — on Saturday and Sunday. Although I have flown (and I suppose I will fly) in winds up to 50 mph (not recommended, folks), the landing zone in Wickieup is on a narrow ridge with one way in and out while the event was going on. If the wind was coming from the northwest, I’d be operating with a tailwind, which is always a bad idea when you have a heavy load at 4,000+ feet elevation. The area is very mountainous, so all that wind going over the mountains would make for a rough ride. The end result: me operating in marginal conditions to give my passengers rides that they might not enjoy.

Since I’m just coming off a month-long period of heavy flying — I flew about 50 hours in the past 30 days — I decided that it just wasn’t worth it to spend the weekend. So we flew up for the day, did a few rides, watched the activities — more on that in another post — and flew home.

When we got home, I checked the weather again, mostly to make sure I’d made the right decision about the weekend. (I had.) The Wickenburg weather forecast included something I’d never seen before: a Fire Hazard Watch. Here’s what it said when I checked it again this morning:

...FIRE WEATHER WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM LATE TONIGHT THROUGH SUNDAY EVENING DUE TO STRONG AND GUSTY NORTH WINDS AND LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY..

A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM IS DEVELOPING OVER THE WESTERN STATES THIS MORNING. THE COLD FRONT ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SYSTEM WAS LOCATED IN NEVADA AND WILL CONTINUE TO MOVE SOUTHWARD TODAY AND TONIGHT. SUSTAINED NORTH WINDS OF 20 TO 30 MPH WITH HIGHER GUSTS APPROACHING 45 MPH MAY DEVELOP ON SUNDAY. IN ADDITION...VERY LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY CAN BE EXPECTED. THE COMBINATION OF STRONG WINDS AND VERY LOW HUMIDITY MAY CREATE HAZARDOUS FIRE WEATHER CONDITIONS.

(Sorry about the ALL CAPS, but that’s the way they publish them.)

This warning just emphasizes how dry it can be here in the desert. I can’t remember the last time it rained here — maybe a month ago? We have plenty of stretches where it doesn’t rain for two or more months. Not long ago, Phoenix had a record 143-day dry spell. That’s almost 5 months!

The weather, in case you’re wondering, is almost always clear here, with bright blue skies. During our dry season — which is 8 to 10 months out of the year — there are rarely any clouds at all. Sure it’s beautiful, but it gets a bit tedious at times. You find yourself wishing for some cloud activity. You find yourself wishing for rain.

Right now, there’s a fire burning north of Wickenburg, although I’m not sure exactly where. We saw the smoke as we flew home from Wickieup. I have a feeling it’s somewhere southwest of Williams, AZ, perhaps in the Big Chino Wash area. There was another one burning southeast of Flagstaff when I flew back from Flag with passengers last Friday. In this dryness, it doesn’t take much to get a fire going. And when the wind kicks up, a small fire can quickly turn into an out-of-control blaze.

Yet people will continue to toss their cigarette butts out their car windows as they drive on highways and back roads. I can see the results of their carelessness as I fly around the state. Acres and acres burned east of Vulture Mine Road just south of Wickenburg. More burned along I-40, I-10, I-17, and SR-89. Signs up and down the highways proclaim Fire Danger Extreme, but no one stops to think of the consequences of a tiny cigarette butt or the sparks from an ATV or dirt bike. Those signs are for other people.

While I don’t expect a fire to break out in the area this weekend, I hope one doesn’t. If it does, with the high winds that are expected, we could get clouds — clouds of smoke.