Hiking Up A Flash Flood Canyon

We had moved to a new house in a desert area.  I decided to go exploring and hiking by myself.  I came upon a riverbed and looked upstream.  There were the most gorgeous waterfalls in the distance.  I pulled out my phone to take a photo.  I intended to upload to facebook and say, "look what's in our backyard…sort of" 

 I hiked upstream along the riverbank and as I hiked the water disappeared from the falls and the streambed, leaving just wet sand. 

 I kept hiking.

  Eventually, I got to a place where walls narrowed around me and in order to continue upstream, I had to get down into the riverbed.  It was wet sand, full of debris and other obstacles.  I got to a place where a small waterfall had been, but the scenery had changed so much from the view further downstream.

  I climbed up and saw where the riverbed rounded a bend and I couldn’t see where it went from there.  As I looked up there, a man came around the bend.  He was dressed in hiking clothes, in his mid 30s, dark blond hair.  I didn't recognize him.  He greeted me and then voiced a warning that this was a flash flood area and that a dangerous flood was approaching.  I better get out of the way on higher or dry ground.  He asked me if I had hiked in from downstream and I said yes.  He expressed his unbelief that I had come in that dangerous way.  He said he would show me the way back to civilization a different route to the south.  I said, oh that's where our home is.

 As we spoke, we heard the thundering roar of a flood and we watched it wash down the canyon I had just hiked up. 

 Wow, that was a close call. 

 To think that I had just come up that area.  A few moments later and I would have been right in that flood and unable to get out.  I followed the man out for a ways and we came upon civilization again. 

  Then, a young woman in her 20s with dark hair (I couldn't place exactly who) came up to us and expressed relief that I had been located.   

 I awakened there.  There seemed to be no strong feelings except the difficulties of trudging upstream alone and relief of being rescued from a dangerous situation.

January, 14, 2015