I’m going to tell you about rain in the desert. How one night I went to make a campfire and the wind whisked the life of it right out of the iron fire ring. How the stars grew a little dimmer, water droplets collected in the atmosphere, the sky blotted out into a milky haze. Still, we all managed to spot a shooting star or two from the Orionids meteor shower.
What you need to know is that on Friday morning, it was 80 degrees and I was paddle boarding up the Colorado River and sweat was running down my back beneath my PFD. By Friday night I was coaxing warmth from a windblown, sideways fire, wrapped in winter coats and blankets. By Sunday morning, there was a dusting of snow on the La Sals.
Rain arriving in the desert is no subtle thing. I went to bed with wind rocking the camper, attempting something like sleep while rain hammered the roof and lightning exploded in the sky. By morning the temperature had dropped into the 30s and winter had utterly arrived. It was steadily raining, the drops hovering in an icy liminal stage between water and snow. One step out of the camper and my boots were caked in red, sticky mud.
We drove into town, searching for warmth in a coffee shop. The line spilling out the door and onto the wet sidewalk told us everyone else was doing the same. We all stood there, huddled under the overhang, maybe slightly disgruntled at the conditions, but also certainly in awe. I have never seen it rain in Moab. I’ve never seen the weather do much more than blast sunshine down onto the landscape.
Later, we filled up water from a spring that runs next to 128, water gushing from the rocks like a burst pipeline. We leaned two plastic 7-gallon jugs against the rock and collected nearly 14 gallons of water in just a few minutes. And it was only then that I noticed a new waterfall spouting off the rim of the canyon that hadn’t been there just a day before. As we looked up the winding canyon, we could see several more pouring from the rock walls and so we took off in the Jeep, driving up 128, searching for ephemeral water features that might not even last the day.
I saw at least a dozen waterfalls, some so high and so wind exposed that they were blown right into the sky before they could hope to touch the ground. Then there was a river raft dragged precariously up onto the flooding bank of the Colorado and a single, soggy tent rattling in the wind. The river was a cloudy iron red and the banks were swollen, sucking down debris. Rain pelted the windshield, shifting for a moment to snow, then back to rain again.
Moab survived two historic flash flooding events this summer and fall, the destruction still visible on the trails and in town. Still, driving through this torrential downpour, I’m captivated, maybe even infatuated with how narrowly everything around me is teetering on the edge of disaster. Isn’t it thrilling to know we have so little control?
Annie Dillard says, “The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”
That’s one thing camper life has offered, the chance to try and be there. Anywhere. To increase the odds of stumbling across that beauty, that grace. To be a thin metal wall away from the first winter storm of the season. To tap a scratched plastic window, drumming out seconds between the lightning and the thunder, counting the miles between yourself and the swift onslaught of winter. Always closing the gap, whether you’re prepared or not.
Interested in reading more of my writing on water in the desert? Check out this essay I wrote (which was nominated for Best American Science and Nature Writing in 2020) for High Desert Journal.
Enjoyed this, Anja. It is fun to follow your travels. You are having some interesting experiences,
Frank and I had a nice relaxing weekend at camp.
Love, Grandma
Beautiful writing and images! Yeah, winter is closing in here too. We never saw the sun or the tops of the mountains yesterday or today, but we had a sunny week during the peak of fall colors and I took advantage of my flexible work schedule to get some good gravel rides in.