Exhaustion, Injury, Rain and the Road

Two hikers rescued from Mt.Lemmon – Arizona Daily Star – A mother and son set out on the Lemmon Trail to hike from the top of the mountain to Catalina State Park and needed a rescue due to dehydration and exhaustion.

Woman injured in fall on Mt. Lemmon – Arizona Daily Star – A woman falls in the Rose Canyon Lake area on a walk from her campsite.

Heights of Catalinas looking like a rain forest – Arizona Daily Star – Nice pictures and information on the flowers, ferns and moisture on the higher elevation trails – by Doug Kreutz.

 

Street Smarts: Road named for old prison camp – Arizona Daily Star – This article pulls together a number of interesting facts about the highway and the Prison Camp – interesting reading and certainly don’t miss the pictures there were several great pictures that I had not seen!

David Leighton includes his Sources for the information in the Street Smarts article – one very interesting source that I was not aware of is Peter Taylor’s Master’s Thesis “If you build it, they will come: The story of the Catalina Highway.” So far I have only read select sections carefully but I am already completely fascinated – the sections I have read are filled with fascinating details! (And even some of the material I have seen before is pulled together nicely and fun to revisit.) This Thesis is available to read online without charge from the University of Arizona. One of my favorite details so far:

Unfortunately for the escapees, the most viable route of escape was to follow Soldier Creek as it headed down toward the Tucson basin. The drainage quickly becomes a closed-in, steep canyon that funnels a hiker through an ever-narrowing chute. As the canyon reaches the desert floor, it begins to widen out where it crosses the Catalina Highway. The guards would simply wait at the road for the prisoners to arrive. The escapees, by then tired out from their over night hike and often pin cushioned by cactus thorns, were then apprehended and sent to a regular prison (7’C 29 November 1993).

 

Heavy Rains and Bighorn Sheep Reintroduction Project Update

The Bighorn Sheep Reintroduction Project Update Status update for 7/7 to 7/20 is now available (all updates are currently available here). Interesting details:

  • 13 of the remaining 14 collared sheep are known to be alive; one of the collars maybe malfunctioning.
  • The lambs were last observed 4-6 weeks ago and are assumed to be doing well.
  • Researchers are planning to use the Cox proportional hazards (PH) model to help them examine the influence of different factors on sheep mortality. Horizontal visibility is mentioned as an important factor in mountain lion predation and a variable that the researchers would like to collect data on – possibly using volunteers.

 

From the latest update: “While the methods for measuring [horizontal visibility] are pretty straightforward, the challenge for our research team will be reaching all the necessary locations, so we may be calling for volunteers to help us in the near future! So if you like to hike in the Catalinas and want to follow in the footsteps of a bighorn sheep or two, there may soon be an opportunity to be involved in our ongoing research!”

 

A number of articles about the summer storm and heavy rains yesterday: