April 25, 2012.    Day 5.    17 miles.    Camping near the  Rodriguez Spur fire tank at mile point 68.4.    Hiked through the Anza-Borrega desert today.    The weather was cool.   Had a wild thunderstorm last night with driving rain and gusts of wind that must at least have been 30 - 40  - 50 miles per hour.   I was seriously concerned about how my fragile little tarp would fare and spent most of the night awake, holding on the the tent pole.    The wind was shrieking and the tarp was flapping so hard that it sounded like gunshots.    My tarp was blown down once and I had to go out to restake it in the rain.   In the morning I found out that most of the other hikers had similar experiences.   There was about an inch of rain.  All in all I was pleased, though.   My quilt got slightly wet, but not enough to compromise the insulating quality of the down.    

 Because of the rain last week, the desert is abloom with wildflowers.     They tend to be small, delicate and subtle with occasional splashes of ostentatious color.    The flowers sometime carpet the ground, white and purple flowers making a mauve carpet; or sometimes white with flecks of yellow, red and purple.   Unfortunately they are so tiny that none of my photos were able to do them justice.

     


When you stop and listen you can hear nothing but the wind and the buzzing of the bees.

A rainbow after the storm.

The cactus flowers are particularly ostentatious.

Two friends and fellow storm survivors:   Rainier, from South Africa and Matt, from Kentucky.   

This little fellow was not very anxious to share the trail with me.     I believe he is a western diamondback (rattlesnake).    When I came upon him he was stretched out across the trail and appeared to be about 3 to 4 feet long.   He quickly coiled up and buzzed fiercely.