windy!

[regehr]

I had wanted to do a short backpack this weekend but the forecast for the Hanksville area on Saturday was for winds in the 30s and gusts up to 50, so we adjusted the plan to a car camp. I figured down in a slot canyon would be a good way to escape the winds Saturday so we did the non-technical version of Blue John's main fork, which as always was superb and also (as someone here has remarked, but I forgot who) the dam caused by a wall collapse and resulting nasty pool of water that was present the last time I was there is now gone, so again it's a dry-foot walk-through canyon. When we returned to where we had decided to camp at the head of the west fork the winds were really going, it was pretty unpleasant even sitting in the lee of a vehicle, just a lot of sand in the air. My friend has a portable anemometer and it was only reading in the high 20s but still, ugh -- sleeping in the vehicles would have been fine but the evening was just not going to be pleasant so we bailed up the Green River Road, had dinner at Ray's, and got home late. The winds and amount of blowing dust on the Green River road were unreal, I've done a lot of springtime desert trips and had never seen anything quite like this, visibility was basically zero at times. There were a lot of people out in the desert due to Easter weekend and I expect there might have been a few unhappy campers last night!

 

[Nethos]

Yes. The wind was super bad. We were camped on the rim at Dark that weekend and between the dust and the full moon, even the star visibility was effected badly. Glad you got out!