A Nevada evening
Evening comes to High Rock Canyon, Nevada.
I used to fly recon for SIFC.
You did what?
I sat in the right-front seat of a small single engine aircraft and followed the path of thunderstorms looking for lightning fires for the Susanville Interagency Fire Center (pronounced sif-C). When we found a fire I would radio the ground folks and help guide them into the fire. Since SIFC covers an area from Denio in the Nevada desert to the Ishi Wilderness in the foothills of the central valley and from the Medicine Lake highlands to the Feather River canyon, there was a lot of ground to look at.
Some of the ground was very interesting from the air. One of those spots is High Rock Canyon in Nevada. This is a narrow canyon that stays green long into the summer after the surrounding sagelands have browned up. That made it a good landmark in an area where there are few roads, fewer dominant peaks and hundreds of square miles of nothing (to most people). So when I flew recon it was a welcome sight. I knew where I was. There was something to rest the eye on, if only for a moment.
A few years ago Kathy and I took a weekend and drove to High Rock Canyon. This is something of an expedition as the canyon is between the Smoke Creek Desert and Vya. (Think Burning Man and Nowhere. Still not finding it –try Google Earth.) We got lucky and had a few thunderstorms visit the area while we were there. It made for nice light. Just like when I used to fly recon for SIFC.