Notes from the Road: Lees Ferry in the wind and the rain

And some images for Indigenous Peoples Day

Oct 12, 2026

Note: I started writing this as the intro to today’s Newswire. Then it occurred to me that today is Indigenous Peoples Day, and some other holiday for certain cultures, and folks probably aren’t going to be into reading the news. So here’s a little impression of the current storm soaking parts of the Southwest, and some photos.

The rain finally eased up, giving way to magnificent evening light. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

10/11/2026

I woke up early this morning, before dawn, in my little tent in El Morro National Monument in west-central New Mexico. The skies, frogbelly gray the day before, had cleared up, the moon was new, and the stars and the milky way sprawled across the blue incomprehensibly. I crawled out before sunrise to see first light falling on the big bleached sandstone fin of A’ts’ina, aka El Morro, delighting as sunflowers and winterfat and daisies danced in the warm breeze.

Then, because I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, I broke camp, loaded up El Burro Blanco, and headed west about five hours, across the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Mesas, through a quasi-haboob in Tuba City, to Lees Ferry — and right into the brunt of the remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel. Now it’s Sunday evening and I’m sitting in the cab of the truck, which shudders with each forceful gust of wind, waiting for the rain to stop long enough to set up my tent, which of course won’t do much good if it is shredded by another one of these 50-mph gales.

Tuba City quasi-haboob. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

Yeah, the Southwest is getting battered again. So far, however, it hasn’t brought the expected abundance of moisture to Lees Ferry, which appears to be on the eastern fringe of the storm’s main path, which is veering diagonally in a northeasterly direction from San Diego. Presumably it’s raining harder to the west of here, in the Las Vegas-St. George area, and also north of here: The Moab 240 ultramarathon was cancelled Sunday due to heavy rain and flash floods, and about 70 runners and volunteers were stranded at an aid station near Bridger Jack Mesa and had to be evacuated.

The Paria River at about 14 cfs on Sunday evening. By the next morning, it would be almost 500 cfs. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

The storm is not over, by any means. It’s supposed to keep up through Wednesday, at least, and may even bring substantial snow to the high country.

Fruit orchard at the Lonely Dell Ranch alongside the Paria River at Lees Ferry. The pears are ready to pick. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

10/12/2026

The rain stopped long enough for me to set up the tent, though the wind continued howling into the night. But when I awoke around 2 a.m., the air was still, the only noise the gurgle of the Colorado River, and the stars were everywhere.

This morning’s flash flood alert has yet to materialize, but it has been raining on and off for a couple of hours, and the Paria River is substantially larger than it was yesterday, growing from about 20 cubic feet per second to nearly 500 cfs overnight. If I were to wait around, I might see it rage even more, since the USGS streamflow gage at Kanab is recording 2,000 cfs. But that might be a pretty long wait, and I want to go up to Page and get a gander at Glen Canyon Dam and the great big Lake Powell bathtub ring.

For more on what to call Lees Ferry … :