Warning: This is a long-ish story. Feel free to skip straight down to the photos.
You might remember an email I sent about rock gardens during the summer. Both photos in the email were taken along the trail between the top of La Luz and the upper tram terminal. It’s a somewhat rocky trail with a steep drop-off to one side. The other side is a sheer limestone face that goes straight up, out of which numerous flowers grow.
The rock gardens were so beautiful this past summer that I hiked that trail almost every weekend, always in the morning so I could beat the all-but-certain afternoon thunderstorms. On July 25th though, the thunderstorm showed up early, while I was on that very exposed trail.
The image above is one of the last photos I took before the sky opened up. The larger white flowers are mock orange.1 I don’t think they look like much but their aroma is amazing; I often smell them before I see them. I could tell, at that point, that rain was imminent, and I convinced a young man who’d come up La Luz to go back down instead of continuing to the tram — after I’d shown him the mock orange flowers, of course.2
It was one of the worst deluges I’ve ever gotten caught in. The rain was torrential and came down for almost a full hour. I saw waterfall after waterfall streaming off the limestone face above me. It was one of the most dangerous situations I’ve ever found myself in — one wrong slippery step would have sent me straight down that sheer cliff on the other side.
The rain was actually the least of my problems. At one point, I realized I’d better get my camera into my backpack before it got totally soaked. I stopped under a large tree, where it was slightly less wet, and took my pack off. At that very moment, there was a loud crack of thunder and an immediate flash of lightning. I took off running with my pack in one hand and my camera case in the other.
There were numerous puddles on the trail that were deeper than my waterproof boots. I continued squishing along slowly and carefully. After what seemed like an eternity, I could tell I was pretty close to the upper tram terminal. Which is when there was another loud crack of thunder and an even more immediate flash of lightning. This time I could hear electricity crackling. I was totally freaked out and started running. I knew I could get off that ridge and into the cover of the forest within a minute or so, assuming I could stay alive that long.3
All of which is to say that I didn’t hike that stretch of trail too many more times this past summer; I’d lost a bit of my nerve that day. However, I did decide to hike part of it one day in October — the opposite way, from the tram — just to see what was there.
That was when I realized that I’d always thought of that trail as a summer trail, and that I’d never seen it in the fall. I couldn’t believe how starkly and almost haphazardly beautiful it was.4
It was every bit as pretty looking back toward the tram. When the red tram car came into view, I was compelled to snag a few tourist-type photos.
All’s well that ends well, I guess.
I’m not totally sure what the smaller white flowers were. Maybe ninebark.
He and I actually had a long-ish conversation, especially considering how threatening the sky was at the time. He wanted to go all the way to the tram so he could say he’d hiked all of La Luz. I told him that I thought he already had, although I knew some folks might disagree with me. He finally said, “So you think I have bragging rights?” and I assured him he did. He turned around. In retrospect, I should have too.
Obviously I was successful. It was such a relief to get into the relative shelter of the forest.
It was stunningly beautiful during the deluge as well. I wanted to take photos but thought the heavy rain would probably ruin my camera.
Wow so glad it all ended well! Beautiful up there!