Mistress is probably a better word . It steals your heart and often your very soul .
While not exclusive to the landscape of Nevada folks are often quick to point out that everywhere in Nevada just over the next ridge is another dry lake and 8,000,000 acre of scrub brush in a dry barren waste land . Most of the desert rats would agree . This of course makes you really appreciate that little strip of green along the rivers , the runs of quaking aspens , and those little wet spot water seeps that make hunting big and upland game possible .
It's funny how the sand get under your skin and the sage oil into your blood , it even happens to people who aren't born and raised in in the sand and sage .
Recently we've been hot all over , maybe hotter than normal after a stupid long drawn out winter . I've seen a number of stories of folks baking cookies on their dashes and a gal that suffered a heat stroke because it didn't occur to her to roll down a window .
Us desert rats just smile knowingly and change out the case of water in the trunk or behind the seat with our favorite jacket .
Why water and a jacket ?
Because it's hot there's very little to no shade unless you brought it with you .
She will burn your skin in just a couple of hours of exposure . Often you have to pour the water on you not in you . Working in the daylight hours it's pretty easy to come up short on enough to drink every day on 4/10s by Thursday night I'm down a gallon drinking 2-3 gallons a day ......... Nope no hump but sometimes I feel like a camel the way I guzzle water at home in the evenings .
Just because there's shade doesn't mean your safer . A van with the back doors open and the shade side open can be 10-40° hotter than open air .
Good news , it does cool off at night ......... I've seen lots of nights where a 105° day lead into 55° night with a little heat exhaustion and a blistering sunburn or burns from getting up against the sunny side of something not plant based you can freeze to death .
I bet you thought the jacket was to cover up a window , steering wheel , ground or fender if you had to work on something didn't you ?
God help help you if it rains . Sure the plants and ground soak up a lot of water but it can't soak it all up ........ I wish I could count the stories I've heard/read about people drowned in the desert miles from anything wet .
It's the only place in the world where you can cross in and out of a rain storm in just a few steps in fact I've seen hard lines of wet and dry ground of no more than inches .
In the mountain areas a thunderstorm base will be over 15,000 ft with tops upwards of 25,000 so when it rains it's cold water . Often the hail is just slush after a 3 mile fall . Can you grasp 35° rain water ? How about 35° rain falling on a 100° day ?
We all know that thunder storms tend to dump a lot of water in a small space in a short time . The desert storm is no different , it will drop 1/4" 2 miles wide and 7-8 miles long . The bare ground on a 100° day however can be 140-180° . The dirt can be so dry and dust so fine that it actually won't accept the rain at first so that first part of the storm seeks low places followed by the saturation run of of the last part . Viola' flash flood 15 miles away some unsuspecting dry pan prospector or rock hound gets caught flat footed by a rush of water that's gonna in under a minute and completely dried up by the time his/her truck is found the next day .
Under one of these storms the 30-40° rain brings with it cold air and since the humidity even in the middle of the down pour is only in the 40% range it turns it into an evaporative cooler . I drove through one last weekend it was 102 just before I hit the rain , at the core of it it bottomed out at 62° . It was 103 just 2 miles out the other side . With humidity in the teens a shirt wet with cold water will change 20° ....... Get caught in shorts and a tee shirt and a slow moving thunderstorm and you could freeze to death .
Yep the desert is a cruel mistress . She will burn your skin until it sluffs off the first day freeze you to death or drown you in the life source water and bake to medium rare the second day .
Wait'll I tell you about the winters !