Massimo's photoblog

Ice at Mt. Hopkins, AZ (Nov 2002)

I shot this in southern Arizona, about 30 miles from the border with Mexico. Every year I go once ot twice at Mt. Hopkins, the second highest peak in the Santa Rita Range of the Coronado National Forest, not too far from Tucson. The top of the mountain (9,500ft = 3,200m) is the site of several telescopes of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, which is the place where I work. Among them the Multiple Mirror Telescope which is one of the most advanced and largest in the world (6m diameter). As obvious in the photo, the place can be quite cold in winter.

I was once observing at another astronomical instrument on the same mountain, the IOTA interferometer (it works by combining the light of several smaller telescopes a hundred meters apart to reach a better visual acuity), when it suddenly started to snow. The sky was clear at sunset, but as usual in the mountain, the weather changed pretty fast. By midnight there was more than one ft of snow (30cm) and was stiil coming. Since it was our last night there, we packed everything and went down to the base camp, in the “mesa” at the base of the mountain, with our 4-wheel drive to avoid getting stuck at the summit. When we arrived at the base, it was still snowing: it was quite amazing seeing the snow in the desert (yes, I know, my family keeps making jokes about the fact that I always get snow when I am at a telescope. This is generally not true, but I did get some snow even in Hawaii, so maybe they are not completely wrong )

Anyway, the Arizona desert is very beautiful. It is so dry that one struggles with the idea of having vegetation there, but the Coronado National Forest is a real forest with tall fir trees, and it have bears, mountain lions, deers, rattle snakes, skorpions and the real road runner among many other interesting animals . At the base of the mountain there are only saguaros and bushes, but if you are lucky to be there in Spring, the blossoming of the desert is a real wonder of nature.