The summit of South Baldy. The whole summit is covered in wire mesh.
The white structure is a "kiva" which is basically a Faraday cage. It
is used for lightning research by the Langmuir Lab. Occasionally they
fire rockets trailing wires into thunderstorms to draw the lightning
to a specific spot. Usually there are no vehicles here, but on this
day there was a Rivian electric pickup. I did not see the owner.
Since I did not go to the summit on May 23, 2026, I am using this
picture I that took on July 31, 2025. Note that the VLA is in the
background in this photo, but only the maintenance barn is barely
visible above the back end of the Rivian beyond the little hill. The
antennas at this distance can range from invisible to bright depending
on their orientation relative to the Sun.
Date: 2025:07:31 11:04:01
File: wIMG_5996.jpg
Camera: iPhone SE (3rd generation) -- Lens: - at 4.0 mm -- Exposure: 1/3247 f/1.8 ISO 32
