Desert Pavement and Dust Poetry and Prose

Transcription

the
Survivor
The quarterly journal of Desert Survivors • Experience, Share, Protect • Summer 2007, 26, 2
Desert Pavement and Dust
Poetry and Prose
Survivor Tips
Don’t Mess With
Virtual Wilderness
[The following email exchange was forwarded to the editor, whose guess is
that the facility pictured is a biometric
border security station.]
June 14, 2007
Directors and General Counsel:
I am forwarding an e-mail and attachment
sent to me by a firm that wants to use a jpg
image from the DS website that ended up
being archived somewhere on the web.
The guy called me and said he was patenting a product to be sold to and used by the
U.S. Army in Afghanistan. It looks like a
jail. The image in the background appears
to be a portion of the homepage image of
Death Valley that we formerly had on our
website (at least somebody likes it!). I told
him NO. My response to him is also forwarded.
Steve Tabor
June 13, 2007
Subj:Using your Desert Survivors web
image for project
To: President of Desert Survivors,
Steve,
Per my message yesterday, we would like to
use your image as a background plate for a
product rendering. I felt your permission
would be required before we proceed.
Attached is the image and it's use.
For sake of our client, could the use be
kept between the two of us? It is for a
patent on a new product. Thank you for
your courtesy, we appreciate it! Have a nice
day.
Sincerely,
Tyler J. Dorsey
Trial Technology/Graphic Specialist
Video Discovery, Inc.
Cleveland, OH
Image of commercial product superimposed on photograph from DS website
June 14, 2007 3:44 p.m.
Mountain Peak
Mishap
Mr. Dorsey:
October 5, 2007
This e-mail will serve as a formal response
to your request to use the image you refer
to as “RENDER11.jpg” that you have
taken from Desert Survivors material that
you found on the World-Wide Web.
Desert Survivors expressly forbids you to
use in publication or otherwise this image
or any other image that you derive from us
via web search or any other means. Desert
Survivors expressly disapproves of the purpose for use of this material that you have
represented to us. You are hereby ordered
to cease and desist any attempt(s) to publish material that you have derived from
Desert Survivors for this or any purpose.
The caption to the picture found on page 2
of the Spring 2007 Survivor, is wrong. The
peak in the picture is Montgomery peak,
not Boundary peak, although one can just
barely see the northern shoulder of Boundary behind Montgomery in the photo.
Richie Schwarz, New York, NY
[Corrected caption is printed below.
-Editor]
I will duplicate this instruction in writing
and send it to you by postal mail. Copies
of this letter and e-mail have been sent to
our General Counsel, as has a forward of
the image you have sent to me as the object
of your communication.
Steve Tabor
President
Desert Survivors
Judy Kendall
S H O RT TA K E S
Letters
Montgomery Peak as seen from
Benton Hot Springs
Cover: The Sump, western Nevada; see page 22. Photo by Bill Johansson.
2
The Survivor Summer 2007
Art Director:
Andrea Young
Membership Information
Steve Tabor
(510) 769-1706
Desert Survivor Website
www.desert-survivors.org
Board of Directors 2007-2008
President: Steve Tabor
Secretary: Garry Wiegand
Managing Director: Loretta Bauer
Communications Director:
Andrea Young
The deadline for the Winter issue of The
Sur vi vor is December 22, 2007. Maximum word length: letters-to-the-editor
(200), feature articles (4000), trip reports
(2000), as well as desert conservation
issues, natural history articles, book reviews,
gear tips, and backpacking/camping
recipes. A new column on desert etiquette
is included, written by a mystery member.
Also wanted: short descriptions of unusual
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Activities Director: Bob Lyon
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Directors At Large:
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New Editor and Art
Mission Statement for Director
Cathy Luchetti is taking over as Editor, and
Desert Survivors
Desert Survivors is a nonprofit organization dedicated to desert conservation and
exploration. Our members enjoy hiking in
and learning about America’s desert lands,
and seek to protect those areas for future
generations.
John Moody
Jannet Schraer
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Andrea Young, who was elected Communications Director at the Annual Meeting in
September, is taking over as Art Director.
Complete coverage of the Annual Meeting
and Board elections will appear in the next
issue. Since I had started the Summer issue
some time ago, I was given the opportunity
to complete it before the new team takes
over. Look for major improvements in the
future. I would like to thank Desert Survivors for the opportunity to work on The
Survivor for the last four years, my predecessors, previous editor Jessica Rothhaar
and art director Hall Newbegin, for advice
and instruction, and especially the many
excellent contributors to The Survivor.
-Paul Brickett
3
S H O RT TA K E S
How to Reach Us
(See the new submission instructions
in the next column, and the notice at
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Editor:
Cathy Luchetti
Sur vivor Deadline
Looms
By Marith Reheis, Golden, CO
A previous article in a Desert Survivors issue described pavements
as forming by wind erosion, which winnows and removes fine sediment grains, including silt, clay, and fine sand. These fine sediments are removed from alluvial-fan sediments that were deposited
as poorly sorted mixtures of fine sediment and gravel. In fact,
most pavements form by exactly the opposite process in the western deserts of North America and on other continents as well:
addition of silt, clay, and fine sand to a gravelly fan surface! Many
geologists and soil scientists have studied desert pavements and
their relations to underlying dust layers, and have used many different approaches to understand how they form. What follows is a
summary of their work; for more information, check out the
papers listed at the end of this article.
Fresh fan surfaces are usually very rocky and rough, with bar-andswale topography and sediment of all sizes at the surface. As a
result, these surfaces are very good and efficient natural dust traps;
their unevenness creates small vortices and an overall surface
roughness that slows the surface winds and causes dust particles to
fall out. The dust, if not immediately blown away, may filter down
or be washed down into pore spaces. Then a mechanical process
takes over that in effect is analogous to taking a jar of mixed sizes
of nuts, screws, and bolts, and shaking it. The coarsest materials
will move to the top of the pile in the jar. A similar thing happens
with time in the formation of pavements: wetting and drying
events move the fine particles into pore spaces below the surface
and a layer of gravel floats on the top of the fines. Over long
periods of time—thousands of years of gradual deposition of
dust—the layer of fine particles thickens and the layer of stones at
the surface stays on top (the surface as a whole rises a little due to
inflation by the dust layer). Because the stones are at the surface,
they are more affected than stones at depth by mechanical weathering that breaks large rocks down to smaller sizes by thermal
expansion, wetting and drying, and crystallization of salts in cracks
and pores. By such processes, the surface gravel clasts become
4
Paul Brickett
D
esert Survivors frequently hike across long stretches of
desert pavements because they are, in the absence of
trails, the easiest ground to walk and are common in the
low-altitude arid regions. When well developed, pavements are
composed of interlocking clasts of gravel that can be darkly varnished on top if the rock type is suitable; desert varnish will not
form on rocks that are soluble, like limestone, and does not usually
become thick and black on rocks that disaggregate easily, like sandstone and granite. Other than blessing these pavements when they
extend in the direction of travel, many people do not think about
pavements or how they form. Many of those who do have mistaken ideas about how they form, and very few understand how
old they can be.
Hiking desert pavement in Palo Verde Wilderness, Nov., 2005
more uniform in size and the clasts begin to interlock, forming the
kind of surface we enjoy for hiking.
The basic elements of this story of pavement formation have been
documented by several key papers written by Les McFadden, Steve
Wells, and others. They used a dating method called cosmogenic
nuclide accumulation to estimate the length of time that the surface stones have been exposed to cosmic rays at the ground surface. And they used ages of the gravel or bedrock (basalt flow)
deposits underneath, dated by potassium-argon and uranium-series
methods, to show that the age of pavement clasts is the same as
the age of deposition of the gravel or bedrock beneath the dust
accumulation. Other studies by people like me have shown that
the fine sediment, which forms a soil horizon called a “vesicular A”
horizon (for its bubble-shaped pores) beneath the pavement, is
identical in mineral composition and dominant elemental chemistry
to the modern dust now being deposited at the same sites. This
shows that the fine sediment represents a long-term accumulation
Marith Reheis
NAT U R A L H I S TO RY
Desert Pavements
and Dust: The Rest
of the Story
Closeup of surface clasts in a pavement; they are beginning
to form an interlocking pattern
Marith Reheis
NAT U R A L H I S TO RY
of desert dust that was
deposited slowly enough that it
did not bury the pavement. In
a very few places, such as the
Cima volcanic field downwind
of Soda Lake, deposition rates
of dust from playas were at
times fast enough to bury a
pavement; in such cases these
dust deposits are called “desert
loess”. But mostly, the stonefree dust layers beneath the
pavements are no thicker
than 15-20 cm.
How long does it take to
form a pavement? Many
studies have shown that this
varies depending on the climate, climate change, dust-influx rates,
and surface slope. Where fans are vegetated by sagebrush and
trees are nearby, pavements either won’t form or will be disrupted
by bioturbation (roots, burrowing animals, etc.). In such higher
Desert pavement surfaces on the west side of the McCoy
Mountains, California. Note the old WWII tank tracks in the
foreground.
rainfall zones, the dust is still present, but it is usually infiltrated
deeper below the surface and is better mixed with the original sand
and gravel. In more arid zones, with normal dust-deposition rates,
it takes about 10,000 years to form a fairly weak, patchy pavement,
and at least 50,000-100,000 years to form a strong, interlocking
pavement with 10-20 cm of underlying dust. In Australia, the
desert landscapes are very old, erosion rates are extremely low, and
vegetation changes in the past glacial-to-interglacial cycles have
been much more limited than those in the western U.S. Australians call the surfaces with desert pavement “gibber plains”.
The gibbers may be underlain by as much as a meter or two of
dust-derived sediments—and these gibbers can be as old as a million years!
So, the next time you step out for a stroll on a desert pavement,
(or feel tempted to dig a hole in one, or see someone driving offroad on one), consider how long it took to form and how slowly it
may recover from disturbance. Patton’s World War II tank tracks
on pavements in the Mojave Desert are clearly visible today.
Marith Reheis
References
Soil beneath the same pavement in the previous picture (the
lower part of the soil is oxidized red and speckled with
white spots that are calcium carbonate). Soil horizon
boundaries are marked by nails along the left side. Gravels
are concentrated in the surface pavement layer and below
the sign. At and above the sign there are very few rocks;
most of the soil sediment is sand, silt, and clay. The upper
8 cm, just below the pavement, has no rocks and is nearly
all a pale-colored silt, the so-called Av (vesicular) horizon,
consisting of desert dust added to the soil.
McFadden, L.D., Wells, S.G., and Jercinovich, M.J., 1987, Influences of eolian and pedogenic processes on the origin and
evolution of desert pavement: Geology, v. 15, p. 504-508.
McFadden, L.D., McDonald, E.V., Wells, S.G., Anderson, K.,
Quade, J., and Forman, S.L., 1998, The vesicular layer and carbonate collars of desert soils and pavements: formation, age
and relation to climate change: Geomorphology, v. 24, p. 101145.
Reheis, M.C., Goodmacher, J.C., Harden, J.W., McFadden, L.D.,
Rockwell, T.K., Shroba, R.R., Sowers, J.M., and Taylor, E.M.,
1995, Quaternary soils and dust deposition in southern Nevada and California: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v.
107, p. 1003-1022.
5
By Chris Schiller, Redding, CA; www.schillerimages.com
I’ve been told there is very little time left, that we must get
all these things about time and place straight. If we don’t,
we will only have passed on and have changed nothing.
Chris Schiller
F E AT U R E
These Are the Things I Have Seen Today
-Barry Lopez, Desert Notes
I
have seen two snakes mating on the trail today. I’ve seen butterflies on horse apples. A mining boomtown reborn. Pronghorn lambs learning to run. I have seen ravens playing about
a high peak. Snow left from winter’s longing. A curtain of rain
stretched across a desert land. I have felt the slight air of heaven
upon my face.
I
Chris Schiller
The snakes, these two fat rattlers, are dancing and twisting in my
path. So intense their interest, they do not notice me approaching.
Or they note me and dismiss me. When I coil a length of cord
improperly, and then try to use it, there is a nest of knots in the
untangling. This is the shape of their sex: knots in the untangling.
They seem drunk in their desire, lolling each other nose-to-nose, a
slow tilting of viper necks, then flopping to the dirt. Bodies
entwined. A shifting of knots, a boy scout’s nightmare, then the
passion of vines up an invisible trellis again. I step silently forward for a closer picture, and they still do not see any of the
world but their own. I look down at my camera settings, and in
that second they have seen me. They are sat up like lovers in a
spied-on bed. Ahem, they say with forked tongues, facing me. I
retreat shamefully and cast a wide path around.
Butterflies on horse apples
6
Mating rattlesnakes
II
Still these things are in our path. This trail was born by the passage of horses, crossing the creek many times, unmindful of wet
boots. The horses drop apples, bake meadow biscuits, leave trail
mulching. A hay burners’ unregulated exhaust. The butterflies
come in search of salts or perhaps some secret nectar bargained
for in a long ago equine-lepidoptera agreement. All butterflies are
colorful except for these. Their wings are an inkblot test for their
predators, but a wondrous block print for their admirers. If only
the world were this simple: float the breeze in black and white,
alight upon the compost of travelers, then fill the sky with fluttering visions. The butterflies, too, demure when we approach.
They lift like a handful of wild coins tossed in the air, then land
again, all heads and tails random. A harbor full of painted sails
upon grassy waves.
III
This town died once upon a time in the west. Long enough ago
to have left only weathered boards, crumbling bricks, and tailings
spilled about the hills. The previous boomtown lived at the end
of a long supply chain stretching to San Francisco and beyond,
perhaps to London or Shanghai. Nothing grew here that people
could eat directly. Gold and silver were born here, and that’s all.
The town died when the ore ran out, like the thousand other
dusty collections of buildings and mills scattered around the west.
A few hardy loners in rusted travel trailers held on and hid from
wives, previous lives, the law, or maybe themselves out here
beyond the reach of civilization. They drove to Tonopah to collect checks and at the same time bitched about the government
that fed them.
I helped a broken-down resident of this town about ten years ago,
and heard at least his view of his world. This was remote country
traveled only by ranchers and a few hikers most of the year, and
hoards of hunters for two weeks in the fall. Ten years ago that
was. I’ve visited frequently since then, but always traveled other
roads. Passing through today there are fresh new houses on the
old mining claims. Shiny custom-built houses with materials
hauled from Fallon or maybe Reno, hundreds of miles away. How
much did each nail cost once it was purchased, transported, and
driven into wood? And there’s an even newer church on the hill,
let’s not forget that. This is far, far off the grid, and there are
tracking solar panels in each yard. Who are these people to build
houses out here? Retirees? Californians with ponzi-pyramid
returns on house sales? Do they know what the winters are like
out here? How soon will they tire of the hour-long drive to
Tonopah, and how will they be disappointed in what it has to
F E AT U R E
offer? Will their satellite TV carry them through? Their
supply chain stretches to Saudi Arabia, and is as tenuous
as the miners’ supply chain a hundred years ago. But
these new boomtown residents take nothing from here
but the views. The money comes from elsewhere. If I
return in twenty more years, will these houses already be
on their way to ruin?
The landscape contracts again as the boomtimes expand
again. I can only conjure the patience of the sagebrush
here in the heart of the Sagebrush Sea. It will reclaim,
like water, this folly of men.
No, there is more than gold and silver born here. In
Antelope Valley (yes, there are about seven of them in
Nevada, but I’m talking about this Antelope Valley)
nature obliges. A pronghorn which hesitates at the
approach of a truck is a spectacle. If the distance from a
moving vehicle is less than a hundred yards, they are usually
flying over the sagebrush before you see them. And a stopped
truck demands even more space. Oh, they are a wondrous beauty
when running. Effortless and smooth across the land. As if some
force other than legs were propelling them. The deep evolution
bestride extinct predators is still large in their oversized hearts. But
they start small, like all things. Like storms launched by butterflies.
Wars from the flick of a forked tongue. Oceans from the first
raindrops of a summer afternoon.
And so the pronghorn lamb appeared from its napping place in
the sagebrush. Then another, and its
ewe too. A few weeks old, they were
still growing their wings and afterburners, so the ewes only trotted as
they led, like race cars idling ahead of
scooters. They live on this plain, on
another plane. What is it to be faster
than anything which exists, to be born
with one of the few superpowers
granted creatures on this Earth? To
grow into this legacy of open valleys,
to rise wobbling from the shrubs, trot
a few weeks and then never be outraced by anything but the wind?
Chris Schiller
IV
Ghost town
hammer and thunder back there in the empty pickup bed. Washboard here on the roads of the mortal, and the ravens soar. They
do not feel joy, they are joy embodied in a grand dance about the
peak. Rising and dipping, they are prophets cycling the summit
eddy. Their words come in quorks and hoots; they answer the
wind. We fight the fires of our own making, separating dust from
flame. We heave the heavy breaths of our burdens, and the ravens
soar effortless above. We roll stones from the mountain, and the
ravens know where the fresh dead lie. And if the fire crowns, if
the smoke and inferno take us, flesh and static and dust, might
they find indulgence in us. Take sacrament, take spirit, take flight
on a thunderstorm afternoon. Cackle
and play on black wings: if only this
were our destiny, our journey, our
soul. We top out the rise and the
radio clears and there is only air there
above us now. And whooping blackwinged birds below.
VI
V
Preachers and the holy static overpower truth on the truck radio.
These dozen black disciples encircle
the wind-blasted pinnacles like a
crown. Sunlight flares through the
cracked, buggy windshield of the
sky. Darkness in the clouds from
upweather, and the ravens soar.
The mighty Pulaskis of the father
Chris Schiller
There, high in the battlements of the
glaciated ridgeline, the ravens seek the
answers.
Rain curtains
You hear the snowfield before you
see it. A gurgle where a moment ago
there was only the wind. All things
on the mountain, even the rocks,
seem alive and awake, but the snow
left white sleeps on in inert repose. It
is an icy momentum of winter, existing still only because it still exists.
Smaller patches are long melted. This
one thaws about the edges but keeps
its center cool. Its dribble of meltwater joins others, is a creek, becomes a
river, and then dies a reincarnated
death by evaporation in the far salty
playa. The snowfield’s outflow will
not reach the sea in this life, but
downweather, at the extreme edge of
hazy vision, lie the ranges which drain
to the ocean, and there is a definite
intent of storm in the sky this noon.
7
F E AT U R E
A choir Thor might direct. The only music Amelia
could pick up across the blank Pacific. Songs of forlorn propellers at great altitudes. Your body shakes
with the harmony. Curtains of rain, come wash me
clean. I’ve been in these heights too long. Come wash
me clean. The land is dry and the sky too blue. Come
wash me clean. Come wash me clean.
VIII
If I died here this moment, I would be at peace. No
regrets. The air calm and my head full of light. This is
Thoreau’s bequest: live each day as if it might be your
last. Some days I am more successful with this legacy
than others, but this day finds me complete. My heart
is as light as the white grouse feather caught in the
whiskers of a coyote. Hunger slaked, it trots through
High in the Great Basin
the sagebrush on the mountain flanks below. This is
the measure of the breath of heaven: grouse down,
VII
whiskers grinning, coyote breathing. Rain falling on the shores of
This is your dream. In your dream you can fly. You break the
the sagebrush sea. The breath of heaven upon me.
promise you made to gravity. There are mountains. You arch your
back and you float high above those mountains. Range upon
Epilogue
range to the east and to the west, and between the ranges are
Below, the serpents are making more serpents. They invade the
broad dry valleys. Valleys awash in sagebrush and fawn-colored
yards of the boomtown, chasing the rodents taking shelter under
grass. The ranges are darker, with blankets of trees. Some of the
the new houses. No horses climb this high, but the butterflies perranges are higher than trees will grow. Above treeline is naked
form perfect ascensions. The ravens are bullets against the blue
rock, tilted and spilling. You are not naked in your dream; you
sky just like the pronghorns are as distant a memory as the trucks.
wear clothes appropriate for flying. Silk, or maybe leather. Cotton,
Naked rock cannot burn, and the snow couldn’t extinguish the fire
if that’s all your dreams will provide. Something naturally grown.
if it could. And in a thousand years of rain, my friend, has a coyThink Amelia, not Clark.
ote followed the ravens up here to chase a feather in the wind?
You know where the answer is.
The sky is heavy with cloud, with gaps torn
through to blue sky in places. Other places
are darker, bruised. Rain falls. You are so
high you cannot tell if the rain reaches the
ground. Mottled light is a calico pattern
upon the far valley floor. The rainclouds
join, one and then another, and the rain
from them intensifies. They form a curtain
across your dream world. Fifty miles, a hundred. A curtain of rain a hundred miles
across the mountains and valleys. You can
smell it, but in your dream it does not fall on
you. Does not follow you. The rain reaches
the earth now, heavy and sweeping. The
curtain is rippled and fluted and if auroras
were made of raindrops instead of naked
atoms your dream curtain would be the
northern lights conveyed across a hemisphere this summer afternoon lit glowing
and shaded both.
You find a voice you could only have in a
dream, deep and resonant. The tapestry of
storms hums, and you sing with it. Something like gospel. What angels might sing.
8
Chris Schiller
Chris Schiller
Except it’s not your dream, it’s mine. And it’s not a
dream, it’s reality. High above treeline on the summit
ridge with the storms on a transept across the sky.
Deep Canyon
By Stan Huncilman, Berkeley, CA
M
ay of this year, I with six other Desert Survivors climbed
Division Peak in Nevada’s Calico Hills. Wild horses were
very much in abundance, much to the group’s enjoyment.
In time I began to notice that though most of the horses were in
herds of 8 to 12, there were 7 herds that numbered only three.
This struck me as unusual. My inquiries at a local ranch came to
naught, ditto at the opal mine. Only by chance, when I happened
to mention it at a bar, did the barmaid comment “Oh, you sound
like that crazy Englishman who wandered through here a few years
ago.”
I got enough information from her to eventually speak to one of
the world’s experts on rare horse breeds. Sir Edmund de Vere of
the Royal Equestrian Britannia had in fact been the “crazy Englishman” wandering around the desert. He was elated at the news of
my sightings. He was not entirely surprised with the reappearance
of Los Trizillos as bands, apart from the other wild horse herds.”
“Many years ago, there was one band of three, the legacy of Tariq
ibn Ziyad,” he said. “But human indifference has been a friend to
Los Trizillos. It has allowed them to roam in wilderness areas.
And now, the breed is returning.”
“How wonderful. Seven bands! You don’t say.” He sighed. “I had
a chap contact me who was in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco
recently doing location work for the cinema. He was lucky enough
to take some photographs of a couple of bands that might well be
Los Trizillos and sent them to me.”
“These are most exciting times for the horse aficionado,” he concluded. Then he thanked the Members of Desert Survivors and
other groups that had done so much for wilderness protection.
When I asked if he planned to return to Nevada, he confessed that
the very idea of such “vast empty lands” was a bit hard for him to
consider at his age.
I followed up on the name Tariq ibn Ziyad after talking with Sir
Edmund. These horses are descendants of Tariq ibn Ziyad’s
Moorish cavalry, whose use of the Los Trillizos, as they came to be
known in Spain, enabled the rapid conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 CE. Each member of this elite Moorish cavalry rode
Un Trillizo, a group of one stallion and two mares or fillies.
Los Trillizos were first encountered by the Arabs during their
incursions into the steppes of Northern Iran. The indigenous
peoples there, primarily shepherds, had little interest in the horses’
unique banding instincts. The historian al Waqidiin, in his book
“Kitab al Tarikh wa al Maghazi” (“Book of History and Campaigns”) makes what many scholars believe to be the first Arab reference to the breed. He refers to a cavalryman al-Zuhri winning
an early horse race that was reputed to last over 28 hours by his
use of 3 horses from the land of Hecatompylus. Al Waqidiin does
not mention if al Zuhri was disqualified for his innovative tactic.
Tariq ibn Ziyad, one of the greatest horsemen in Moorish military
history, first saw Los Trillizos in Mecca during his hadj. In order
to finance his invasion of Spain he wagered “everything but his
mother” in a horse race with the Caliph of Baghdad to be allowed
to use the Caliph’s herd of Los Trizillos for his conquest.
Tariq ibn Ziyad made good use of his innovative cavalry. Some
soldiers were reported to have fashioned cots that spanned the
three horses and slept while the horses continued with the advancing forces. The two un-ridden Los Trizillos instinctively formed a
phalanx in battle making it nearly impossible for the armor-encumbered Spanish to win–they would have to face two foes simultaneously.
With the eventual banishment of the Moors from Spain Los Trizillos fell into decline. The Spanish cavalry remained committed to a
heavily armored knight. Los Trizillos are hot bloods, and as such,
are physically unable to function as a heavy knight’s horse. The
Spanish preferred the warmblooded breeds which were more disposed to the steady plod of knightly transport; also one can not
discount the Spanish hatred of all things Moorish in the neglect of
the Los Trizillos.
Los Trizillos began to disappear. It was only because a few wild
bands survived in Spain’s remote Extremadura that a new generation of adventurers was able to recognize their unique qualities.
The Conquistadors put purpose before pride and acknowledged
the legendary abilities of the horses. The Conquistadors were not
knights. They were poor opportunists with minimal social status.
These small, tough horses could survive a journey across the sea.
They could live on minimal forage. These horses were survivors,
not heraldic icons.
History repeated itself in the New World. Los Trizillos carried
their horsemen to conquest and were neglected afterwards. Those
that followed the Conquistadors, the ranchers and padres, preferred either larger horses that were better at head butting cattle, or
the simple burro, long conditioned to the itinerant evangelism of
the frugal padres.
Northern European settlers also saw little value in Los Trizillos.
Miners preferred burros, homesteaders preferred horses that could
pull a wagon or plow. It is odd that the cowboy never took to Los
Trizillos, as they were aware of them. The ballad “Just one Saddle” refers to the breed. The most likely reason: the now wild
bands of Los Trizillos ranged in remote mountain areas and were
extremely difficult to round up. However, probably the best reason was economics. Cowboys were poor. Few could afford to
feed and care for more than one horse. Cowboys also had the
Quarter Horse, which is about as close as one can get to one
Trizillo. So it seems that:
Nature in her wresting ways
does oft have her specials ways,
by which that once withered
can come anew.
perchance the soul doth seed the clay.
-Rnias
9
F I C T I O N F E AT U R E
A Horse Fable
April 5-7, 2007, Mohave National Preserve, CA
By Steve Tabor
T
his Easter visit to the Mojave National Preserve was a hot and dry one. Ten of us spent
three days in a place where Survivors had
encountered a foot of snow on the same date in
1999. Daytime temperatures were in the mid-80s F,
but strong breezes kept us cool and refreshed much
of the time. We saw few wildflower blooms in this dry spring season, but the profusion of native grasses was a joy to behold. The
Castle Peaks Wilderness was recovering from a century of cattle
grazing. Only five years without cattle had worked wonders on the
ecosystem.
We met on Interstate-15 at Nipton Road, then drove on Ivanpah
Road to a jeep trail just short of the Boomerang Mine on the west
side of the Castle Peaks volcanic complex. The Peaks are rhyolite
volcanic necks and erosional lava remnants perched above a 1.7
billion-year-old array of metamorphic rocks, schist and gneiss.
Our Good Friday hike would be up Willow Wash, through the
metamorphics to the ridgecrest in the volcanics. If we could get
to Dove Spring on the other side of the ridge, all to the good, but
I would settle for the top and a good view.
We started hiking soon after we got to an old homestead showing
on the map. We hiked over a few hills, at first following an old
railroad grade whose tracks had long ago been taken up. The railroad dated from a time early in the 20th century when the U.S.
Homestead Act encouraged farmers to clear land and lay out
farms in Lanfair Valley to the south. That effort, supported by
pre-war socialistic designs by the Federal Government and a few
Steve Tabor
TRIP REPORTS
Castle Peaks
Carcamp
View of the New York Mountains from second night’s camp
years of good moisture, ended about ten years later when drought
made dry farming impossible.
Soon we were in Willow Wash itself. We hiked east and stopped
to rest in the open wash. It was 84 ºF at 10:40 a.m., unusually hot
for this time of year. I remembered the year before when we were
snowed on at 3:00 p.m. one afternoon in country just to the south.
I also remembered 2000, another hot dry year when the temperature reached 90 ºF on April 28. I had to cancel a fund-raising trip
in the Mesquite Wilderness as a result.
Though it was hot and dry, we were impressed by the array of
Mojavean vegetation near the rest stop. I did a transect. Cactus
and succulents in evidence were barrel cactus, Mojave yucca, Spanish bayonet (Yucca baccata), buckhorn cholla and beavertail cactus.
Shrubs were purple sage, mallow, Ephedra, cheesebush, rabbitbrush, creosote bush, catclaw acacia, desert willow, Prunus Andersonii (with tent caterpillars!), Lycium, spiny Menodora, Krameria, a
Haplopappus (cuneatus?), Mojave aster, matchweed, and California
buckwheat. Forbs were Eriophyllum, desert marigold, Phacelia,
pincushion flower, paintbrush, and some kind of burweed. Not
many of the forbs were blooming and the ground was dry.
www.nps.gov/
We went farther up the wash to an old
water trough near Willow Spring where
we ate lunch. High clouds dimmed the
light, keeping the temperature in the
80s. The trough was surrounded by
squawbush and desert willow. Juniper
trees grew nearby, here at 4500', and
joshua trees covered the hillsides.
Northeastern portion of Mojave National Preserve map
10
The trough’s pole fence was intact, indicating that it was a protected wildlife
water source. The little bit of water was
sweet and clear, though bright green
algae lay on the surface. After lunch we
went farther upstream where we found
the actual spring. It had been dug out
and a spring box had been installed.
Water was about four feet down in a
concrete tube, well-covered and shaded
by huge mesquites. Wheel tracks led up
the wash almost to the trough, illegally
Steve Tabor
Upstream we took the left fork in the wash, now
going north toward the pass above Dove Spring.
The bottom became rocky and some of our lessexperienced hikers began to have problems. We
were now in volcanic rock, the mass that comprised most of the Castles. Pancake cactus
appeared, then more Yucca baccata, grizzly bear
cactus and Mojave mound. Bladdersage grew in
the gulch bottom. Native grasses were incredible,
and quite a surprise in this country, which had
historically been subjected to heavy grazing by cattle
and sheep.
Good grass growth, cholla, catclaw and joshua trees on the south slope of
the Castle Peaks
We rested at a point where we had to negotiate a dryfall, then
pushed for the top. We reached it at 3:00 p.m. The pass was narrow amidst blocky cliffs at 5093'. We had a poor view into Nevada
to the northeast. Most of what we could see was more rocky hills
and volcanic cliffs like those around us. We looked down toward
where Dove Spring should be but could not immediately locate it.
We debated dropping down to look for it but reached no conclusion. Finally I consigned Steve Lawrence and Eddie Sudol, both
of whom exhibited boundless energy, to go down and look for it.
They were unsuccessful.
We returned the way we came, arriving at the cars at 7:01 p.m. I
had taken people up too early out of Willow Wash and we were
forced to go up hill and down dale, but we managed. Radwan Kirwan and I drank cold beers on the veranda of an old stucco cabin
as we watched the sunset. I tried to imagine what the owner’s life
had been like, living this close to the old mine, and perhaps working in it. I doubt that the old man did much hiking.
The next morning we drove south over a low pass to
the old settlement of Barnwell, then on a graded road
northeast that eventually goes to the huge Castle Mine
in the mountains to the south. Where the Castle Mine
Road swings south, we kept going straight on a dirt
road, really the old railroad grade to Searchlight in
Nevada. We were stopped less than a mile later by a
massive washout. We back-tracked and settled for a
campsite at an old cattle watering place offering large
joshua trees and abundant parking.
We set off on our longest hike of the trip precisely at 9:10 a.m..
This day was sunnier and hotter. I led us north on easy ground
through excellent vegetation. We soon found an old cow trail and
used it to our advantage. It felt good to cruise on a trail for a
change. There’s something about it; you can look ahead at the
scenery without always having to watch the ground, which you
usually have to do in rocky or well-vegetated country.
This walk was also a joy because we were in cactus and shrub
country that was coming back to desert grassland. Five years without cows had made for luxuriant grass growth. Big swaths of galleta grew two feet high and six feet across. Individual needlegrass
bolts grew wide across the landscape. Some of the area resembled
a turf of grama grass with grass clumps engulfing the space
Steve Tabor
After sunset a Park Ranger came by and told us we were camped
illegally. The Mojave Preserve has a rule against camping near old
buildings because some visitors have a habit of burning them
down. I said we would not build a fire that night. He
allowed us to stay, partly because we were Desert Survivors and he knew of our reputation. He said his territory ranged from the Preserve all the way to the
Kingston Range, about 40 miles north. Seems like an
impossible job. I think we could use some of the
National Guard now in Iraq to police the area; they’d
make short work of off-roaders, illegal grazers and
people who just burn down cabins for the hell of it.
I remembered this place as a lounging area for cattle with troughs
and feeding stations. In 1996 it had been paved over with pulverized and fragrant brown cow shit. The cow shit had now mostly
blown away but ten years later, the ground was largely barren.
Nothing grew except joshua trees and a few large shrubs and
minute weeds. Relentless emissions from a cow herd makes for a
toxic environment, even after all this time. The place had been
free of cattle for at least five years but its condition had hardly
changed at all.
Galleta grass, junipers and one of the Castle Peaks near the range crest
11
TRIP REPORTS
inside the Wilderness boundary, running over
numerous plants and seemingly making no
attempt to avoid them. There were no tracks
beyond.
Taylor Spring was just east over a low pass, but a
half-mile detour to examine it would put us that
much farther from the cars and it was already 3:30
p.m. Instead, we continued downstream, then on
an animal trail down to Coats Spring, which
proved to be dry. A lot of Baccharis grew in the
Isolated lava pinnacle east of the crest, resting on Precambrian granite
damp ground there, but we found no water, only
an old tank, ranch junk, rusty pipes and pieces of
between them. The low-growing club cholla also formed a turf; I
barbed wire. It was a disappointment.
hadn’t even noticed it ten years before, though we were hiking over
much the same ground. What an Easter surprise this was, to see
We continued downstream then up over a hill with a view east to
desert grass resurrected after eighty years of purgatory dished out
Hart Peak and southeast to the Castle Mine. Down below was a
by the hungry mouths of cattle and sheep!
flat covered with creosote and laced with jeep trails. The topo
Steve Tabor
After two miles of bliss we reached a low pass and rested with a
long view out over Lanfair Valley. We the took a left and headed
along the ridge top toward the Castle Peaks. Grama grass formed
a mat on much of the ridge, and Yucca baccata was sending up
flower stalks, not yet fully opened. The views to the hazy south
kept getting better. Near the high point we spooked two deer; one
went east, the other west. It was 87 ºF, but we were blessed with a
strong breeze that cooled us down. Coming up top was a stroke
of genius on this hot day.
We ran out of ridge and dropped down into a gulch alongside
where we could lounge under a spreading juniper to eat lunch. We
then proceeded northwest in the rocky gulch with views of the
Castle Peaks just ahead. The gulch opened up to a wide wash on
easy ground amidst juniper trees, chollas and yuccas at an elevation
of 5100', a kind of shangri-la with great campsites and lava pinnacles all around. I made note of this; it would be a great backpack
camp on a longer trip. Even in winter the tent sites would be
inviting, a joy. This would also be a destination of mine if I do
another Coast-to-Divide trek to match the ones I did in the 1980s,
a major stop-off on the way from Cima to Searchlight
to the east.
map said there was a game guzzler there. That would be our next
objective. We dropped down off the hill and headed over to the
guzzler. It was a typical water catchment for birds, a gently-sloping
concrete pad, triangular in shape, with a low berm all the way
around. An open drain at the downslope apex of the triangle fed
rainwater down into an underground cistern made of fiberglass.
The cistern, shaded from the sun, was full of clear sweet water.
The pool below was thirty inches deep. Only one person other
than me would drink it. We suffered no ill effects. There was no
date, and no maintenance had been done. Many of these catchments were put in in the 1950s. Its fence, designed to protect the
water from burros and cattle, was intact.
Topo maps in the area showed several of these catchments. I
wanted to check out at least one, for I will be dependent on them
if I ever trek through the area. A DS backpack trip here would
certainly benefit from the water. I photographed the site and took
notes about its condition and location.
In the remaining hours we hiked southwest to the cars on the old
railroad grade. The guzzler was barely three miles from the Nevada
My original plan was to continue north then west in a
loop, but coming this close to the crest we just had to
go up to the Castle Peaks themselves. We left our daypacks and one of the hikers under a juniper, then
hiked north. We topped out just southwest of the
highest point, 5828' (1776.7m). We had a better view
this time of the country to the north. A grove of
junipers lay just below. Bitterbrush and goldenbush
were blooming. We spotted a falcon in the air and a
mountain ball cactus, another rarity, on the ground.
Eddie and Radwan did some bouldering in the rocks.
Then we dropped down to continue the hike east.
The hike in our wash was at first on beautiful coarse
sand with catclaw and other plants growing healthy
12
Steve Tabor
TRIP REPORTS
between volcanic knobs. Farther down we ended
up in rocky country, a pediment on the crystalline
Precambrians, with lava knobs all around, a storybook landscape. We passed a rock dam in the
granite that had been constructed to hold water,
for sheep or for wildlife we could not tell. We
rested nearby.
The Castle Peaks at the crest. Dove Point (5829') is the high
point on the right.
Steve Tabor
This night we had a good campfire. Coyotes called
both evening and morning. The happy chatter of a
cactus wren, known in this country only in yucca territory, made for a joyful noise as we packed to leave.
TRIP REPORTS
border. The cars were about three and three-quarter
miles away to the southwest. Most of the return was a
rushed plod on the hard road, which wreaked havoc
on my thigh muscles, though a great joshua woods all
around helped inspire me. We got back at 8:10 p.m,
eleven hours and twelve miles after starting.
For the last day’s hike we drove to Keystone Canyon in
the New York Mountains. The forested New Yorks
had made an impressive sight from our last camp. We
were soon in the midst of them. An old jeep trail led into the
range. We followed it to the Wilderness boundary at 5410', where
the desert turned toward woods and chaparral. This would be a
different world, a real mountain rising above the desert floor,
where Survivors had only deigned to go a couple of times before.
Parts of the New Yorks show a true Southern California mountain
ecosystem. Chaparral plants grow here in abundance: shrubs like
scrub oak, silktassal bush, wax myrtle, buckbrush, lemonade berry
and manzanita. Above are live oak trees (encina), pinyon, juniper,
serviceberry, and other plants of the mid-level mountains. High
limestone cliffs make for impressive ramparts toward the crest.
On north-facing sides are a few white fir, well-hidden from the
sun, below cliffs that catch and hold snow in the winter. We saw
all but the fir on our five-hour hike, plus other plants that seemed
out of place in the desert.
It was long thought that this odd plant regime was left over from
the Ice Age. Certainly the white fir, a snow plant wherever it is
found, would seem to corroborate this theory. But the range has
other anomalies. For example, Mahonia, a hard-leafed shrub with
big yellow flowers, is known chiefly from the Colorado Plateau
region of Utah and Arizona. It is common just across the Arizona
border between the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. And
in Carruthers Canyon on the range’s south side, the twin-leafed
variety of the pinyon, Pinus edulis, can be found hybridizing with
Cactus, junipers and the crest of the New York Mountains
the more common single-leaf species, the kind of pinyon found in
California and Utah. The edulis also grows separately, but only at
low elevations around the base of the range, a hundred miles from
its nearest pure stands near Peach Springs, Arizona.
The Mahonia and Pinus edulis can only have come across the
desert from the east, a migration that probably happened during a
warmer and wetter time, possibly during the Altithermal Period of
several thousand years ago. That only would have happened if an
Arizona-style monsoon with summer rains dominated the California Desert. As yet this phenomenon has been little-studied, but it
could be that global warming did bring greater species diversity to
this part of the state, a phenomenon knocked down by the cold
dry conditions of the present. The long ridge of the New Yorks
is elongated northwest to southeast, an ideal configuration for
catching monsoon rain coming up from the southeast.
We hiked up the deteriorated jeep trail to Keystone Spring at an
elevation of 5870'. At the spring we were surrounded by dense
woods and chaparral. Large pancake cactus and yuccas punctuated
the brush and trees. It was a surreal experience after our walks of
the past two days. A small pool of water was accessible amongst
the reeds and dead grasses of the small meadow at the spring.
This too was good water, in this case a life source for chickadees,
scrub jays and band-tailed pigeons instead of coyotes and passing
coveys of doves and quail.
Steve Tabor
After a short lunch break at the spring we went back
the way we came. It was an educational hike, giving
us a renewed perspective on the desert. This Easter
had been a rejuvenation for sure.
At the bird guzzler on Day Two; hiker at the left is sampling the water
The other hikers were soon on their way back to the
Bay Area, to Seattle, and to far eastern Nevada. I
drove south into Lanfair, then down to Interstate 40
to continue explorations in Arizona, also featured in
this issue. The intensity of these Easter hikes so
wore me down that I stopped to sleep by the side of
the road to recharge my batteries. Within an hour I
was driving fast toward Kingman and beyond, as if
to see just where those Mahonia and Pinus edulis had
come from. This Mojave trip was a good one, and
an inspiration. I want many more, as do most or all
Desert Survivor tripsters.
13
TRIP REPORTS
Footloose In Western Arizona:
The Arrastra Mountain Wilderness
April, 2007
By Steve Tabor
A
fter I led my Castle Mountains trip in the Mojave National
Preserve for Desert Survivors, I drove to Western Arizona
for six days of backpacking in the Arrastra Mountains
Wilderness. I knew little about this Wilderness until I began
researching routes across the West for more year-long trekking. I
sent away for information, got the maps, and was blown away. I
liked its possibilities for a week away from the drudgery of work
life.
For a California desert lover, this wilderness has several attractive
attributes. It’s got a real Sonoran Desert upland ecosystem, it’s
only two hours across the border, it’s got a real desert river, it’s got
the big saguaro cactus, it’s got bighorn and wild pigs, it’s got plenty
of springs, and it’s rough and remote country far from the tourist
trade. It also has a higher-level ecosystem of chaparral and juniper
on the ridgecrest.
From the Mojave, I drove east to Kingman to get resupplied, then
southeast along that notorious old desert highway, U.S. Route 93. I
found a place to camp by my car that Sunday night and awoke the
next morning to the chatter of thrashers and cactus wrens. My
camp at 2400' didn’t have any large cactus, but it was in the midst
of well-leafed catclaw and palo verde trees, brilliant bright green as
far as the eye could see. I was swamped with remembrance of my
early years exploring in the 1970s, which always included springtime in the saguaro. “Sweet life”, I called it! The greenery and
chattering birds were always a joy after a winter in Idaho and Utah.
I packed up and drove down the highway toward the Santa Maria
River. Much to my surprise, the beautiful two-lane road through
saguaros was being converted into a four-lane freeway. A ten-mile
stretch had been horrendously dug up and blasted out of solid
rock. Large saguaro cactus, protected by law in Arizona, had been
replanted in the median strip on bare ground, mineral soil with no
structure. They were propped up at weird angles with three-way
guy wires staged to hold them vertically as if in a tripod. It’s
doubtful that any of them will survive. What a joke! I later
learned that this road was being reconstructed as part of the
NAFTA Superhighway to service the large international airport
already approved for the desert west of Las Vegas at Primm. One
of the great desert roads was being sacrificed for the purpose of
international relations and cheap junk from Mexico and China.
The realignment of the road had closed off my intended trailhead.
All access was now blocked by a continuous barbed wire fence. I
couldn’t stop anywhere so I had to keep going all the way to the
river, the only place to get off. The river would have to be my start
point. I drove off to the east and back under the bridge, then
found a parking place in
mesquite trees on the river
bank. I packed up food and
gear for a week and headed
downstream, my hopes high
for a storybook journey.
BLM Kingman Field Office
The river was a beauty! A thin
stream of water meandered
lazily back and forth across a
wide bed of coarse sand.
Huge cottonwood trees lined
both banks. Like all Arizona
rivers, this one is prone to
periodic monster floods
derived from pulses of winter
moisture from Hawaii and
summer typhoons from Baja
California. The remains of
big trees lay across the bed
here and there, and swash
marks could be seen on the
terraces above. The Salt, the
Gila, the Blue, the Colorado,
the Little Colorado, the Virgin,
the Escalante, the Green, the
San Juan, the San Rafael, all
the desert rivers I’ve hiked
Eastern portion of Arrastra Mountain Wilderness
14
Steve Tabor
As I ate I watched a vermillion flycatcher darting
around, always ending up back at the same tree branch.
Orioles flew in and out of the mesquites on the other
side. Swallows flew back and forth across the river, and
the inevitable ducks flapped downstream. Cactus wrens
chattered in the nearby hills. For a desert, this was lush,
and not only at this time of year.
The Santa Maria River on the Arrastra Mountain Wilderness boundary;
Shallow water on a sandy bed, green trees, lava walls high above
have been a little different, but their essence is the same: big trees,
good birds and wildlife, water amidst dryness, unpredictable flow,
and a constantly changing aspect, always something new to see
downstream.
The aspect of the river was much the same for the next ten miles,
a peculiar mix of sublime beauty and degradation. So enamored
was I of the river that it consumed more than one-quarter of the
photos that I took. Around every bend were more
cliffs, more trees, more sand, more saguaros perched
on hilltops, and that same lazy stream, plus something new around every corner. Schist and gneiss
were the bedrock, but lava cliffs stood high above on
both sides of the river; the geology was akin to that
of the Mojave. Bedrock often came down to the
water, forcing one stream crossing after another.
Mesquite and palo verde flowers were yellow and fragrant, attracting loud buzzing insects.
In two miles I stopped for lunch at the mouth of
Black Canyon Creek, a wide sandy bed coming in
from the south. It was a popular camp with offroaders, though there were none here today. The
sandbank stood six feet above the river bottom; that
was the river’s depth the last time a big flood emptied
out of the wash. Black Canyon drains one-hundred
square miles of open desert to the south and east,
Fork Spring was only one-half mile upstream, but it was a tortuous
half-mile. As in most steep-gradient canyons here, the bottom was
clogged with basketball-sized boulders. Flashfloods had washed
away anything smaller. Around a bend I saw the trees: two bright
green sycamores clinging to a rock wall. The greenery drew me
on. A dripping spring emitted from under the trees. Below was a
mat of ferns. The water was sweet and fresh, right out of the
ground. It was a classic desert spring. Because of all the cattle
“sign” in the riverbed, I had to do a dangerous mile-long roundtrip over loose and unstable boulders below desert brush and cactus to get fresh water. That’s got to be the finest metaphor for
modern American industrialism and its imperatives, if there is to
be one at all.
A bat flew above the sycamores. Sheltered spots in the canyon
protected masses of dry cottonwood and sycamore leaves washed
from far above. This bend in the canyon offered a curious landform: a sharp bend had been broken through, leaving a “perched
meander” above and to the west. The canyon used to drain that
way but the divide had been overtopped and the old drainage was
Steve Tabor
And on both sides was the desert: low brush, tall cactus, bright
green palo verde trees and mesquites, bare rock cliffs! I felt at
home, with water to drink and desert to love. Who could ask for
more? But all good things attract the worst and this place was no
different. The entire sandy bed had been churned by innumerable
hooves of cattle. Not a square yard was free of cow flops. Both
upstream and downstream, the riverbed had been transformed, and
there was neither grass thatch nor flood rise to obliterate what
must have been a whole season of trampling. I only saw a few of
the ugly beasts and I could not believe that they alone were the
culprits. The whole area was grazed, both public and private.
They must have just taken the cattle off for the summer.
I hiked downstream for many hours, past gneiss and
schist outcrops and then volcanic layers, which now
came down to the river. Treading water periodically, I
had to change socks a couple of times. I rested twice in
the shade and at Mile 6.9 I camped at the mouth of
Peoples Canyon, a major drainage coming out of the
Wilderness to the north. I had an excellent bed in soft
sand. I feared mosquitoes and rattlesnakes, so I pitched
the tent. Then I did a dayhike up Peoples to get water
away from the cows and their coliform.
TRIP REPORTS
outside the mountain area.
Mesquites and tamarisk on the river bank, saguaro cactus above
15
Steve Tabor
In the morning bright orange light crept down the canyon
wall. Doves called first, then cactus wren and flickers.
The latter two were seeking mates. A wild horse
appeared, then galloped off. I left at 8:00 to continue my
journey in the wet sand and over terraces at the wide
bends, more tiring work. I stopped twice more to rest,
then ate lunch at Burro Spring Canyon, four miles down.
The canyon was much the same, except for more grass
growth in the sand bed. The cattle damage persisted.
Sunset light on lava rims from Fork Spring in lower Peoples Canyon
At the lunch stop I had a good long look at the riverbed, since I
would now be leaving it. It had been my home for the best part of
two days, but I would now be entering the desert, going into
unknown terrain, apprehensive about what obstacles lay ahead.
Several springs showed up on the map but you never know. One
showed two miles ahead, but the one after that was eleven miles
farther and 2000 feet above the river. The canyon I’d chosen for
ascent was rocky and narrow. Dryfalls were always a possibility.
On a quick retreat into the mesquite thicket behind the terrace I
spooked a large covey of quail. More than two hundred birds
flushed and went soaring and jumping up onto the cliff rock
above. They were still clucking ten minutes later. It was an auspicious sign. I
would enter the desert; they could have
their river back, at least for now.
Burro Spring Canyon was a narrow
trench in volcanic rock. I was dismayed
to find a low fall in bedrock at the first
corner, but thereafter the bottom was
mostly sand and gravel. I spent the rest
of the day in the canyon, moving
upstream toward the range crest. Like
any desert canyon, it had its charms.
Short narrows alternated with wide gravel beds, cool rock walls with warm hillsides covered with saguaros and teddybear cholla. Green mesquites and catclaw lined the edges of the bed. Burro
Spring had a clear location on the map,
but it must have been buried by a flashflood; where it was supposed to be, I
found nothing but a rock pile in the
wash. After that I found myself looking
for a plunge pool at every short tributary.
small crystals of blood-red garnet. So nice was it that I did something I rarely do anymore: I took a couple of samples. (They’ll
end up in the DS “hands-on box” that we use for fairs and shows.)
Farther on were some outstanding outcrops of beautiful red volcanic and sedimentary rock; photographs of them would accompany this article but we can only print black-and-white. Green cottonwoods and cool cliffs made this an excellent rest stop. In this
narrows I found mountain lion tracks alongside those of javelina
and bighorn. The next day I was still finding lion tracks all the
way up-canyon to the crest.
Six miles up the canyon I found a small rock pool. I decided to
stop early to utilize the water, but no way was I going to camp in
the bottom of the trench. The drainage
was now a rocky gulch incised in
bedrock about 25-30 feet. I needed
some desert expanse, so I climbed up
the rocks and onto a platform surrounded by desert hills. The sun had dropped
quite a bit by the time I got up, but I still
had a great view south to lit-up hills and
peaks. As usual in these situations, when
I look back the way I came, I’m amazed
at what I remember passing through,
and that from this angle there’s not even
a hint of all that detail. But I have the
photos to prove it. I sometimes wonder
if anyone would ever believe any of
these stories if I did not.
The next morning I followed the evernarrowing canyon for another threes
miles to a pass above its right fork.
There were more springs and seeps in
the canyon head and cattle tracks
appeared. The cows had apparently
made their way down from the chaparral
country above. The lion and javelina
tracks were still there, but no more
The Precambrian metamorphic rock was
bighorn. This was rougher country than
here only thinly veiled by volcanics, makI’d done so far, and it was quite a struging for interesting contrasts. At one
gle with the pack, up loose bedrock hillwide spot I found a half-mile-long outsides and through sharp cactus and
crop of beautiful garnet gneiss, largescratchy brush. By lunchtime I topped
grained, granite-like, loaded with big and
out at the crest of the range at an elevaA 20' tall saguaro near Fork Spring at Mile 6.9
Steve Tabor
TRIP REPORTS
now bypassed. The canyon now had two half-mile long
routes to the river. The one I’d come up is the lower one,
therefore the one now favored. I’d seen this in sedimentary terrain in the Colorado Plateau but never in this
country.
16
I made my way north to the Wilderness
boundary to camp. I’d now crossed the
Wilderness from south to north, about
twelve miles from the river. To get out
of the wind, I camped behind a juniper
tree north of the jeep trail defining the
boundary. There I watched the sun set
over Peak 3726, a lava knob to the north,
and Old Grayback, a high granite peak
near the town of Bagdad across U.S. 93.
Steve Tabor
As I ate I noticed that almost all the
saguaros were gone. Instead there were
buckhorn cholla and pancake cactus (as
in the Castle Mountains in the Mojave!),
plus Ephedra, hedgehog (calico) cactus,
banana yucca (Spanish Bayonet), buckwheat, grama grass, galleta grass, Viguiera, bladdersage, crucifixion thorn,
Krameria, fairy duster, fescue grass, Haplopappus, snakeweed, and nolinas. Sugarbush, a chaparral plant, was also evident.
Catclaw persisted. This was an upperlevel Sonoran vegetational regime I
remembered from elsewhere in the state.
There is some speculation that such areas
had once been grassland with sparse
shrubs and cactus but had become
degraded through overgrazing by livestock. I rested a long time looking out
to the east, into a high-level valley surrounded by 4000' peaks.
ral, growing here only on hillsides facing
away from the summer sun. There were
lots of crucifixion thorn, scrub oak,
buckbrush and juniper, forming a closed
canopy, difficult to walk through. On
the sunny sides were the more typical
desert vegetation I’d noted earlier, a more
open array easy to walk through. No
saguaro in sight. Rolling hills stretched
away at the next low pass. A rattlesnake
buzzed as I approached.
TRIP REPORTS
tion of 3510'. I was in a new world up
here, with a view into completely different country with new plants and a new
aspect to the land.
The way north was on beautiful trail, obviously kept open by cattle. Large pancake cactus
blocked the way, but most were knocked
down. The trail went high on the hillside to
avoid the rocky gulch, and I got a good look
at a new ecosystem, broad swaths of chaparThe Survivor Summer 2007
Steve Tabor
By nightfall cumulus clouds had come
over and a brisk south wind came up;
looked like a storm approaching. I
Rock wall in narrows in Blind Spring Canyon retired to flat ground beside the road
I made my way down the easy grade to a
and pitched the tent. The wind stopped
old dry cow pond showing on the map, passing through groves of
at 10:00 p.m., but the clouds persisted. By morning the clouds
scrub oak and juniper trees. I rested awhile under some cottonwere all to the southeast. I broke camp and hid the pack and tent.
woods, then headed off cross-country to a low pass on the north,
This day would allow me a hike without the pack toward the 4000'
also 3500'. This was a hardscrabble rise of about 300 feet, though
peaks to the southwest where I could get a look at true chaparral
it seemed like more. On the other side was a new view of cactus
and also good views of the desert from on high.
and brush-covered hills, much more rounded than what I’d seen so
far, no doubt affected more by the soil development that had come I hiked to Placeritas Spring, about a mile away on the boundary
jeep trail. It was a beautiful spring with deep pools in a narrow
with the persistent forest cover of the Ice Age. I could see some
slot in yellow rhyolite. It was partly fenced to keep out cattle, but
high peaks far away, off toward the Aquarius Plateau, some of
they got in anyway. I spooked four young frogs when I passed
them above 7000'.
through. I got a little water for the day, then moved on toward the
I made my way down a switchback trail that
could barely be seen, then down to a gulch
running east. This old trail was rubbly and
loose, no place for a sprained ankle. Deeper
into these hills, I found more different plants.
There were more junipers and more beautiful
sugarbush, which gives the best shade in the
country, but there were also sagebrush and
serviceberry, plants of the Rocky Mountains
and the Great Basin, two ecological provinces
a long way from here. At the bottom where
the canyon forked, I rested under a sugarbush, then turned north toward the next
major water, Placeritas Spring.
Shadowed narrows in upper Blind Spring Canyon; Mesquite trees are in sunshine on the right side
17
From the spring I did a 5.5-mile loop, starting
south then moving clockwise back to it, topping out at an elevation of 3807'. Most of
this was through juniper trees in the gulches
and flats and scrub oak and mountain
mahogany on the hillsides. Most brush was
easy to walk through, kept open by cattle that
have a habit of smashing their way through.
Other plants were various grasses, nolina,
mesquite, catclaw, pancake cactus, buckwheat
and Haplopappus. Where I topped out I got
an awesome view down into the steep canyons
to the south that tumbled down to the river.
My view of the vast desert country farther out was hazy
and obscured, not even clear enough to allow a photo.
Steve Tabor
TRIP REPORTS
hills.
Peak 3726 in sunset light, in chaparral country near the north boundary
Some of this day was “skywalking”, hiking a narrow ridge with
steep slopes on both sides, good views both ways. At one point I
had to sidehill for almost a mile around a big peak; it may have
been easier to go over the top. At my farthest point out I was
exposed to a stiff southwest breeze and thick cumulus clouds coming from the west again. It even looked like it was raining in that
direction! I had no rain gear, only a wool shirt and long johns.
When I saw the clouds coming, I cut the hike short and headed
quickly down into a drainage leading north. If I got caught in the
rain, I didn't want to be on top. So much for internet weather
reports!
My descent was careful but quick. I chose the shallowest gradient
to avoid sliding, dodging cactus and spiny brush as I went. Within
a half-hour I was in the flats, going from bank to bank of a sandy
wash, following a good cow trail. I was in a juniper woods almost
devoid of cactus, cruising amongst the trees and the scrub oaks,
with occasional Mahonia. The wind was chasing me and some rain
drops fell. I wasted no time, pushing north as fast as I could go.
At a bend I followed the trail up onto a rise heading toward Placeritas Spring. I lost the trail but continued over the top, still chased
by droplets and the wind. I reached the spring by 3:30 pm and
replenished my water, then hiked rapidly east on the road. By the
time I got to the pack an hour later, the storm had largely passed;
the threat of rain was over.
I ate behind my juniper tree, then pitched the tent on open
ground. I moseyed around my “desert garden” for awhile before
nightfall and discovered a few more species that were new to me.
One was a thorn bush. Yellow ants with big black eyes on stalks
were just coming out of their hole; when I blew hot breath at
them they went back down. I also saw two new kinds of birds.
Occasions when I slow myself down and just wander are the best
opportunities for discovery, not when I'm moving fast, as I had for
most of the day.
In the chilly morning I backpacked east along the boundary road,
then turned south on an old jeep trail toward Sycamore Spring.
There were actual Wilderness signs and a rock barrier where the
road turned. Intriguing hoodoo rocks rose across the way. The
old road, now a trail, went south over a low pass, then one more
mile to the spring at the head of a narrows. Two tributaries converged at the narrows, forming Peoples Canyon, which I'd encountered on the first day far down by the river channel.
Steve Tabor
Sycamore is one of the finest desert springs
I've ever seen. It occupies a narrows between
high rhyolite cliffs for almost one-half mile. At
the top is a fenced enclosure with a corral
under huge sycamore trees forming a canopy.
Leaves litter the ground as they would in an
English woodland. Somebody left the gate
open and cows got in, leaving the ground
under the trees a mass of pulverized cowshit
(now dry), but other than that it's a little bit of
heaven.
Prickly pear, cottonwoods and yellow rhyolite at Placeritas Spring
18
A loud zone-tailed hawk let it be known that
he did not appreciate my presence. A peregrine falcon looped overhead. I saw several
other birds in amongst the trees, including one
with a yellow neck and belly that I could not
identify. I watched an Empidonax flycatcher
for awhile. Other birds whistled and called
high in the trees, much too high for a sighting.
I had to slip and slide over tree roots and around large rocks. At
times there were trails on terraces through the trees. Around a
corner my idyllic stroll was interrupted by a huge chock stone
blocking the channel between high walls. I slid over backwards
and managed to catch myself on a tree root, then angled down
over more rocks to a lower level. There was more boulder-hopping lower down, and I just missed stepping on the coils of a large
rattler that was laying partly under a large rock. A few hundred
feet further, the canyon turned another corner and opened out. I
stopped to eat lunch in the shade of the last rock wall. Beautiful
firecracker Penstemon and a large purple-flowered Penstemon grew
at the edge of the trees near the opening. I
peered out at the sunlit desert, so unlike my
home of the past hour and a half.
I slid down to the cacti and tested them with one foot. I pushed
against them to see if they'd “give” and found myself pushing
harder to see if I could break branches. I pushed harder still, gripping the rocks beside me for support, and kept doing it until I'd
smashed each cactus into but a meager portion of its former living
self. Parts of each were still standing by the time I'd stopped kicking, but there was now enough room for me to negotiate the ledge
without danger. I tiptoed around the remaining cactus, hugging
the rock, then eased down the loose material below. The rubbly
part ahead was an uphill, allowing me good traction there above
the worst exposure. Then I followed the rest of the ledge, now on
By noon I was off again with the pack,
moving downstream (southeast) in the
main trunk of Peoples Canyon. Some of
the bottom was sandy but most was rocky
and littered with large boulders. A few
drops here and there created obstacles
where flashfloods had carried away everything loose, leaving only bedrock. The bottom was wide, but flashflood hydraulics
had left an awesome mess. Lava walls and
pinnacles rose high above.
For more than a mile I negotiated the rocks
and drops. Then I came around a corner
and was stopped by a huge fifteen-foot
chockstone that blocked the whole channel.
Sliding down it was out of the question;
Steve Tabor
Steve Tabor
I decided to climb (with pack) up on the ledge
above on my right to access the sloping ground.
Now six feet higher I could see that the slope
was more dangerous than it seemed from below.
Scrub oaks and juniper in the foreground, dense chaparral on the hills, on
the ridgecrest near Arrastra Mountain I decided to climb (with pack) up onto another
six-foot ledge; I had to destroy a catclaw bush to
This was certainly a watery oasis for birds in this dry country.
do it. But up there was an animal trail, clear as day. The knowledge that some animal other than myself had been able to get
Beneath the trees a stream with deep pools trickled amongst and
through gave me hope. I angled down the sloping ledge toward
over the sycamore roots. Cottonwood trees, large sprawling
the drops I'd seen before (the slope was about 20 degrees) until I
mesquites and what looked like hackberries grew in the shady
came to a narrow part blocked by two large cacti, one a buckhorn
grove. Frogs jumped into the pools. Sycamore leaves lay in thick
cholla, the other a pancake. No way a deer or even a bighorn
masses on top of the water. I watched more birds for awhile and
could get through there; this had to be a javelina trail. Things
soaked in the ambience of the place, then backpacked downstream looked bad again, and by now I was in a position to view the other
between the high walls.
side and definitely determine that there was NO other way to go.
TRIP REPORTS
there was a deep plunge pool below. I looked at
the east side and saw no way around the chock
on the lava ledges there, but the right side
showed some promise where a series of ledges
rose above me on my right. I snooped around,
looking at the situation from various angles.
Below I could see loose but passable ground
sloping downhill, though some nasty cliffs alongside provided what the mountain climbers call
“exposure”. Despite the danger, that appeared
to be my only hope.
Rocky bottom and lava pinnacles in Peoples Canyon below Sycamore Spring
19
Looking ahead at the bed (now that I could raise
my eyes above anything other than the next few
feet of ledge), I could see more boulder bed and
another large chockstone at the next corner,
probably also impassable. I decided to stay on
the high terrace and follow more animal trail
along the cliffs and then up over more ledges and
around the corner. When I got over there, I saw
the trail dropping down again to more bedrock
and a beautiful pool sheltered by short green cottonwoods. That shady spot would be my next
rest stop and my next waterhole, where the
extreme tension of the last 30 minutes would
melt away into a renewed appreciation of the
desert's beauty, as it had so many times before.
I spent a good twenty minutes decompressing
Lava rims and saguaros in the hill country above Peoples Canyon.
and relaxing by the water. Suddenly I felt hungry
after my action-packed ordeal so I ate a little snack. The map
ken pancake cactus and even the catclaw had been trampled. This
showed more problems downstream toward South Peoples Spring,
was still the Upper Level Sonoran where thorny brush and spiny
and I'd about had enough. It was late Friday and I had only one
cacti were the rule, but the bovines didn't seem to mind.
more day to get to the river and my car. I looked at the map and
charted possible ways out of the canyon, now 400 feet deep and
The rest of the trip was an empty-pack eight-mile amble back to
getting deeper. There were four more miles of boulders and
the river, mostly downhill. I stopped at Negro Ben Spring to get
chockstones and god-knows-what between me and the river, so I
water. It was impacted by cattle, but I managed to crawl back into
decided to take my chances crossing gulches and hills in higher
the rocks to a wholesome source pool. I crossed several gulches
country to the east where I'd have more room to maneuver.
and ridges carved into crystalline granite; most resembled the rock
knobs of Joshua Tree, but they were orange instead of white. I
Moving downstream again, I came to a fork, then followed an
traversed a long, broad, upper valley loaded with huge six-foot
obscure old hardscrabble trail directly east up sloping lava layers.
high, ten-foot wide creosote bushes. This was lower country,
It was all bare rock veneered with loose pebbles, but if cattle and
grown also to tall saguaros and large buckhorns, even blooming
deer (and javelina) could do it then so could I. Views down into
brittlebush.
the lower part of Peoples Canyon, now deeper and narrower, convinced me of the rightness of my decision. I kept hiking uphill to
Moving out of this valley, I hiked up to a high ridge that would
the crest of a peninsula, then veered left and rose higher up until it lead me down to the river. On this ridge was a wide band of pure
looked like I would run out of room to move. I crossed the next
white quartz, the kind that holds gold and silver, if someone would
gulch to the east and went higher still, finally topping out 400 feet
ever be able to find it. Palo verde trees, chollas and saguaros began
above the channel. In the maze of gulches and peninsulas I'd lost
to dominate, here on dry open ground. I followed this long ridge
track of my position but I got out the old GPS and marked the
for three more miles, dropping 800 feet to the river. It was anothmap. I'd gotten clear of the deep stuff and was now home free.
er mile to the car and I hiked the riverbank slowly, reluctant to
Rolling hills and an easy descent to the river were all that remained. leave so early. I stopped to birdwatch again, and spotted two more
There were seven gulches and as many ridgelets to cross, but these
vermilion flycatchers and a pair of lazuli buntings, both classic Ariwould be an annoyance more than a danger, and I now had the
zona birds that I'd seen before. I'd never seen either in California,
time to move more deliberately with an empty pack.
so I lingered long.
Getting to this high pass and out of the troublesome canyon gave
me a sense of accomplishment. Not only that but at almost 3000'
I now had a magnificent view. White limestone plateaus alternated
with black basalt ones across the Santa Maria to the east in country
I hadn't yet seen, and for once the sky was clear, not hazy and
murky. Seeing new country was an inspiration. I waited and
watched almost until the sun went down, then hurried east until I
found a good camp on another ridge with a lousy view but a good
flat surface.
The country up here was badly damaged by cows; the animals had
barged through cacti, knocking them over. There were lots of bro20
But all things must come to an end, so after dodging a few more
cows and crossing the river a few more times I arrived at my car.
It had been a great six days, a whirlwind tour through some of the
most amazing desert I'd yet seen. Visions of leading a Desert Survivors trip here began to dance through my head. I mulled over
the possibilities. After taking the note someone had left on my car
and reading it with dismay, I packed up quickly and headed out of
Dodge, away from the river and back to my American reality. Who
needs “reality TV” when you can live it in person. I drove quickly
back home on my last free Sunday. Home to the job, home to
Desert Survivors.
Steve Tabor
TRIP REPORTS
a wide terrace, downhill to just above the bottom.
Whew!
I remembered some kind of dispute
about the Arrastra detailed in High
Country News awhile back so I did
an internet search. I located an article
dated February 18, 2002 that
described the problem. It seems that
Mr. Barnes had bought the Santa
Maria Ranch in 1990. With it came a
Looking down into the rough country in lower Peoples Canyon. High lava rims and
narrow shaded bottom; more rims are beyond. forty-acre parcel centered around
South Peoples Spring, which is a
short distance southeast of where I
POSTSCRIPT
left Peoples Canyon on my hike. Mr. Barnes wanted to build a
The note on my car is worth quoting in full:
road in to the spring so he could run more cattle, perhaps eventuSir :
ally to establish a resort. But the Arrastra had been made WilderYou are parked on private property. You failed to make eye contact
ness in 1990, shortly after Mr. Barnes purchased the land, and the
to say hello on your way down the river. You probably trespassed on
Wilderness Act forbids the building of a road in Wilderness.
our Peeples Canyon property. May even have camped. This may be
customary for Californians but to us it is impolite and rude. In the
The Arrastra was actually established as a Wilderness Study Area
future I would confront the rancher first or expect to have your car
(WSA) in the 1980s, long before Mr. Barnes bought the land.
towed.
Even as a WSA, the land was protected from development; Mr.
Erik Barnes
Barnes should have known that. Actually, he should have been
Santa Maria Ranch
informed of that fact by the seller(s) of the property and their
real-estate agent(s), and by his own agent(s) and lawyer(s).
There was no No Trespassing sign on either of the two gates I
drove through to get to my river trailhead, though on the first gate
According to what I read in the HCN article, as a “rancher” Mr.
below the freeway there was a sign reading “Please close the gate”,
Barnes is more or less a wanna-be, having come from Alaska after
which I did, both times. No structures anywhere near marked the
a career of outfitting trips on public lands there, so he should
place as part of a “ranch”, though there was some construction
know better. I'm glad that his persistence has generated commitparaphernalia back against the freeway, used by road crews. The
ted adversaries, as described in the article. Southern Arizona
“Santa Maria Ranch” referred to was a house on a hill about a mile
Wilderness has a lot of healing to do, and that's not going to hapupstream on the other side of U.S. 93. In the crazy-quilt of public
pen if the BLM gives in every time
and private land that is most of Arizona, there was nothing here to
people want to build a road to
indicate that this parcel was associated with any other that may or
their inholding.
may not have had a habitation.
I concluded from this that the owner probably thought so highly
of his own importance that he had in his own mind laid claim to
all the land in the vicinity, so why bother posting any of his actual
legal parcels? And of course it never occurred to me to go walking up to someone's house to say “Hello”, especially a house a mile
away, when what I really wanted to do was park my car away from
any house. My assumption would be that the resident would prefer to exercise his privacy rather than encounter every stranger who
drove down the road, especially now that that road is a NAFTA
Superhighway.
For more information on this controversy, check out the February
18, 2002 High Country News article at
www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=11020 . An earlier
article in HCN dated February 16,
1998 covering the more general
topic of Wilderness inholdings
may be found at
www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=3946 .
cronkite.asu.edu
Steve Tabor
TRIP REPORTS
In California, a private parcel's property line has to be posted with No
Trespassing or equivalent signs every
one hundred linear feet to have legal
protection from entry. I don't know
the law in Arizona but I doubt that it
requires visitors in country featuring
adjacent federal, state and private land
to go knocking on the doors of nearby houses to find out who owns the
land, but I should research this. I've
heard that is the custom (if not the
law) in the State of Texas.
Arizona javelina
21
July 6-10, 2007
By Bill Johansson, Stockton, CA
Civilization
W
e began our trip at 4 p.m., leaving Stockton, in the Central Valley, on Highway
88. We were too late to go in the visitor
center of Indian Grinding Rock State Park, but did
see the outside grinding holes. We ate at 9 p.m. at
Kirkwood. We passed Carson Pass and followed
Highway 88 all the way to Minden, Nevada, Gardnerville’s sister city, right next to it to the northwest. The following day I spent a short hour at
the Carson Valley Museum research library in
Gardnerville. I plan on ordering reprints from the
Central Nevada Historical Society Photo Collection
located there, mostly of places where I have been.
Our First Adventure
On our way once again, we headed south on U.S. 395. Our goal
was to find Carters Springs. The map showed a water tank opposite the springs. We found the water tank, but no springs close to
the road on the other side, nor the two roads to the springs. We
hiked towards the hills, found a draw of sorts and followed it for a
little while. There was some evidence of water, plants that were a
light green. I thought there could be surface water under the trees.
We had thought once we were near the spring it would not be difficult to find, but we were wrong. Perhaps we were on the right
track. We hiked some 45 minutes. We weren’t prepared to spend
more time hiking as we brought little water nor did we wear hiking
boots! It was a hot, sunny day. Later I looked at the maps and I
realized a mine, the Veta Grande Mine, and its tailings were up
from the springs. On the internet I read the mine was abandoned
and somewhat of a hazard to nearby wells; however not as much
as years ago, as the rain and snow melt has percolated and rinsed
the tailings. Also, on the internet the springs are listed as being at
6,600 feet and Carters Station on the other side of Highway 395 is
listed at 5,680 feet. I wouldn’t have thought there was such a difference in elevation, we didn’t hike up much on our search. I
imagine we might not have been any closer than just the general
vicinity. I enjoyed the hike. It was getting kind of wild. Exploring was fun!
We followed U.S. 395 further south with a stop at Topaz Lake for a
swim, then to Bodie, a ghost town in arrested decay, now a State
Park; it is high off the highway about 25 miles. Continuing on 395
we passed Mono Lake and spent the night at Lee Vining. The
next morning we reached the beautiful ski resort of Mammoth
Lakes and rode a shuttle down 1,500 feet to the Devil’s Postpile
and San Joaquin River. Late this third day we reached Big Pine
where a serious fire was blazing high above in the Sierra: this
would have stopped our progress the day before, as U.S. 395 had
been closed south of Bishop.
22
Bill Johansson
TRIP REPORTS
Exploring the Eastern Sierra and Nevada
Searching for Carters Springs in the Pine Nut Mountains
S t u c k O n T h e D e s e r t Tr a i l
As part of “my day” to do something I specially liked, exploring
Nevada, I planned a visit to my favorite place, Lida Summit, and
untried unpaved roads, to be away from civilization. We had
already seen the touristy places Bodie and the Devil’s Postpile, so
we headed east from Big Pine, past Westgaard Pass and Gilbert
Summit, up to Lida Summit, which I have now visited twelve
times. I call it the Lida Summit Adventure.
After a picnic lunch at this pristine summit we headed back west
and turned north through Dyer and Fish Lake Valley and on to see
The Sump. I had heard about this place but didn’t know where in
Nevada it was. I had passed close to it on Route 773 in 1997 and
1998. This first time we didn’t observe it from the bottom, but
did drive north of it on an unpaved gravel road. It is an impressive sight, looking down on the eroded hoodoos or the like from
the upper viewpoint. We drove on and soon joined the Desert
Trail, which was coming in from the south. We followed the gravel road on to an electronic site. The 7.5 minute map of the area is
not precise, as I thought the 4WD road we were looking for began
from this installation. There seemed to be a road headed out from
here - we tried it briefly but this road (if it was one) had not been
driven on in a very, very long time! However we could see to the
east the road we wanted going down the rolling hillside. We finally
began descending the 4WD road in our Ford Explorer SUV,
rejoining the Desert Trail. Roger Mitchell from the SUV trails
book series, had reassured me our car could make it. We were not
long on this road before the sand became deep. We tried turning
around but got stuck! The car dug itself in and wouldn’t move.
Bob Lee, our driver and friend, “volunteered” to walk back to the
main road to get help – with his cowboy hat on, hiking boots and
bottle of water. It was 4:15 in the afternoon. It was hot! MeanThe Survivor Summer 2007
Bill Johansson
while we tried to phone 911 and dialed several numbers to try to
get help but it was futile. The only cell phone that works in this
area is a Satellite cell phone. To me it seemed like an hour passed,
but it was more like three. At the end it was finally cooling down.
I looked to the west and two cars were coming down the 4WD
road picking up dust. Bob Lee was with the Esmeralda County
Sheriff and friends. We found out it took Bob Lee an hour to
reach the main road and another hour for the first vehicle to pass
By Leonard Finegold, Philadelphia, PA
Finally, we were off to Montgomery
Pass, then thankful that the Benton gas
station was still open at 10:00 p.m. We
filled up, and called June Lake to save
our two motel rooms. As we rode on
highway 120 in the dark, a grown fox,
baby fox and 4 rabbits crossed our
The Sump path. We dragged in at our motel at 11
p.m. for a grateful rest and refreshing
shower. We came back through Tioga Pass high above Yosemite
National Park.
The Sump is a worthwhile visit, but beware of the sandy 4WD
road! This part of the Desert Trail would be better hiked in the
spring.
SURVIVOR TIPS
How To Extricate A Lone Car
From Sand
TRIP REPORTS
by, a FedEx truck that didn’t stop! Bob
told us three vehicles passed by before
he reached the main road, but he was
too far to try to flag down these cars.
The car that did stop went to Dyer to
bring help - friends of the sheriff.
They came to rescue us and got stuck
themselves once they reached us! With
shovels, they dug out the sand and bled
air out of our tires for better traction,
and we pushed. We didn’t need chains.
At the main highway we had to replace
the air; but the compressor only filled it
half way, which required our backtracking to our new friends’ homes for a
better machine.
9. Jack-up the back of the vehicle using the spare wheel as a jacksupport, then put material under the wheels or just drive off the
jack and repeat (this can gain you nearly 2 feet at a time).
10. Wait for the sun to start going down, the air temperature to
cool and the sand to become more dense.
I
1. Keep calm, walk around car, look at it. Start drinking water.
2. Ensure 4WD is engaged and that the hubs are locked (if applicable.)
3. Reverse out of trouble if possible.
4. Engage a reasonably high gear if you can.
5. Stop as soon as the wheels start spinning.
6. Dig out the sand from each wheel and put anything solid underneath (wood, stones, dead camel skulls, spare wheel...)
7. Rock the car violently from side to side so compressing the sand
underneath each wheel.
8. Lower the tire pressure little by little until you can move. Use a
tire gauge, because if you lower too far, the tire can come off the
rim.
Paul Brickett
read with sympathy the exploits of Craig Deutsche on freeing
a car, in the Spring 2007 Survivor. After helping a friend extricate his car from Mojave sand some years ago, I asked a group
of outdoors people for advice, and the following is a distillation of
their replies.
Incident on departure from Kingston Range, April, 2003
23
POETRY
Experts doubt Steve
Fossett still alive
Darrell Hunger
[Editor’s note: This new column was
submitted by a long-time member of
Desert Survivors who wishes to
remain anonymous. Opinions
expressed here are not necessarily
those of the Board of Directors,
although possibly they should be.
See page 3 for submission information.]
Associated Press
Article Quotes Desert
Survivor
By Martin Griffith, Associated Press
Writer
Dunes
September 11, 2007
Dear Miss Cactus,
I recently went on a DS trip to central
Nevada. The trip leader carpooled with
my friend and me. After the first day of
hiking, my friend and I realized that the
pace was too slow for us, and we wished
to leave. The trip leader seemed a bit
miffed when we arranged another ride
home for him, but he gamely offloaded
his gear, and we left after the second
day’s hike.
RENO, Nev. --As the search for Steve Fossett dragged into its ninth day Tuesday,
experts said they doubted the millionaire
adventurer could have survived more than
a week in the rugged desert since his plane
vanished. While the resourceful aviator
could scratch water, food and shelter from
the desolate Nevada landscape, experts said
his first order of business would have been
signaling rescuers.
When we arrived home, we discovered
that he had forgotten to take his sleeping bag. We heard that he only discovered this after the others had retired and
that he spent a chilly night. Now he
won’t respond to emails. I am afraid
that we have hurt his feelings. What can
we do to make things up with him?
“There’s no news of him signaling for help
and that’s a problem,” said David
McMullen of Berkeley, California, a leader
of the hiking group Desert Survivors,
whose members frequently venture into
some of the country’s harshest terrain.
“He’s either so injured he can’t signal or
he’s perished.”
Yours truly, Bailing and Wailing
Dear Bailing and Wailing,
Miss Cactus feels that accidentally leaving with the trip leader’s bag is one of
those things that happens and that you
do not need to apologize. However,
Miss Cactus feels that it was very rude
of you to bail out of the trip because
the hike is too slow. You agreed to go
on the trip and the trip leader took you
at your word. You took a spot on the
trip that someone else may have wanted
and then you abandoned the trip. Miss
Cactus suggests that you apologize for
your behavior with an offer to assist in a
future trip as a co-leader in charge of
responding to trip participants who create hassles. Your trip leader should be
amused and very grateful.
Yours truly, Miss Cactus
24
Three Haiku Poems
Kangaroo Rat lies
Dead in the road; deserves a
Proper burial.
Datura blossoms
Bring thoughts of Moon medicine
And nature spirits.
Morning breeze speaks while
I remove cholla spines from
My shoes – with pliers!
Jeff Parker, Carson City, NV
“Shelter from the sun would be just as
important as water to Fossett had he survived the crash,” added McMullen of the
Desert Survivors. McMullen was stranded
with a severely sprained ankle for three
nights in Death Valley National Park in
September 2001. He hunkered down in
the shade of a fig tree before he was rescued by a military helicopter, with the help
of a detailed itinerary he had left his wife.
“You’ll lose water faster than you can
absorb it in heat, and that’s why a shelter is
so important,” McMullen said.
He and other survival experts faulted Fossett for not filing a flight plan, which might
have allowed searchers to focus on a smaller area. “The itinerary I filed for my 2001
hike saved my life,” McMullen said. “They
knew where to look for me.”
Darrell Hunger
SURVIVOR TIPS
Miss Cactus on
Manners
Utah
My own flawed quick notes
Are not like those
Of the singer who sang of Beowulf,
Nor the Bard who graced blue Avon’s shore.
No. The poet whose work is most like mine
Chipped stone, rubbed rock,
And worked a wordless tune on granite’s face,
In caves or in the desert’s emptiness;
Or scratched a feather dipped in dragon’s blood
Across a drying autumn leaf,
And flung it to a nameless wailing wind
Whose passage brought it to my door.
Illuminated by sun and sky,
Clouds both light and gray.
My water transformed to the wine
Of the Divine Presence.
The food served to nourish my soul’s hunger.
I am the guest.
POETRY
Petroglyphs
Wisdom #2
Wisdom is all around us and
Inside of every being.
Silent like a drumbeat
Determined to be heard.
Only you can hear yours.
Medicine for the whole planet!
One with Spirit
Mimi Merrill
Feb. 2, 1986
Let everything I see
Let every sound I hear
Let every sense I feel
Let every thought I have
Let every move I make
Let every breath I take
Be One with the Spirit
Be One with the Spirit.
Spirits
Oh spirits from the South, the West, the North, the East
come dance with me.
Come share your medicine
that we can be in Harmony.
Catherine O’Riley
Oh people from the South, the West, the North, the East
Come dance with me.
That we can be in Harmony.
Petroglyphs, Wadi Rum, Jordan
Oh grandmother earth, grandfather Heaven
Come dance with me.
That we can be in Harmony.
Conversations
Vision Fast Poems
Preparation
Between the wind’s breaths
I hear the beating
Of the earth’s heart.
To D i n e a t t h e Ta b l e
Tonight I dine at the table of the Beloved.
I have but water to drink.
The table, a feast set before me.
Dirt, rocks, pines, juniper, sage scattered about.
Dead trees for table ornaments
All arranged beautifully on this earthen tablecloth.
Mountains to the Clouds:
Come closer that we may experience the shade of your great span
And the coolness of your breath on our warm bodies.
Clouds to Sun:
Oh sister sun, your gaze is so intense.
We came to provide some shade
So your children do not burn up in their desire.
Pinion to Juniper:
Together we share and celebrate each season in the Inyos.
And wait to greet our brothers and sisters
Who come to visit.
Roger Appelgate, 2006
25
SONG
Death Valley
Dreamin’
By Marith Reheis, Feb. 2001, Pacific FOP (Friends of
the Pleistocene), Death Valley
Tune: California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and Papas
1.
All the mud is brown, and the salt is gray,
I went for a walk across the playa today.
Should be drinkin’ beer and watchin’ palm trees sway,
Death Valley dreamin’ on such a winter’s day.
2.
Waded through a lake that lay across the way,
Lord, I sank up to my knees, and I began to pray,
“You know I’m stuck here in the salt, please don’t send
rain today!”
3.
There’s scarps at Mormon Point, so most geologists say,
If we weren’t the best of Friends, there’d be hell to pay.
“It’s not a fault, it’s a beach, as any fool can see.”
Death Valley dreamin’ Pleistocene geology.
4.
Antioch Dunes
Service Project
By Karen Rusiniak, Berkeley
R
einventing ourselves is an ongoing process. As time shifts
the circumstances in which we find ourselves, people as
well as companies and organizations need to reinvent
themselves to be optimally effective and successful. On September 11th the Desert Survivor Board of Directors decided to allow
local trips on the regular trip schedules. This is a change that
reflects, I believe, two trends in our current world: the increasingly
busy lives we lead that often prevents us from driving the 8-10
hours many of the desert trips require and the increasing concern
over the use of a non-renewable oil resource to get to our beloved
desert.
I look upon the Board’s decision in two positive ways. Firstly, the
local trips can really be considered conditioning trips for our
longer desert outings. What better way to get and keep in shape
for our desert car camps and backpacks! Secondly, there has been
a local project in the back of my mind for years that I always
thought would be a great fit for a Desert Survivors service project:
helping out at the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge. The
refuge has sand, many plant genera we are familiar with from the
California and Nevada deserts and has been known since the
1930s as an entomological hotspot that attracts large and colorful
insect species with desert affinities.
Located right in our back yard, just 38 miles from Oakland City
Hall, is the first and only wildlife refuge in the country established
to protect endangered plants and insects. This 67 acre refuge was
created in 1980 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect
three endangered species: Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly, the Contra
Costa Wallflower and the Antioch Dunes Evening Primrose, which
are only found in or near the refuge’s boundaries, and twelve
species designated Federal “species of concern.” Today the refuge
exists as an isolated inland riverine dune system, all that is left of
Slept upon a fault near Furnace Creek last night,
Well the earth began to shake, I had a terrible fright.
Strain accommodation on several intersecting splays,
Death Valley dreamin’ could be a nightmare today!
Repeat 1.
All the mud is brown, and the salt is gray,
I went for a walk across the playa today.
Should be drinkin’ beer and watchin’ palm trees sway,
Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly (Apodemia
mormo langei)
26
www.fws.gov/cno/refuges/antioch/CCP.pdf
SERVICE TRIP
USFWS Photos
California Native Plant Society conducting a survey
Antioch Dunes location and site maps
the dunes that used to stretch for two miles along the river. It is
bordered on the north by the San Joaquin River, and on the other
three sides by industrial development: the Burlington Northern/Santa Fe Railroad on the south, the Fulton Shipyard on the west
and the Georgia Pacific Gypsum Plant on the east.
So if you are interested in rolling up your sleeves and helping out
on this project, please contact Karen Rusiniak or sign-up for the
DSOL listserv so you can be notified of the upcoming
work parties. The first one is scheduled for November 17th.
When I and three other Desert Survivors visited this place in May
we were all struck by how fragile an environment it was and we
could easily see the work that needs to be done in removing invasive species. Won’t you join me in helping to save these species
from extinction? And stay tuned for a more in-depth article on
this project in the next issue of The Survivor.
Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge
The scope of this service project will be to remove invasive
species such as Star and Russian Thistle and Ripgut Broome in the
winter, plant about 400 plants of buckwheat that the Lange’s
Metalmark needs to survive in the spring, and then place larvae of
the butterfly (that are being bred in two separate laboratories) on
the buckwheat also in the spring. Additionally, volunteers will be
needed in the spring/summer months to take surveys of individual
plants and butterflies to quantify the populations.
Prescribed burn used for nonnative weed control
Contra Costa Wallflower (Erysimum capitatum
angustatum)
Antioch Dunes Evening Primrose (Oenothera deltoides
howellii)
27
P.O. Box 20991 • Oakland, CA 94620-0991
Non-Profit
Organization
U.S. Postage
PAID
RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED
Berkeley, CA
Permit 648
DESERT SURVIVORS
Join Desert Survivors Today!
Members of Desert Survivors become part of a nation-wide
network of savvy desert hikers and activists. Benefits include:
• Four more-or-less quarterly issues of The Survivor .
• Over 40 free trips per year to explore desert locations. Trips
range in difficulty and include backpacking and dayhiking/carcamping. For a copy of our current trip schedule,
call (510) 769-1706 or go to www.desert-survivors.org.
• Social events including potluck parties, picnics and slideshows.
• Opportunity to participate in all aspects of Desert Survivors,
including preservation campaigns, hands-on desert conservation projects, and directing the organization.
Name____________________________________
Address__________________________________
City_____________________State____Zip______
Phone/E-mail_____________________________
Membership Fee/Donation Enclosed:
$20
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Other $___________
Make checks payable to Desert Survivors. Desert Survivors is a
501©3 organization; dues and donations are fully tax-deductible.
I can help with:
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other:__________________________________________
Mail this form to: Desert Survivors, P.O. Box 20991,
Oakland, CA 94620-0991
28
Experiencing, sharing and protecting the desert since 1978
In This Issue
Letters:
Don’t Mess With Virtual Wilderness...........................................2
Mountain Mishap............................................................................2
How to Reach Us (Revised!)............................................................3
Survivor Deadline Looms................................................................3
Mission Statement for Desert Survivors.......................................3
E-Mail Notices and On-Line Forum.............................................3
New Editor and Art Director..........................................................3
Desert Pavements and Dust Marith Reheis..........................4
These Are the Things I Have Seen Today Chris Schiller.....6
A Horse Fable Stan Huncilman....................................................9
Castle Peaks Carcamp, Mojave NP Steve Tabor......................10
Western AZ’s Arrastra Mountains Wilderness Steve Tabor....14
Exploring the Eastern Sierra and Nevada Bill Johansson.....22
How To Extricate a Car From Sand Leonard Finegold.......23
On Manners Miss Cactus............................................................24
AP Article on Steve Fossett Quotes Desert Survivor...........24
Poetry:
Haiku Poems Jeff Parker.............................................................24
Vision Fast Poems Roger Appelgate.........................................25
Song: Death Valley Dreamin’ Marith Reheis.........................26
Antioch Dunes Service Project Karen Rusiniak.......................26

Desert Pavement and Dust Poetry and Prose

Transcription

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