| "LISTEN," SAID DIRTY JOHN, "I CAN SHOW YOU LOTS OF BEAUTIFUL PLACES WHERE YOU CAN GO TO BE BY YOURSELF. IF YOU TRY TO CONTROL PEOPLE HERE, YOU'RE GONNA GET IN TROUBLE." |
| increased the legal
off-road camping distance from 100 to 300 feet. "That," remembered Elden
Hughes, who lives near Los Angeles and serves as co-chairman of the California
Desert Protection League, "was when we started working with maps to propose to
Congress what we really wanted." The result-Senate Bill 7-calls for more than twice as much wilderness as does the BLM Desert Plan. The bill would severely restrict grazing, mining, and ORV use in the national parks. All valid, active mining operations, however, would be allowed to continue; most current ORV areas would remain open: and no existing maintained roads would be closed. Nevertheless, the bill has been vociferously attacked by ranchers, miners, and ORV users, who claim-a la the petition at the hot spring-that it seeks to preserve the desert for future visitors, not for them. As the controversy over the Desert Protection Act mounted, it occurred to me that something intrinsic was at work in the argument. The desert has historically occupied the most anarchic place in the American imagination: its residents have been people who wanted, more than anything else, to be left alone. But the modern fact is that this desert lies within a day's drive of 40 million people; the swelling population of Southern California exerts more pressure on it daily. This growing attention has resulted in both greater appreciation and greater abuse, as dirt bikers, rock collectors, prospectors, and photographers fan out in increasing profusion. The Cranston bill, a sweeping effort to preserve large chunks of the region before they are lost, ranks as the most comprehensive land-conservation measure in North American history outside of the Alaska National interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980. Indeed, the American desert probably has more in common with the Arctic-in pristineness, in population, in precipitation, in oneriness, and in vulnerability to imminent abuse-than does any other place on the continent. Long neglected and belittled as a wasteland fit only for lizards and prospectors, the desert is now recognized as
|
a fascinating and
fragile environment, just as Alaska has risen to an exalted place in the
national consciousness after long being considered fit only for polar bears and
Eskimos. With all this in mind, 1 decided to return to the desert to talk with people about S.7. Whether you start from the north or the south, the approach to Saline Valley is over slow, snakelike dirt roads and high passes of piñon and juniper, the sort of vegetation that, dry as it is, seems inconsistent with the idea of "desert." The granite mountainsides slowly give way to glimpses of the valley floor, its alkaline surface gleaming like a dream-and not necessarily a benign one. Several people have disappeared without a trace there, prompting Los Angeles newspapers to tag the area the Bermuda Triangle of California. I descended to the valley floor through sage, greasewood, and scattered wildflowers, passing occasional jugs filled with water set out to aid drivers in distress. The late sun threw the bare hills into sweeping relief, their burnt-sienna and chocolate bands glowing an unreal orange. I turned at the rock that marked the way to the hot springs (road signs in the valley are invariably pulled out) and bounced the final eight miles on a rough, sandy track. Eventually I saw cars, trailers-even an airplane-arranged around a low stand of mesquite. I knew for sure that I'd arrived when I saw a naked man walking down the road. As I passed the lower of the two springs, I encountered that indefatigable camel of the interior-a VW bus-backing up while its driver, a guy with a gray beard and headband, yelled something out of his window and a Doberman loped alongside. Within minutes the same bus pulled in behind me at the upper spring, and unloaded a half-dozen time travelers from the sixties. Their various dogs promptly got into a fight. I glanced over as I walked around looking for a campsite, and heard a fat, bearded guy comment "1 don't like the way that asshole's looking at me." The sun went down, portending an unpeaceful evening at the oasis. The hexagonal pool had a full house that night. There was an older woman from L.A. and some dirt bikers from San Bernardino; it turned out that the dog party was from Darwin, a mining town named not for the naturalist but for Darwin French. an early desert explorer. A young woman in this group held center stage as beer, cigarettes, and Jack Daniel's were passed around. When the Cranston bill came up, she proclaimed that if it were passed, we all would have to walk the eight miles in from the main road-an utter falsehood. (Although the hot springs would become part of the national park, the proposed wilderness would be routed around them.) To this the older woman remarked that she had never voted for Cranston until he had sponsored the bill. "In the last ten years I've hiked this whole valley." she said, "and in the last four, it's been totally destroyed by motorcycles." One of the dirt bikers asked her why she liked to hike. "Because it's beautiful," she said. "Well, is it any less beautiful to somebody on a motorcycle?" he countered. "I've seen a lot of beautiful country that I never would have seen without a bike. I cherish this place. Tomorrow we're taking a hundred-mile ride, up this jeep track through Eureka Valley and back down through the Racetrack, past Hunter Mountain, All fantastic roads." "Do you stay on the roads when you ride?" I asked. "Most of the time. But if I see something I like in the distance, I cross-country, I'm gonna go get it." "Why can't you walk?" He thought this over, impeded somewhat by the whiskey. |
AUGUST 1988 OUTSIDE