BLM Dispatch #31 - Cadiz Dunes Wilderness
There are plenty of dune systems in California — some with greater vertical relief, some extending across broader aeolian plains, others teeming with richer floristic diversity — but the Cadiz Dunes, my favorite of the bunch, rise at that sacred roundabout where remoteness, solitude, dark skies, and untetheredness all meet.
Thanks to a 1994 Wilderness designation, the 19,935-acre dune field is protected in perpetuity, free from mechanized transport, development, structures, and roads that would fragment its sweeping continuity. Here, wind and time remain the only architects, continually shaping a landscape as untamed and quiet as it’s been for millennia.
Geographically, the dunes lift from the desert floor near old Route 66, which still runs for roughly 75 miles south of Interstate 40, linking Ludlow in the west to Fenner in the east. The route winds past the charmingly named ghost towns of Klondike, Siberia, and Baghdad, and through Amboy, where Roy’s Motel and Cafe still glows in neon at night.
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