BLM Dispatch #33 - A Rock Called Snaggletooth
It was a new moon phase the first time I camped at a rock outcrop called Snaggletooth, named for the escarpment that rises from the Mojave floor like teeth, as if some sentient underground being were heaving its way toward the surface for a meal and then froze in time.
What’s left are jagged and jumbled striations, terra cotta colored with tiny islands of green scattered across the landscape by the likes of creosote, Mojave yucca, teddybear cholla…
This is prime desert tortoise country — the elusive reptile whose lineage reaches back millions of years, surviving heat and drought by sheltering in burrows and conserving water so effectively they can endure more than a year without a drink — a creature I’ve hoped to see in all my miles walking the Mojave but never have.
I arrived in winter, an hour before the sun fell out of sight, and immediately scampered up the one hundred and seventy foot climb from the desert floor to the top of Snaggletooth Rock for a good look around.
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BLM Dispatch #32 - McCain Valley Resource Conservation Area
If you left Downtown San Diego and followed CA-94 east, then swung onto Interstate 8 and let it carry you farther and farther from the coast, seventy miles in all, you’d pass the small outpost of Alpine — where I lived in an RV one summer between college, and where the carne asada burritos are worth a detour — then slip into the Cleveland National Forest, rise over the 4,055’ Laguna Summit, exit at Campo Boulevard, turn right, make a left onto Old Highway 80, and after 1.9 miles spot the faded green sign for McCain Valley Road 2100, where you’ll make a left and follow it 2.3 miles until the potholed pavement gives way to potholed gravel.
That’s where you cross into a strange mosaic of jurisdiction and purpose — BLM land sliding into Wilderness, Native reservations stitched along the margins, Anza-Borrego State Park looming to the east, and one lonely 619-acre square of California school lands holding its ground in the middle.
Welcome to the McCain Valley Resource Conservation Area…
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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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BLM Dispatch #30 - King Range National Conservation Area - Part 3
Here in the King Range, the seasons determine what kind of landscape you’re going to encounter.
From October to April, one storm follows another, and together they bring more than a hundred inches of rain, turning the land into a soaked ribbon of rainforest green. Hiking trails are muddy, bloated tributaries cascade westerly through the woods to find the perennial creeks that run into the sea, and celebrity fungi and mushrooms like earpick and lion’s mane sprout in gratitude.
From late spring through early fall, the King Range enters a dry season marked by clear skies, parched hillsides, and dusty trails. Coastal fog often drifts inland in the mornings, briefly softening the drought, but by afternoon the air turns warm and brittle. Streams shrink or vanish into gravel beds, and the coastal prairie take on a muted gold.
Scenes from the southern end of the range…
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BLM Dispatch #29 - King Range National Conservation Area - Coastal Prairie
This is one of my favorite photos from my book.
My friend Noah and I set out from our temporary home at the Mattole Beach Campground on a ten-mile loop that would wind us high above the ocean and back again. Two miles in, after climbing nearly seven hundred feet along Prosper Ridge Road, the day shifted. An old two-track path through the prairie veered from the gravel road and we followed it toward Strawberry Rock. Within moments — a snap of the fingers — the clear blue September skies dissolved into fog, a curtain sweeping over the ridge and swallowing the sun whole.
I took this photo, then turned around to shoot some frames in the other direction. When I turned back, he had disappeared…
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BLM Dispatch #28 - King Range National Conservation Area, Part 1
I remember the exact moment I first heard about a magical place called the “Lost Coast.”
A friend described an undeveloped shoreline where steep mountains plunge straight into the sea, old-growth trees rise from a temperate rainforest, and the isolation is so complete that residents carry helicopter insurance.
It sounded like something out of a fairy tale. I assumed it must be in the Philippines, or off the coast of Africa, or tucked away in New Zealand — or at the very closest, somewhere in Hawaii.
When he told me it was in California, I practically knocked him over as I ran to my computer.
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BLM Dispatch #27 - Mount Irish Petroglyph Site, Nevada
First, you have to open the wooden gate.
It’s hooked to the adjoining fence via a few pieces of tightly wound barbed wire, which takes me far too long to pry over the post it’s wrapped around.
I push it open, drive through, then shut it behind me. From here, it’s 8.7 miles along Logan Canyon Road to the Mount Irish Petroglyph Site.
The gravel road is in various degrees of September conditions - rutted, rocky, dried to a crisp. I pray to the backroad gods that the highway tires on my 2009 Toyota hang in there, and then treat each rock, divot, and pothole with tentative care.
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BLM Dispatch #26 - A Short Film from Nevada's BLM Lands
Back in May, when Representatives Mark Amodei and Celeste Maloy slipped in a surprise amendment to authorize the sale of BLM lands in Nevada and Utah, the headlines focused on the sheer numbers — 540,385 acres marked for sell-off. What was missing was any sense of the places themselves.
So my friend Roberto and I went to see them. If these lands were going to be handed to the highest bidder, the least we could do was bear witness, to create a record of what stands to be lost.
While I focused on still photographs, Roberto gathered moving images. The result is a four-minute short — a quiet passage through sagebrush, rivers, mountains, and wildflowers, woven with a reading from The Enduring Wild.
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BLM Dispatch #25 - State Route 447, Nevada
The sun dropped over the Carson River, a dark ribbon winding through the basin. Sagebrush and greasewood, silver-green in the last light, spread low across the floodplain. Along the banks a band of weathered cottonwoods stood in loose formation, their green still strong against the fading blue sky. I walked the outside edge of those trees where the BLM land began, tracing the cottonwood line for two miles before letting the river go, returning to the highway, and heading north toward Silver Springs.
I passed through Fernley, Nevada just past seven pm, sky darkening behind a Pilot gas station sign protruding from the earth, green and red bulbs signaling unleaded and diesel prices. Three twenty-five a gallon for unleaded. I stopped and filled up.
Then straight north through Wadsworth toward Empire, crossing over the Truckee River just before it runs into Pyramid Lake along the way.
Gerlach was bustling for a Monday night, or possibly every night, this being my first time passing through. I walked the town from end to end. Half a mile. Bearded patrons stood outside the bars with drinks in hand, their laughter rising and folding into the smoke from their cigarettes, the whole scene carrying the kind of relief that comes when a town finally exhales after weeks of Burning Man’s noise, dust, and strangers.
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BLM Dispatch #24 - Granite Mountain Wilderness, California
I had it in mind to climb the mountain.
First week of July, first heat wave to knock on the door of the Eastern Sierra and sweep across the leftover snow like the opening of an oven. Even at eight thousand feet above the sea, temperatures flirt with ninety degrees. Sweat rolls down legs, out of armpits.
Winds at 1-2 miles per hour, imperceptible. Gnats bite incessantly.
Despite the heat, we decide to make a go of it. No trail to speak of. We meander around sage, switchback up steep sandy pitches, climb over sections of class 3 granite, and eventually summit in the early afternoon…
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BLM Dispatch #23 - Summer Reading
It was a bountiful summer of reading, these books connecting me to friends and places near and far.
A visit to The Strand bookstore in New York brought me serendipitously to early hardcover editions of The Pine Barrens and Coming Into the Country and a signed copy of Macfarlane’s new book. Fifteen blocks south in lower manhattan, I picked up Things Become Other Things at McNally Jackson Books.
The Way Around came with me on a plane to Minneapolis, and then heartbreakingly stayed on the plane when I left it in the seat pocket along with two sheets of scribbled notes and dozens of dog eared pages and underlined sentences. Upon arriving to my sister-in-laws home in the Twin Cities, I walked to Magers & Quinn in Uptown and bought it again.
Vromans in Pasadena and City Lights in San Francisco rounded out the other connections, which further proves that the real reason to ever travel is to visit bookstores (and, for gods sake, MORE TIME TO READ).
Dropping in some capsule reviews for those who might be interested in picking up a new book or three…
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BLM Dispatch #22 - Highway 120 East
I was driving north on California’s Hwy 395, Mono Lake just about to come into view, when I spotted a road sign for Highway 120 pointing east toward Benton.
Until then, my only experience with 120 was heading west into Yosemite via Tioga Pass and Tuolumne Meadows.
I’d driven this stretch of the 395 dozens of times, always craning my head towards the range of light, staring at the formidable chain of Sierra Nevada peaks rising a mile high from the sagebrush covered foothills.
I’ve walked a hundred miles of that high country, mostly along sections of the Pacific Crest Trail. I’ve switchbacked over the passes, swum in icy lakes, camped in the meadows, and watched shooting stars rip across the sky. Each excursion brought adventure, but I never felt…what’s the word…comfortable? Peace?
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BLM Dispatch #21 - The Mesa With No Name
I’ll trade you a hundred Yosemites for just one of these lonely mesas at sunset.
I can’t say the exact feeling I had walking these BLM lands off Highway 120, but reverence is what I felt most deeply. As the fading light worked slowly upward along the mesa, illuminating Sage and Pinyon, and finally turning rocky outcrops crimson, words seemed useless.
I was camping once at the Carrizo Plain during the superbloom and the little campground was bursting with life and movement. There were people of all stripes scattered about. Botanists, flower chasers, mountain bikers, birders, and walkers, sleeping in tents and vans and trailers. But one older gentleman had captivated my attention, doing something I can’t remember ever seeing before…
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BLM Dispatch #20 - My Evening With the Stallion
We made eye contact just as the last sliver of sun had dipped below the ridge. I had been wandering through a maze of sagebrush, pointing my camera in the general direction of west and north, studying shadows and watching the light slip upwardly along Granite Mountain.
That’s when I saw him.
Across the valley floor, a few hundred feet away, was a wild mustang. He was standing there motionless, like a statue, his head hanging in a posture that made him appear to be in a state of gratitude, as if he too had been appreciating the sunset. I was startled at first, not accustomed to seeing an animal five times my size. I scanned the surroundings for others, but he was as alone as I was.
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BLM Dispatch #19 - Long Valley Caldera, California
Welcome to Eastern California’s Long Valley Caldera. I was out here in June, but have also visited in May, August, and October, experiencing the full palette of weather offerings, from pounding heat to snow, rain, and sleet under deliciously ominous skies.
The numerous hot springs are the main draw, but I prefer roaming the lonely hills that overlook the valley. Utah junipers nestle among boulder outcrops, while scattered rabbitbrush offers a choose-your-own-path walking experience.
If you’re looking for a spot to pitch a tent in the front country, it doesn’t get much better or easier than here. Park along Whitmore Tubs Road (see below), throw on a pack, and head for the hills. At 7,200 feet, you’ll have a front row seat to a sunset over the Sierra Nevada and a moonrise over the Glass Mountains.
And beneath your sleeping bag? One of the world’s largest dormant supervolcanoes. Quiet for 100,000 years, recent studies suggest 240 cubic miles of magma rest below. If it ever erupted, it could release over 800 times the material of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption.
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BLM Dispatch #18 - Trinity Wild and Scenic River, California
Northwest California’s Trinity River begins high in the rugged Trinity Alps and winds through steep, forested mountains before merging with the (newly freed!) Klamath.
A fallen madrone branch in the headwaters — perhaps snapped off by a climbing black bear — would drift two hundred miles downstream before meeting the Klamath, and then another forty-four miles before the boulder bruised and battered limb would meet the salty waters of the Pacific.
Called Hun’ by the Hoopa Valley and Yurok Tribes — who have lived along its banks for thousands of years — the river is a vital thread of culture and lifeways. These nations have long stewarded its waters and stood at the front lines of its protection.
My home for three days of exploration was the BLM-managed Steel Bridge Campground, with thirteen sites tucked beneath a canopy of Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, and incense cedar. I focused my time on the seventeen-mile stretch of the Trinity that the BLM manages between the charming towns of Lewiston and Junction City (see map below), dropping into every trail and river access point I could find for walking, swimming, and boulder hopping…
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BLM Dispatch #17 - Notes From the Sky
Greetings from 32,000 feet. I’m sitting in seat 33E, sandwiched between my thirteen-year-old son by the window and my ten-year-old daughter on the aisle. We’re two rows from the violent whoosh of the airplane toilet, somewhere between Grand Rapids and Los Angeles.
The rain and humidity of my sister’s farm in northern Michigan are still lingering on my skin and in my pores. My eyes are still mesmerized by the meadows, maples and marshes, along with the newborn calf still wet, her legs crooked, trying to walk for the very first time. I can still taste the blue eggs the hens laid and the wild raspberries we pulled off thorny branches and my mother blended into a pie. My t-shirt has the smell of sheep and cattle and chickens baked into its cotton.
I’m writing this dispatch on the plane because the week has crested the hill and is tumbling quickly toward Sunday - my self imposed newsletter deadline - and because, well, the only thing family vacations suffer from are a lack of putting fingers to keyboard.
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BLM Dispatch #16 - Bodie Hills, California
The stillness hits me first. More than the altitude, more than the cold, more than the last sliver of sun cresting over the Sierra Nevada.
Nearby aspen groves are lit with an October concoction of fiery orange, their leaves offering a final showcase before succumbing to the cold and falling aimlessly to the earth. Sagebrush dominates the terrain, anchoring the landscape as everything else begins to shift from autumn to winter. And to the distant north and west, the formidable sentinels of the Sierra Nevada stand watchful.
My temporary camp is all set up, and my warmest clothes are fighting valiantly against the plummeting temperature. I pour a small glass of whiskey and plop down in my chair. There is no wind, no sound, no movement.
Welcome to the Bodie Hills, I think to myself.
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