Notes from Steve - Observations from Off the Beaten Path
I spent some time in Anza-Borrego State Park in Southern California in March. Although reports say the California deserts are not going through a superbloom this year, I think this display along Henderson Valley Road would qualify. The rest of the park was nowhere near as spectacular as this.
I spent an enjoyable couple of weeks out in the Mojave Desert over the holidays, doing research for a potential next book. The weather was fairly overcast for most of the trip, but clouds did clear for a beautiful view from my campsite near the Marble Mountains on New Year’s Eve. Here’s a view of the night sky from that campsite, with the constellation Orion at the upper left. Orion’s belt is aligned vertically and his dagger is pointing off to the right. The fuzzy star in his dagger is actually the Orion nebula. Although I was camped out in a remote spot, in the Mojave you’re never far from some sort of human presence. The orange glow along the horizon is from the headlight of a distant BNSF freight train headed west toward Barstow.
About an hour’s drive from Amboy is another notable spot, the Iron Mountain Camp. In World War II, this was one of the camps in the Mojave Desert the Army used to train troops in desert warfare before they were sent to North Africa to battle Rommel’s Afrika Korps. Although commonly associated with General George Patton, who created it in early 1942, he was there for only a couple of months before heading off to Washington to plan the US invasion of Morocco. The camp remained open until early 1944. If you are familiar with the Humphrey Bogart movie, “Casablanca” you should know the movie got its name because after Patton’s army landed in Morocco at Casablanca, the town’s name was all over the news.
The Iron Mountain Camp still retains the layout of its rock-lined dirt roads, although all the structures have long since been removed except for the stone chapel. It only consisted of a single wall, with troops seated outside for services. The Bureau of Land Management has fenced off the entire camp to prevent access by off-road vehicles, but turnstiles in several locations allow foot traffic to enter. The camp is a relic of a different time, and it’s remote location virtually assures you will be the only one there.
I was happy to hear that on August 11, Federal District Court Judge David Nuffer granted a motion to dismiss lawsuits filed by the State of Utah and Garfield and Kane Counties challenging President Biden's restoration of the boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments. Judge Nuffer wrote, "In spite of the sincere and deeply held view of the Plaintiffs, there is no relief for them in this action. It has long been held that where Congress has authorized a public officer to take some specified legislative action when in his judgment that action is necessary or appropriate to carry out the policy of Congress, the judgment of the officer as to the existence of the facts calling for that action is not subject to review. President Biden’s judgment in drafting and issuing the Proclamations as he sees fit is not an action reviewable by a district court.
Steve Bloch, Legal Director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, “Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments are two of the most significant, intact, and extraordinary public landscapes in America—landscapes that will remain protected after today’s dismissal of these lawsuits. We are thrilled with today’s decision, which aligns with more than one hundred years of similar court rulings that have rejected every challenge to Presidential authority under the Antiquities Act to protect cultural, scientific, ecological, and paleontological resources on public lands.” Of course the battle is unlikely to stop there. The plaintiffs have already begun the process of filing an appeal, but Judge Nuffer's decision is very good news.
In my book, The Slickrock Desert: Journeys of Discovery in an Endangered American Wilderness, I share stories of several adventures I was joined on by my wife, Nicki. Although camping was never at the top of her list of things to do, she was always a sport in coming along with me. I'm sorry to say that Nicki passed away in June after an extended bout with cancer. She spent the last couple of months in home hospice, with a hospital bed in our family room. My daughter, Juliana, and I were with her when she passed. Fortunately she was never in any pain, she just kept getting more tired until she finally passed. It's taken awhile for me to get used to my new life, but I'm back to keeping busy now. Although Nicki is now gone, she will never be forgotten.
I'm honored to announce that my book, The Slickrock Desert, has been named a finalist in the prestigious 35th Annual IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards™ competition, sponsored by The Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). As one of three finalists in the category of Regional nonfiction, I will receive either a gold or silver medal award during a special dinner ceremony on May 5 in San Diego, California. See IBPA’s announcement here: www.ibpabenjaminfranklinaward.com/winners-regional.
Important news was announced this week that will build on the future of Bears Ears National Monument. The BLM and Forest Service have signed an Inter-Governmental Cooperative Agreement with the five Tribes of the Bears Ears Commission to establish a cooperative arrangement to manage the monument. It is the first time the government has established a formal process for working with Native American Tribes to manage public lands.
Established in 2016 by Presidential Proclamation from President Barack Obama, the monument was the result of lobbying by Native American Tribes and the environmental community as a way to protect a threatened region of important cultural heritage and paleontological resources. A year later, Donald Trump unilaterally downsized it by 85 percent even without legal authority to do so. President Joe Biden restored the full extent of the monument (including acreage not included in the original proclamation but added by Trump) in 2021.
Carleton Bowekaty, Lieutenant Governor of Zuni Pueblo, stated, "Today, instead of being removed from a landscape to make way for a public park, we are being invited back to our ancestral homelands to help repair them. Mark Maryboy of the Utah Dine Bikeyah greeted representatives of the five Tribes as they came together in Bears Ears with a simple message: "Welcome home."
You can read more about this historic agreement here.
I received an interesting email today from Wayne Raymond, one of the people who reviewed an early draft of my manuscript for The Slickrock Desert. Wayne provided excellent feedback that helped make it a better book. He was particularly interested in my stories about pictographs and petroglyphs, including a photo I had taken of a series of figures of what are known as the Barrier Canyon style of pictographs on a wall in Sego Canyon.
In my book, I had referred to Polly Schaafsma, an expert on these figures who believes them to be as much as three thousand years old. I had mentioned that while the meaning of these pictographs is subject to debate, archaeologists generally think the figures with large heads and empty eye sockets may represent the dead, and that they have no arms or legs because they are wrapped in funeral blankets.
Wayne sent me a link to a Twitter thread here whose author refers to that same pictograph panel and offers a different explanation. He believes the figures with the horns draw from bighorn sheep, who are most sexually active during the summer monsoon season, with males banging their heads against each other to prove their prowess. This is also the time when adequate rainfall is critical to the success of the harvest, and the author believes that the relationship between rutting bighorn sheep and summer rains is woven into the figure's headdress. He goes on to show how the elongated shapes could represent downpours called microbursts common during the summer monsoons. The figures would then represent not death but the hope for a bountiful harvest. It's an interesting theory well worth considering, although it would seem to be a bit of a stretch. But who knows, it could be accurate. In any event, here's my photo of the pictographs in question.
