Snow, traffic and isolation can't stop CHP officer

Shupe patrols sparsely populated, heavily traveled northern border of county

By DAVID HELDRETH, staff writer
Desert Dispatch

California Highway Patrol officer Larry Shupe stands with his patrol vehicle Tuesday afternoon. Shupe is one of six officers that live and patrol the Mountain Pass area. (Staff Photo by David Heldreth)

MOUNTAIN PASS • Officer Larry Shupe has become the go-to man for people in Mountain Pass.

Shupe is one of six California Highway Patrol officers who are voluntarily assigned to patrol the Mountain Pass area from Halloran Summit Road to the Nevada state line. Shupe has spent the last 17 years living at the CHP residence post off of Bailey Road, 100 miles north of Barstow, or Sandy Valley, Nev. and working the Mountain Pass area.

Shupe’s years of experience in the area were tested during a snow storm that hit the Barstow area on Dec. 18 of 2008. Several motorists were trapped on Interstate 15 when it was closed for 18 hours due to two-foot snow drifts across the freeway in Mountain Pass. Shupe, who has the only four-wheel drive patrol vehicle, made several trips to take the stranded people between the freeway and the Moly Corporation Minerals mine on Bailey Road where a shelter was set up.

“The snow was coming down so bad you couldn’t see anywhere,” Shupe said. “I almost hit a few cars actually. After I found the first people I realized there was more than I could take so I promised them I would come back. I had to mark the spots with my GPS so that I could find them again.”

Shupe received a commendation from the CHP for his work that day. Cpt. Rick Linson said that Shupe often goes beyond the normal call of the job.

“When it gets that cold and people are stuck it can be dangerous,” Linson said. “His efforts may have saved lives that day. He is a great example to any officer.”

Shupe’s knowledge of the area was even useful when the Mojave National Preserve was created in 1994. He said he often had National Park Service rangers visiting him for directions and asking him to show them around the preserve during its first few years of existence.

Hiking and rural living are nothing new to Shupe. He grew up cattle farming in a rural area outside of Twin Falls, Idaho. He now lives in Sandy Valley, a town of 1,800 people about 15 miles west of Interstate 15.

“I kind of always lived out away from people all my life,” Shupe said. “When I got out of the academy I picked to come to Barstow. I’m bilingual so I got a bit more of a choice were I was located. I chose Barstow over a metropolitan area. I prefer the peace and quiet.”

Shupe’s preference has meant that a shopping trip or piano lesson for his kids requires a 50 mile trip to Las Vegas. Shupe’s three children who still live at home — he has five total — go to school in Sandy Valley, but he said that when he lived at the residence post his kids would take a bus 35 miles to Baker to attend school.

“If you get in your car to go somewhere you have to plan for a 100-mile round trip,” Shupe said. “You have to plan things a little bit more, but it works out. The kids didn’t really seem to notice it until they started getting to junior high school and high school and started getting driver’s licenses and things.”

Shupe said despite the drawbacks the post has its upsides, such as easy access to hiking, hunting and off-roading areas.

“After 21 years as an officer there isn’t a spot in the state I couldn’t get assigned to at one point,” Shupe said. “I want to be here and I take pride in my work here. When I first was moving people said I would miss the trees, lakes, snow and water, but over the years the area has grown on me. I think I became a desert rat. I go out hiking and explore the area often.”

Team of lone rangers scours the new Wild West

Park service workers in the Mojave never know what vestige of the Wild West they'll find, right down to train robbers.

By Mike Anton
Los Angeles Times

KELSO, CALIF. — High noon and the desert is hot as a wok, yet Tim Duncan is wearing body armor under his uniform. A handgun and a Taser hang from his belt. Next to him in the truck are a shotgun and an M-16 assault rifle with extra magazines.

"Out here, you have to be prepared," he said.

Duncan is a National Park Service ranger at the Mojave National Preserve, a Mordor-like sweep of serrated mountains, feral deserts, Joshua tree forests, dry lakes and lava beds -- a park five times the size of Los Angeles that's patrolled by eight law officers.

Here the wilds of nature meet the wilds of man, an incongruous environment that has hidden meth labs and illegal waste dumps, plant and wildlife poachers, archaeological thieves, the occasional dumped body and train robbers.

Yes, train robbers.

Union Pacific trains laden with goods from the coast rumble into the Mojave National Preserve at the aptly named Devils Playground, 40 miles of hellish sand dunes and salt flats at the base of the Kelso Mountains. Mile-long caravans of double-stacked cars wheeze to a crawl as they labor up the steep Cima Grade through the heart of the preserve. Sometimes they stop on side tracks to let other trains pass.

Thieves typically strike at night -- busting into boxcars and tossing down the booty to waiting accomplices with trucks.

Sometimes, looters find what they want, such as consumer electronics. "Other times the container is loaded with teddy bears or promotional magnets for a restaurant," Duncan said.

Congress created the preserve in 1994. When Duncan arrived three years later, the railroad was losing more than $1 million a month there to robbers.

"It was just like an open-air flea market out here," he said. "Stuff was strewn everywhere."

Stepped-up enforcement by park rangers and railroad police has dampened the wholesale looting. Yet rangers still come across piles of empty flat-screen television boxes and Styrofoam packing material. Four men were caught last month liberating TVs from a boxcar in broad daylight. A fifth suspect, a 17-year-old boy, was found dead, a victim of the scorching midday heat.

Such arrests are rare. Those who do get caught tend to stand out.

Three summers ago, Ranger Kirk Gebicke and a partner stopped to chat with two men sitting in an empty Budget rental truck near the railroad tracks. The pair had been drinking and couldn't explain why they were parked in a moving van miles from anything that needed to be moved. They expressed ignorance about a sack of cocaine the rangers found in the grass four feet away.

The men were arrested. An aerial search of the area found 75 flat-screen TVs worth more than $225,000 that had been thrown from a train.

"I'm at the edge of the world here," Gebicke said. "There are things here that you won't find at Yosemite or Yellowstone."

Mojave National Preserve lies an hour east of Barstow, sandwiched between Interstate 15, Interstate 40 and the Nevada state line. Known as the Lonesome Triangle, it has been trafficked for eons by people seeking riches, a path to someplace else -- or simply a place to hide.

Prehistoric hunters tracked large animals across a verdant landscape of rivers and lakes sculpted by volcanic activity. Ancestors of today's Mojave, Paiute and Chemehuevi Indians eked out an existence after the lakes disappeared.

Spanish soldiers and Mormon pioneers blazed routes to the coast that others followed in droves -- the Southland's first freeways. Miners in the 1800s discovered gold, silver, copper and minerals used in industry. Ranchers found endless grazing land. During World War II, Army Gen. George Patton chose the Mojave as a stand-in for North Africa to train soldiers. After the war, returning troops turned the Mojave into an off-road motorcycling mecca for a booming Los Angeles.

An anything-goes Wild West ethic permeates the area's history, and vestiges of it persist.

The freeways are conveyor belts for trouble from Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Some 1,800 miles of dirt roads lead to countless out-of-sight arroyos and hidey holes. It's impossible to know what's going on out there.

At any given time, two or three lone rangers drift across a potentially hostile universe where the road signs have been blasted by bullets and any hope of backup is a mirage.

Rangers study the landscape for signs of recent human activity. Gebicke carries what he calls a "track trap" -- a garden rake to smooth over entrances to dirt roads leading to known trouble spots.

"I'm seeing what's in place and what's out of place," Duncan said. "If I'm on a road where there never was a gate and suddenly there is one now, why, that raises a red flag."

Duncan, 52, is a gregarious bear of a man with a graying beard and a Georgia accent thick as country gravy. He grew up in the sticks and dreamed of a life outdoors just like Fess Parker's Daniel Boone in the '60s television series. After a stint in the Air Force and time working for an aerospace firm, Duncan went back to college, earned a forestry degree and joined the Park Service, serving first in Alaska and later at the Manassas Civil War battle site in Virginia. His first two years in the Mojave he patrolled alone.

More than 500,000 vehicles a year traverse the preserve's few paved roads. Because there are no formal entrances or fees, it's unknown how many are just passing through on what is a popular and at times white-knuckle shortcut between Palm Springs and Las Vegas. (A driver recently was clocked going 121 mph and ticketed; fatal wrecks are common.)

Park officials stress that the overwhelming majority of visitors come to admire the preserve's austere beauty. Three of North America's four desert ecosystems meet in its 1.6 million acres to form more than 30 distinctive plant and animal habitats. Hiking the Kelso Dunes, which rise to 700 feet, conjures a feeling of being Lawrence in Arabia. Spring wildflowers are a popular draw as is the lovingly restored Kelso Depot, once a thriving passenger train stop and now the preserve's visitor center.

But off the beaten path are scenes that will never appear in a glossy coffee-table book: The man hanging from a rope on a Joshua tree in February, an apparent suicide. The attempted hijacking of a recreational vehicle by a luckless man abandoned in the desert by a friend; he was beaten and subdued by the four vacationers when his gun proved empty.

"Some people look at all this desert and say, 'That's just wasteland. It doesn't matter what I do with it -- or do in it,' " Duncan says as he drives past an old water-pumping station with graffiti and three wild burros. "I've had people tell me to my face: 'We know what the rules are, but when no one's around, we do what we please.' "

Thieves will steal anything that's not anchored to the ground -- as well as stuff that is. Scrap metal from historic ranch structures and mining sites. Copper wiring from modern communication relay stations. Rare butterflies and reptiles coveted by collectors, including the colorful rosy boa and the endangered desert tortoise. Tortoises have also been found shot to death.

Two men who stole a front-end loader from an abandoned mine carved a road across miles of black lava cinder cones before they were caught.

Mojave National Preserve has 1,600 documented archaeological sites, some dating to 10,000 B.C. Many of them have been stripped of their pottery, baskets, stone tools and metates, arrowheads and other artifacts.

"What surprises me is how much material used to be there," said David Nichols, the preserve's full-time archaeologist, who compared his findings with old field surveys. "At most of these sites, I'd say 70% of the visible cultural material is gone."

Rampant looting predates the Park Service. An area first documented in 1977 was so rich in artifacts it was dubbed the Freightwagon Site because you could fill one with the stuff. A researcher's report offered this prescient observation: "As soon as this site location becomes public knowledge, it will be vandalized by off-the-road 'enthusiasts.' "

When an associate of Nichols' revisited the area last year, nearly everything was gone. Off-road quad tracks led straight to the site from I-15.

"It's awful," Nichols said. "And because the place is so vast we never, ever catch anyone in the act of doing anything."

Native American petroglyphs have been cut from rock walls and carted off. Boulders adorned with ancient art have vanished. Vandalism is pervasive, especially of petroglyphs depicting "mask figures" which resemble a human face with eyes and a mouth.

People shoot at them for target practice.

"I dream of the day that I come around a corner and find a guy with a hammer and chisel," Nichols said.

Maybe he shouldn't, given that Nichols patrols the backcountry unarmed.

The preserve's remoteness makes it an ideal place to take care of certain types of business.

In 2001, a Dallas man was traveling to Los Angeles with three men he met in a coffee shop. They pulled off I-15 and drove into the preserve to find a quiet place to empty their bladders. That's when one of the man's new friends shot him to death under the soft light of a million stars.

Two years later, a woman's torso was found just outside the preserve. Tattoos of a hummingbird over the left breast and an "M" with a star on the lower back led authorities to identify the remains as those of a 19-year-old Las Vegas prostitute last seen getting into a car with California plates.

Duncan figures it's a sure bet there are more out there who will never be found. "There's an old story: If all the dead here in the desert stood up, we'd have a forest."

As he approaches places such as the New Trail mine, a lurching 20-minute drive up a rock-strewn road, Duncan is aware of the risk of being in this country alone.

It was here in 2001 that Duncan and Gebicke went to saw off locks that had been placed on the camp's old cabins. They encountered four men in a pickup coming the other way. They just happened to have the key.

At the mine, the rangers discovered a drug lab and 10 gallons of pure methamphetamine oil ready to be crystallized.

The men were arrested and the mine site cleaned up.

A 2003 National Park Service narrative of the preserve's history noted that "crystal meth has posed a considerable problem to the park." Rangers periodically run across red phosphorus stains, containers of lye and empty boxes of pseudoephedrine -- signs of a cook at work.

"If I don't get up here for six months, you have no clue as to what's gone on in that six months," Duncan said.

On this day, the New Trail mine is quiet. On a table in an outbuilding are empty bottles of whiskey, sour apple schnapps and a half-filled jar of clear liquid labeled "corn whiskey."

Outside, a lizard scurries across ground strewn with beer bottles and spent shells.

Whoever was here left several camp chairs behind, suggesting they will be back. What they'll be up to is anyone's guess.

The desert is good at keeping secrets.

On patrol, Ranger Tim Duncan carries a handgun and a Taser. Next to him in his truck are a shotgun and an M-16 assault rifle with extra magazines. “Out here, you have to be prepared,” he says.

Suicide Victim Found Off Cima Road

Mojave National Preserve
National Park News

A park visitor found the body of a 47-year-old Las Vegas man hanging from a rope on a Joshua tree just off Cima Road on February 1st and called 911. Rangers responded along with California Highway Patrol and San Bernadino county officers.

Investigation revealed that the man had driven off the road and into a wash and parked his car. He then walked straight from the car to the tree, climbed up on it, placed a rope in a notch on the tree, then placed the other end around his neck and jumped. Ground areas around the car and the man were fresh and showed no other tracks leading to the tree.

The death has been ruled a suicide. No note was found.

Body found in Mojave National Preserve possible suicide

By Aaron Aupperlee, city editor
Desert Dispatch

CIMA — The body of a 26-year-old man was found inside a vehicle by a park ranger working in the Mojave National Preserve Monday evening.

The cause of death is still unknown pending an investigation, but officials within the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s-Coroner Department suspect it may be suicide.

“We started looking at suicide as the initial mode,” said Sandy Fatland, a spokeswoman for the coroner’s office.

The man’s name will not be released until the family has been notified, Fatland said. The car is registered out of Glendale, Ariz., the sheriff’s report stated. Fatland said the man appears to be a reserve officer in the military. His last residence is not known.

The ranger found the body near the intersection of Cedar Canyon Road and Kelso Cima Road in Cima, about 15 miles south of Mountain Pass, at 5:12 p.m. Initial reports speculated that the body had been in the vehicle for awhile, however Fatland said there was no evidence yet to indicate how long the body had been dead.

The Barstow sheriff’s station is investigating. Anyone with information can call the station at 256-4838. People with information that wish to remain anonymous can call WeTip at 1-800-78-CRIME or leave information on the WeTip Web site at www.wetip.com.

Changing needs forcing closure of National Forest recreation sites

Photo by William Wilson Lewis III / The Press-Enterprise



By JANET ZIMMERMAN
The Press-Enterprise

When Forest Service recreation officer Jonathan Cook-Fisher looks out over the campground tucked deep into the San Bernardino Mountains, his gaze sweeps over the ponderosa pines and chirping squirrels and lands on a lopsided picnic table.

The table's chipped paint and splintered bench -- probably hacked off for kindling -- jump out at him like flames in a forest.

The dilapidated table is one of many signs of neglect at Tent Peg Group Campground, Cook-Fisher said. Broken wooden parking lot barriers, inaccessible fire rings and sediment runoff threatening endangered species downstream also plague the camp five miles down a rutted dirt road from Green Valley Lake.

Tent Peg's lagging maintenance, difficult access and a lack of visitors will likely spell the end of this '60s-era campground, one of four San Bernardino National Forest campgrounds and picnic sites targeted for closure over the next five years.

Under the gun to save money, ranger districts across the country have performed sweeping recreation assessments to reshape facilities to fit shifting interests among visitors and get rid of what doesn't work anymore.

In the San Bernardino and Cleveland national forests, officials want to boost overnight fees to pay for improvements and maintenance at recreation areas that remain open. They also propose seasonal closures in some spots; a greater reliance on volunteers; and renovation of some camp areas to cater to prime users, such as off-highway vehicle enthusiasts.

Other sites targeted for closure are Crest Park Picnic Area off Highway 18 near Rimforest, Big Pine Equestrian Group Campground northwest of Big Bear Lake and Fuller Mill Creek Picnic Area off Highway 243 near Idyllwild. The Cleveland National Forest, which has fewer visitors, does not plan any closures.

"We're under direction ... to cut costs because the budget is getting lean," said Kermit Johansson, project coordinator for the San Bernardino National Forest. "We're going back and reviewing every site, looking at whether it's worth keeping open; do people use it, is it something the public wants now?"

The driving force behind the five-year Recreation Facility Analysis is $346 million in postponed upkeep nationwide, ranging from crumbling parking lots to aging, malodorous vault toilets. Officials hope the changes will eliminate most of the backlog by 2020.

This is the first comprehensive review of the 155 national forests and grasslands across the country, said Jim Bedwell, director of recreation, heritage and volunteer resources for the Forest Service.

Many of the recreation areas date to the 1930s and don't reflect today's most popular activities, which have changed from tent camping and long stays to mountain bikes and day use, he said.

"It's eliminating those things that are very costly, that are impacting the environment or are not well-utilized so we can use those funds to meet the new demands," Bedwell said.

No 'Wiggle Room'

If Cook-Fisher had his way, all of Tent Peg's tables and other amenities would be replaced. But the reality is that funding is stagnant and the area's costly firefighting seasons have taken a bite out of recreation dollars.

People would be surprised at the cost of upkeep and improvements, he said.

A new picnic bench is about $800; 8-by-8-inch boundary posts that line the roadways and parking areas cost $50 each; pumping sewage from the toilets is at least $600 a year at Tent Peg. And a recreation technician who cleans and restocks the bathroom, empties trash, cleans the fire rings and restores any incidental damage to the landscape by campers costs about $750 per week.

Shady Cove Group Campground, off Highway 18 east of Running Springs, is an example of a well-maintained site that is worth saving, Cook-Fisher said. The tables, barbecues and bathrooms are new, the campground is accessible off a paved road, and it has at least three times more users than Tent Peg, despite an operating season four months shorter.

"We can be putting more manpower and funds into Site A if there's no longer Site B. We are really at that point," said Cook-Fisher, assistant recreation director for the Mountaintop Ranger District in Skyforest. "We don't have a lot of wiggle room."

Local forests were asked to craft their plans as if their recreation funding would remain the same over the next five years.

Angry Response

The proposal angers mountain resident Tim Cochran, who said the Forest Service should better promote campgrounds and other recreation sites to the many newcomers to the region who might not know they exist.

He contends the Forest Service doesn't give local ranger districts enough money to keep and maintain what they have, even with revenue from fees charged to visitors. Cochran was dismayed at first when the government expanded user fees for federal lands two years ago but has come to accept it as a way of getting things done.

Local forests keep 60 percent to 80 percent of the money generated by campground fees, special use permits, the Adventure Pass, which costs $5 per day or $30 per year, and the $80 annual pass that covers all federal recreation lands.

The money has helped keep up the standards at many sites, Cook-Fisher said. Without Adventure Pass revenue, the Forest Service wouldn't have many tables painted, restrooms cleaned as often and critter-proof trashcans installed, he said.

But Cochran doesn't think enough of it stays in the forest.

"It's morally wrong that people who just want to have a picnic with their family and stick their feet in a stream, either the facilities are not up to snuff or they're having to pay money for what their taxes are already going for," he said.

The Western Slope No-Fee Coalition, a national organization that opposes recreation fees on public lands, has called for a General Accountability Office audit of Forest Service recreation budgets. The group also wants congressional oversight hearings on recreation fees, and public review and comment of the Recreation Facility Analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act. The coalition is sponsoring legislation, Senate Bill 2438, to limit recreation fees.

Priorities Questioned

The no-fee group's president, Kitty Benzar, questions whether electrical hookups and other costly improvements are wise when the Forest Service can't afford to maintain the simple, rustic facilities that have served visitors for so many years.

"The mission of the Forest Service should be to make outdoor recreation available and affordable for everyone. That doesn't require a lot of amenities, just simple things like picnic tables and toilets, exactly the type of amenities that are being removed" under the Recreation Facilities Analysis, she said.

Benzar decried managing public lands on a business model, saying it gives the illusion that the land belongs to the agency rather than the public.

"They're supposed to work for us," she said.

But Bedwell, the agency's director of recreation, said the Forest Service has long had to be resourceful in providing recreation opportunities, contracting with outfitter guides, private ski area operators and campground concessionaires. Fees are no different, he said.

"We have to be able to utilize all those means in order to provide what people are looking for," Bedwell said.

Looking for Volunteers

With declining budgets, the Forest Service is looking to volunteers to perform work it once paid for.
In the San Bernardino forest, 1,684 volunteers contributed 155,974 hours, worth $2.7 million, in 2007 -- almost double the number of hours donated five years ago. Volunteers with at least 100 hours get a free annual Adventure Pass for the four Southern California forests, and 500 hours earns a nationwide pass. The time also counts toward work experience for Forest Service job applicants, and the agency is working on more innovative ways to draw volunteers, said Valeria Baca, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino National Forest.

In the Cleveland National Forest, the Trabuco Ranger District had 437 volunteers and Eagle Scouts working 7,000 hours last year. The district also works with the Los Pinos Conservation Camp, an Orange County facility for troubled youths, which contributed 17,000 hours cleaning up campgrounds. A hang-gliding club near Lake Elsinore exchanges use of a mountaintop for cleanup of the site, including the toilet.

The forest would suffer without volunteers, said Debra Clarke, wilderness and trails manager and volunteer coordinator for the Trabuco district.

"I'm responsible for 40,000 acres of wilderness and 140 miles of trails and I have no staff. So without volunteers, I can't do my job," said Clarke, who recently recruited a fellow customer at a wireless phone store.

Groups Help Save Sites

Three sites in the Santa Rosa San Jacinto Mountains National Monument -- Santa Rosa Springs and Pinyon Flat campgrounds and Ribbonwood Equestrian Group Campground -- were deleted from the closure list after members of special-interest groups volunteered to help with maintenance and improvements.

Work will include taking water-quality samples to save a ranger from commuting to the remote site in the mountains south of Palm Springs, said Buford Crites, a member of the national monument steering committee. Another group, Friends of the Desert Mountains, plans to raise at least $27,000 for a new restroom and parking lot improvements at Santa Rosa Springs, where total improvements are estimated at $70,000.

The 275,000-acre monument is one of the few spots in Southern California where total isolation can be found, Crites said. He called the Forest Service formula used to determine closures flawed because it favors heavily used, urban sites.

"It gave very heavy weight to numbers of users, which meant that anything that was a backcountry experience or a dirt road experience automatically ranked low, and any campground or facility that was next to a major highway did well," Crites said.

Closure decisions, made at the local level, are based on a computer formula that considers, among other things, use, maintenance costs, condition of the facilities, environmental importance, value to the local community and how a site fits with a forest's niche, such as winter sports and snow play in the San Bernardino and horseback riding in the Cleveland, Forest Service officials said.

Public Input

Nationwide, the Recreation Facility Analysis could bring closure of hundreds of sites in the 193 million acres managed by the Forest Service. Plans for the San Bernardino and Cleveland forests are complete, but districts have until the end of 2008 to finish their analyses.

The deadline was extended to allow for hearings after accusations elsewhere that the Forest Service failed to gather comments from the public. Forest service officials denied secrecy and said they had to inventory their sites and make a list before taking it to the public.

The plan has been years in the making, said Johansson, the San Bernardino project coordinator.

But "nothing closes until we talk to a lot more users and groups," said Baca, the forest's spokeswoman. "We will consider options ... on how it can be used differently and suit needs without being such an expenditure."

To solicit public comment, San Bernardino forest officials held four open houses in September. Only a handful of people turned up, Johansson said. It was the same story in the Cleveland National Forest.

Many mountain residents don't know about the plan, including Thomas Garcia, 19, of Crestline, who visits Crest Park Picnic Area a couple of times a week to meet a friend from Lake Arrowhead.

"They're thinking of closing it?" asked Garcia, sitting on a rock and bundled up against a crisp fall breeze. "I don't know why they should, it's a nice little spot."

Crest Park, with its cedars, oaks and pines and sweeping views of San Bernardino Valley, duplicates two nearby picnic areas -- Baylis and Switzer, Johansson said.

Crest Park is scheduled for closure next year. An environmental impact report would be done and public comment sought before any of the improvements are removed, Johansson said.

Changing Times

Many local recreation sites were built in the heyday of canvas tents and station wagons. Camping today is about mammoth RVs with satellite TV, and forest visitors are as likely to kayak and rappel as they are to fish.

"What we're trying to do is to gear our forests toward our users, and our users are urban people. They come for a day, they don't plan it out ... They come when the weather is nice, when we have snow, when their calendar allows it to happen. Most people are within two hours driving," said Anne Carey, recreation planner for Cleveland.

Many of today's users are looking for more amenities, such as electrical and water hookups, and easy highway access.

Technology, access and a young generation that pursues active outdoor sports has influenced what people want from their forests, said Gary Green, an assistant professor at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia and a Forest Service researcher.

The advent of global positioning systems can put users almost anywhere they want to be, he said. And developments such as lightweight kayaks that can be carried by one person make access to activities easier.

Forest Service planners kept that in mind, and they'll spend what money they do have improving facilities that appeal to 21st-century visitors.

The plan includes catering some campgrounds to off-highway vehicle users, who account for about 12 million visitors nationwide each year. The agency has said it will designate specific areas for such vehicles to minimize erosion and habitat degradation from unplanned roads.

Crab Flats Campground, near Tent Peg, will be converted to an off-highway vehicle campground because that is mainly what it's used for now. Spurs will have to be lengthened to accommodate longer trailers, and barriers will have to be replaced.

In the Cleveland, money is being spent on improvements that will last longer, such as metal picnic tables and sweeter-smelling, easier-to-clean vault toilets.

"We need to change it or get rid of it, but not continue to just stumble ahead," Johansson said. "It's well overdue."

I-15 Spill Causes Major Traffic Diversion Through Park

Mojave National Preserve
National Park News

On the morning of October 31st, a tractor trailer rolled over on Interstate 15 at Mountain Pass, spilling 1,000 gallons of motor oil onto the freeway and ground. This section of I-15 follows the northern boundary of the park.

California Highway Patrol officers closed down all northbound lanes at the Cima exit and routed traffic through the park for over 30 miles while a hazmat team cleaned up the oil.

An estimated 8,000 vehicles passed through the park between 8 a.m. and midnight.

Numerous incidents occurred during that period, including three motor vehicle accidents. Six citations and 14 warnings were issued for various traffic infractions, including operating a vehicle with a revoked license, unsafe passing, speeding, and possession of an open container of alcohol.

Rangers also assisted motorists by providing information and directions, dealing with flat tires, and helping obtain towing services and gasoline.

During the afternoon, San Bernardino County maintenance personnel had to repair potholes created by the large volume of traffic.

Rangers acted professionally by maintaining order and keeping the number of incidents to a minimum through highly visible patrols and education.

Preserve ranger tasers suspected thief

National Park News

On the afternoon of October 4th, ranger Mike Ice contacted two people in a parked ATT company vehicle on a road in a remote part of the Mojave National Preserve.

Ice suspected that they might be stealing copper or other metals due to some items that he saw on the ground next to the truck. The passenger, George Davis, produced a Nevada identification card, but the driver said that he had no identification on him. Ice checked both Davis and the truck on NCIC – both returned clear.

The driver then looked around a couple of times and ran to the truck. As he was putting it into gear, Ice was able to open the door and deploy his taser. The door slammed shut as the truck went forward, though, and the taser evidently had no effect.

Ice decided not to pursue and instead questioned, cited and released Davis.

In the ensuing investigation, rangers learned that the ATT truck had been stolen from Las Vegas, but had not yet been reported.

Ranger Brian Cooperider found it on BLM land west of Searchlight on October 8th. Numerous items of stolen property were recovered from it.

Ice is working on case with Las Vegas Metro PD and NPS agents from Lake Mead.

Congress Visits CA to Examine Funding for National Parks

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Casey McDonald, NPCA, Washington, DC, 202-454-3371 x113

San Francisco, CA - The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) testified today about the critical funding needs of California’s 23 national parks, putting special focus on the funds needed to combat illegal marijuana cultivation in Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.

“California’s national parks sustain our long-standing, unbroken connection to the land and our history and provide a rich legacy that we are obligated to leave unimpaired for future generations,” testified NPCA Board of Trustees Chair Gene Sykes. “How sad it would be to squander our American birthright by failing to address the budgetary woes that threaten national parks in California and across the nation.”

In 2004, more than 44,000 marijuana plants were eradicated within Sequoia National Park. The clean up that followed cost the National Park Service approximately $50,000. These funds might have been otherwise spent on visitor education and maintaining and preserving the park’s many trails and historical sites. In addition, the hard-to-find crops are protected by armed guards and pose a threat to ranger and visitor safety.

Staffing shortages in California’s desert parks, Mojave, Joshua Tree, and Death Valley, have opened the door to vandals, illegal dumping of hazardous materials, and artifact and animal poaching. Death Valley has only 15 protection rangers, down from 23 a few years ago, to patrol 3.4 million acres, an area roughly the size of Connecticut. Ideally, Joshua Tree staffs 20 protection rangers to monitor its 794,000 acres – they currently have ten. Mojave National Preserve currently has a staff of six rangers to patrol 1.6 million acres.

According to NPCA’s 2005 report, Faded Glory: Top 10 Reasons to Reinvest in America’s National Park Heritage America’s national parks are short $600 million annually which has resulted in severe staff shortages, decreased visitor services, and a lack of funds available to perform necessary maintenance and preservation of park trails, structures, and historical sites. New legislation in Congress can help to address the parks’ funding shortfall.

The bipartisan National Park Centennial Act, which has support from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), several members of California’s House delegation and other park champions like Senator John McCain (R-AZ), seeks to increase funding for the maintenance and natural and cultural preservation needs of the parks through 2016—the 100th anniversary of the park system’s creation. The legislation provides new funding for the parks in part from a voluntary check-off on federal income tax returns; Congress agrees to make up any difference needed to ensure that the job gets done. In a nationwide poll, three in five likely voters said they would donate to the parks via a voluntary check-off.

Today’s hearing, held in San Francisco by Government Reform, Criminal Justice Subcommittee Chairman Mark Souder (R-IN), is the sixth in a series of congressional field hearings held over two years to examine the funding needs of America’s national parks. The hearings are the first focused effort by Congress in decades to examine park-funding issues in-depth, and to identify solutions to meet the challenges.

Man Who Threatened Rangers Sentenced to Jail

National Park News
Mojave National Preserve

A Newberry Springs man who admitted to pointing a loaded .30-caliber M-1 carbine at federal law enforcement officers who were investigating possibly unlawful digging in the park was sentenced on September 12th to eight months in federal prison.

Leo H. Spatziani, 62, had previously pleaded guilty to one felony count of assaulting, resisting, intimidating and impeding federal law enforcement officers during the confrontation, which occurred on February 12th.

In sentencing Spatziani and rejecting the defendant's plea for probation, the judge said that the high desert was "not the wild west" and all citizens have a responsibility to respect the law.

The judge, who also imposed a $2,000 fine, ordered Spatziani to begin serving his prison term within 30 days.

Spatziani is the friend of another man who owns a small parcel of private property within Mojave National Preserve. The friend had recently constructed a small cabin on National Park Service land near a desert spring, which was outside of his private property line.

In early February, the friend was observed operating a trenching machine at the spring. In addition to being on federal land, the area around the cabin is documented as containing archeological and cultural resources.

On February 12th, two uniformed NPS rangers contacted Spatziani and his friend regarding the trenching activity. While one of the rangers was photographing the trenching activity, Spatziani removed the M-1 carbine from a vehicle. He placed a magazine in the weapon and chambered a round. He then pointed the weapon at the ranger who was taking pictures and began advancing on him.

Despite repeated commands to drop the weapon, Spatziani continued to advance with his weapon in the ready firing position. The threatened officer was forced to take defensive cover behind one corner of the cabin and draw his service weapon.

During the ensuing stand-off, the rangers observed that the eight-year-old child of the private property owner was within the line-of-fire. Fearful for the safety of the child and the other individuals, including Spatziani, the two rangers decided to de-escalate the dangerous situation by slowly withdrawing to their marked patrol vehicle and leaving the area.

Spatziani was arrested in Yermo on February 17th by NPS agents.

Train Burglary Arrests

National Park News
Mojave National Preserve

On August 5th, a Budget rental box truck was observed parked two miles from the Union Pacific Railroad tracks near Cima, California, within the park. Rangers Kirk Gebicke and Joe Spillane contacted the two men, Alejandrio Zamudio and Alfredo Cienfugo-Benitez, seated in the truck.

They determined that the men had been drinking and that their reasons for being parked in the area did not add up. The two men gave the rangers permission to search the vehicle, which proved to be empty.

While a computer check was being run on the pair, ranger Wayne Dingman found a bindle of cocaine four feet from the point where Cienfugo-Benitez had thrown it into the roadside grass. Both men were arrested.

The rangers consulted with Union Pacific special agents and found that the duo had possibly been involved in thefts from trains and were in the park to collect stolen property.

The two men were turned over to Union Pacific police for follow-up interviews, then taken to jail.

A ground and aerial search of the railroad tracks the next day led to the discovery of 75 stolen television sets that had been thrown from a train. The estimated value is in excess of $225,000.

Rangers and UP special agents watched the property throughout the night to see if other gang members would return for the property, but without results.

Tensions high in the preserve

Gun incident highlights residents' animosity toward the National Park Service

By KELLY DONOVAN & IAN MORRISON / Staff Writers
Victorville Daily Press

Last month, a local resident was arrested on suspicion of pointing a rifle at two National Park Service rangers in the Mojave National Preserve.

The incident underscores some of the tensions in the preserve, a place where residents steeped in the traditions of the Old West are grappling with the transition to a culture more similar to that of a national park.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, Leo H. Spatziani and another man were approached by the rangers as the men allegedly operated a dredging machine on public land near an area rich in sensitive archeological and cultural resources.

Bobby Parker, the other man with Spatziani, said this week that he and Spatziani were on Parker's 160-acre homestead, working to install a water line, when the rangers came up and asked them to stop.

Parker said he isn't sure why Spatziani reacted the way he did, but he guessed that Spatziani is among the preserve residents who are fed up with the National Park Service after more than 10 years of the agency's presence there.

The Mojave National Preserve's chief ranger, Denny Ziemann, said he thinks residents like Parker — who contends that the Park Service has a vendetta against him — are the vocal minority. Most of the people in the preserve are able to co-exist with the park service peacefully, Ziemann said.

While some residents report having good relations with the park service, there are also some who have complaints.

The birth of a preserve

The Mojave National Preserve, which is east of Barstow, sandwiched between interstates 15 and 40, was born after President Bill Clinton signed the California Desert Protection Act in 1994.

Unlike most national parks, a national preserve allows uses like hunting, grazing and mining within its territory.

And within the Mojave National Preserve, private land holdings are interspersed with federal property. The preserve is sparsely populated with an estimated 200 or less residents who've gotten used to life in the wilderness — many of whom lived in the area for years before the preserve was created.

Some of those people opposed the creation of the preserve.

"It was unwelcome," said Gerald Freeman, who operates a hotel, RV park, store and restaurant in Nipton, on the northern boundary of the preserve. "For the most part the locals were hostile. But a lot of them were squatters on government land ... they were just sort of anti-establishment, like the militias in some of the other states."

Ranching and land ownership

Critics like Parker and Dennis Casebler, a historian who runs the Goffs Schoolhouse, use the harshest possible language to describe how the park service has dealt with the people who live in the 1.6-million-acre preserve. Casebler goes as far as likening the park service to the Gestapo.

Casebler started to take action and wrote a letter Feb. 24 to U.S. Rep. Jerry Lewis,R-Redlands, that contains a litany of complaints about the park service.

Among other things, Casebler and Parker accuse the Mojave National Preserve of trying to eradicate the ranching and mining industries there — a charge the agency denies.

Ziemann said he doesn't think the park service has ever rejected a mining application in the preserve. He also said the Park Service doesn't pressure ranchers to leave, although the retirement of all the grazing allotments in the preserve is part of its General Management Plan, a blueprint for its future.

"We're not going to force these ranchers out," he said. "Nobody will ever be forced to sell their land."

Three major ranching families sold their properties to the National Park Foundation in recent years and moved out of the area, retiring their grazing allotments. Because the government cannot directly acquire land, the foundation buys it and then donates it to the park service.

Rob Blair, who is a fourth-generation member of the last remaining large ranch in the preserve, said he knows the park service wants the Blair Ranch grazing allotments to be retired. However, he said the park service and the National Park Foundation haven't tried to force him, because any sales need to be with willing sellers.

However, Blair said he knows some people feel intimidated.

"People say, 'They're going to take our land if we don't sell to them,' " Blair said. "People are scared for their homes, some of them."

One longtime resident of the area, Mike Daughtery of Baker, blames the park service for driving out the ranchers with grazing regulations.

However, he also said the ranchers might not have had other opportunities to sell their holdings for cash had the National Park Service and National Park Foundation not been interested in the land.

"There's no simple answers to this stuff," Daughtery said.

The federal government can forcibly acquire land through eminent domain proceedings, arguing that it is in the public's best interest, but Ziemann said the Mojave National Preserve would not do that.

"The claim that we're harassing these people or running them out is not true," Ziemann said.

One recent land dispute that has sparked public interest and continues to infuriate Parker and Casebler is a dispute involving longtime preserve resident Connie Connelly, who Casebler calls "a genuine desert character."

Parker and Casebler said they are upset that the park service has forced Connelly to leave the simple home she's lived in for years in a remote part of the preserve.

Ziemann said that Connelly was living on park service property without a valid lease — essentially squatting. Also, he said the park service had to spend about $60,000 several years ago to clean up waste generated at the site.

To help Connelly, Ziemann said the park service offered to buy her a new home anywhere she wanted. In the end, she agreed to move to Wyoming, and is scheduled to move this month, he said.