BLM stops efforts to restore desert water sources

Jim Matthews

By Jim Matthews
Hesperia Star
www.OutdoorNewsService.com

Water for Wildlife, a desert conservation organization that restores water sources in the Mojave Desert for wildlife, has been stopped from doing its work for the second time two years. This past week, the Needles office of the Bureau of Land Management refused to allow the group to conduct its March and April projects on guzzlers in the Clark and Kingston mountains region northeast of Baker.

The group was also stopped from restoring guzzlers on the Mojave National Preserve late in 2015, pending a determination from the National Park Service that work could continue. There has been no determination, yet, from the NPS and no word on the progress of the analysis.

The most recent stoppage of this work came Wednesday this past week in a letter from Daniel Vaught, assistant field manager in Needles for the BLM. Vaught wrote that "our archaeologist has recently expressed concerns regarding the cultural and historical resources and impacts involved in the small-game guzzler restoration."

Cliff McDonald, Water for Wildlife coordinator, said he asked for the letter after a meeting recently when he was told the group's work would need to cease until these concerns could be addressed.

In this meeting, McDonald said he asked why these concerns weren't made last year or the year before. The group has been restoring wildlife water sources for 11 years in the region. McDonald said Vaught had no answers, except to say that the current archaeologist, Chris Dalu, has been on the job for five years in Needles and was suddenly now concerned.

McDonald cancelled the March 16-19 project, and the April 6-9 project was tentatively cancelled, pending a another meeting with BLM this coming week.

McDonald said the BLM has not identified any "cultural and historical resources" on any of the sites where they have worked in the past, and that their efforts have all been done on locations that were developed in the 1950 and 60s in joint efforts between the BLM and Department of Fish and Wildlife. These "administrative sites" were disturbed historically, and the restoration efforts do not enlarge the footprint of the site. McDonald doesn't know why they are doing this now.

Safari Club International, already in the midst of a battle with the National Park Service over its refusal to allow guzzler and windmill restorations to continue on the Mojave National Preserve, immediately jumped in to assist in "this important work for wildlife."

In a letter to all members in the Orange County Chapter, Jim Dahl asked its member to write or call Vaught to remind him that for 11 years "Water for Wildlife has restored water drinkers... (and) have made significant investments and have a long history of restoring guzzlers."

Craig Stowers, the deer program coordinator with the state DFW, wrote to McDonald in an unofficial capacity to say, "it's not OK with DFW that this is going on. We have a significant investment there, too, and (have) a long history of working in this field.... It is a disturbing direction for them to go, and I'm at a loss to explain why this is suddenly an issue for them now."

Clark Blanchard, an assistant deputy director with the DFW in Sacramento, said the issue just popped up on the radar, but said — in an official capacity — that "the department is aware of the issue and is diligently working to find solutions in order to allow this work to continue."

Neither the BLM's Vaught nor Dalu were available for comment Friday.

Those are the facts as we know them now.

What we have is two federal land management agencies, adjacent to each other, fighting to stop volunteer wildlife water restoration efforts.

It is ironic for the Needles office of BLM to jump in bed with the National Park Service on this issue. After years of battling with the state DFW, the BLM has a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the DFW to even allow guzzler restoration in BLM wilderness areas, including the building of new water sources. Restoring existing sites is not even an issue any longer. Or it wasn't. But now we have some low-level bureaucrat suggesting restoring existing desert water sites is going to harm archeological resources? And he's saying this without a shred of data to support his claim.

The National Park's argument for stopping guzzler restoration was equally as specious and completely lacking in data (or even common sense):

In a nutshell, Todd Suess, the new superintendent of the Preserve, listed two reasons why guzzler water restoration was stopped. First, he wrote that guzzlers might be historical sites and we can't restore them until we determine if they are historical sites and then we can decide if they need to be restored or not. (It was that convoluted.) The caveat was that they didn't have anyone who could tell if they were historical sites or not, so we can't do anything. Second, he wrote that all guzzler water restoration had to stop until the Preserve-wide water management plan could be completed and implemented. That is like saying, you can't replace a sign or repair a campground restroom until the Preserve's entire facilities development plan is done. And of course, the water management plan is at least three or four years away from completion.

The "reasons" are both smokescreens to stop work that had been ongoing for nine years in the Preserve and 11 years on BLM land. Where was the concern before the work stoppage? Why are these specious administrative arguments, using obscure rules and regulations, being used now to stop important wildlife field work?

That's the question that needs to be asked.

Here's the answer: It's about hunting. I'm not the first person to point out that it all started when Todd Suess was named the new superintendent of the Mojave National Preserve. I'm sure Suess is a good guy, but it's pretty clear that he doesn't particularly like hunting and hunters. Maybe he's even neutral on hunting. But his friends and staff who don't like hunters know this guzzler and water restoration work is primarily being done by hunter conservationists. And they have his ear. If it's not him, then it's his staff and associates who are persuading this man to issue bad rules based on bad information that is anti-hunting, pure and simple. The decision are certainly not pro-wildlife, sound administration, or correct use of the regulations. It can only be a bias against hunting.

Quail Forever needs volunteers to help restore seven guzzlers

The Stoddard Valley guzzler number A-45, serving the Central Mojave Desert, before it was restored by the High Desert chapter of Quail Forever.

By Jim Matthews
www.OutdoorNewsService.com

The High Desert Chapter of Quail Forever needs a few good men. Or women.

The volunteer organization has received a grant from the Department of Fish and Wildlife to restore seven important wildlife water sources in the Shadow Mountains-El Mirage area northeast of Adelanto during work projects from November through April.

The seven water systems, or guzzlers, are all in total disrepair and will need total rehabilitation, including new water tanks, complete reconstruction of the water-catching aprons, sealing of those aprons, along with fencing and signage. The seven guzzlers, built in the 1950s, have been nearly completely destroyed by vandalism and time. They have had virtually no maintenance since they were built.

But there’s a cravat for the work to move forward. The club needs to recruit some new volunteers to help with the extensive labor on these projects or they might have to pass on the $19,156 grant for materials and forego the restoration project. So the group is asking for volunteers to sign up now for the projects that will take place this coming fall and winter. The group needs to make sure it has enough volunteers by August so it can begin to order the tanks and other materials it will need for the restoration work.

Anyone willing to spend a day or three working on these wildlife drinkers should contact Dave Smith with Quail Forever to get on the work sign-up sheet. His number is 760-617-3291. You can also attend the club’s next meeting, which will be held beginning 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 16, at the Apple Valley Gun Club. Volunteers do not need to be members of Quail Forever.

The Stoddard Valley guzzler number A-45 after it was restored by the High Desert chapter of Quail Forever.

Water for Wildlife restores 13 guzzlers in East Mojave Desert

Water for Wildlife volunteers put the finishing touches on guzzler B226 near Flat Top Mountain in February 2016. The large concrete apron on the right collects rainwater, funneling it downhill into the storage tank on the left. Inside the crescent-shaped opening is a wildlife ramp that allows access the water inside. (Photo: Chris S. Ervin) 

By Jim Matthews
Victorville Daily Press

Cliff McDonald and his group of volunteers at Water for Wildlife announced the results of their efforts this winter and spring. In a nutshell, a total of 13 wildlife water sources (guzzlers) were restored and filled in the eastern part of the Mojave Desert over a total of four work weekends.

The volunteers invested over 1,500 hours of effort into the repairs and spent over $9,000 on materials and tools needed to complete the work, or just over an average of $725 per drinker.

Their efforts assure that a wide variety of desert birds, mammals, and even reptiles will have a permanent water supply this summer and fall, and since most desert species still need open water to survive, these man-made drinkers — often called guzzlers — are the only thing between life and death, especially during our ongoing drought.

These guzzlers all have similar features. First, they have an “apron,” which can be made of a variety of materials, that captures rain waters and funnels it into a storage tank (above or under the ground), and then access to the water is provided by a drinker box or simply an opening in the tank and ramp down to the water. Most of the guzzlers in the Mojave were made in the 1950s and 1960s by the Department of Fish and Wildlife (formerly Fish and Game), with little or no maintenance since then. While many still hold water, most are in various states of disrepair. They either hold no water or hold far less water than they could if functioning at their full potential.

Over the 10 years Water for Wildlife volunteers have been working on guzzlers in the East Mojave, they have now restored 75 guzzlers and five springs, and they repaired a number of water tanks and windmills on old cattle systems that now exclusively serve wildlife. This has involved over 7,500 volunteer hours and $50,000 in private funding.

The payoff is that over 300 species of birds and at least 45 mammal species have been documented using these important water sources, which increasingly serve as mitigation for natural water sources lost to development and ground-water pumping across the Mojave Desert.

So where’s the Sierra Club or the Humane Society in supporting this important work, making sure desert wildlife survives during this drought? Where are all the other conservation and environmental groups when it comes to actually doing things on-the-ground to help wildlife?

I’ll tell you where, they are MIA – missing in action.

They spend all their money on making sure you rejoin, fundraising, lobbists and attorneys. None of them spend a dime on actually doing anything that make a difference for wildlife. In fact, the Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity have repeatedly fought against guzzler construction and restoration on the basis that they are “unnatural.” Well, human groundwater pumping and housing developments are “unnatural,” and they have led to the drying up of desert springs and seeps for decades. Guzzlers and other man-made water sources act as mitigation for these other losses. But loony fringe won’t hear of that.
Even the new superintendent of the Mojave National Preserve, Todd Suess, where Water for Wildlife would have directed all of its efforts this year, threw up a bunch of bogus reasons to stop guzzler repairs on the Preserve (even after the previous two superintendents endorsed and supported McDonald’s work). So the guzzler repairs were all done on BLM lands out of the Preserve again this year.

If you care about desert wildlife, know that water is the most critical factor in their survival. The only groups assuring that desert water sources are maintained for wildlife are groups like Water for Wildlife. I give McDonald’s group a lot of publicity because it amazes me how many volunteers come from so far to work so hard for nothing. But the High Desert (Apple Valley) and Ridgecrest Quail Forever chapters (and all the other QF chapters, for that matter) do as much work as McDonald’s volunteers in the west Mojave. The Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep focuses on the bigger “guzzler” projects primarily aimed at helping desert bighorns, and the Southern California Chapter of the California Deer Association works on springs, guzzlers, and other waters all across the southern half of the state. Leon Lessica’s Desert Wildlife Unlimited’s desert water work in the Imperial Valley may be the only reason we have a healthy desert burro deer and bighorn population there.

The one thing you need to know about all of these groups is that they usually can muster up enough volunteer manpower for their projects (although more, younger volunteers are always welcome), but they frequently have to scrape and beg enough money together to get the materials they need for this work. Donations are always appreciated. With other so-call conservation or environmental groups you might get a letter or phone call after you join or donate, but the letter or call is to ask for money. With these groups, the letter or call you receive is just offering heartfelt thanks and perhaps information on where you dollars are going to be spent so you can see the results of your donation.

You can find out more information out Water for Wildlife at the group’s new website at waterforwildlifeemd.com. You can find all the local Quail Forever, Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep, and California Deer Association chapters with searches on the Internet. If you have trouble, you can e-mail me and I can help you out.

Death Valley Mystery Solved

Santa Barbara Team Discovers Wind and Ice Behind the Racetrack’s “Sailing Stones”

HOW THE HECK? A sailing stone leaves a trail after it scooted along The Racetrack. (Scott Beckner)

by Matt Kettmann
Santa Barbara Independent

In a landscape dominated by marvelous natural oddities, no location fascinates more visitors to Death Valley National Park than The Racetrack, a cracked-earth playa where rocks big and small magically move from place to place, leaving distinctly smooth tracks across the otherwise uniform lake bed as their only evidence. For decades, if not centuries, the phenomenon mystified even the most diligent researchers, becoming a standard passage in geology textbooks, prompting more than one dozen scientific inquiries, and provoking all manner of possible causes, from tricks by frat boys to the handiwork of little green men.

The mystery is no more, thanks to Santa Barbara native Jim Norris, who ​— ​along with his cousin, Richard Norris, and a team of mostly S.B.-based volunteers ​— ​discovered through a mix of amateur investigation and lucky happenstance exactly how these stones sail. In a paper published this week in the scholarly journal Plos One, Norris and company reveal how last winter ​— ​amid a very rare convergence of freezing temperatures and a standing playa pool of recent rain and snowmelt ​— ​they documented football-field-sized sheets of windowpane-thin ice being floated by wind across the slick, muddy playa and pushing the rocks, some as far as 700 feet.

“We watched it happen,” said Norris, who started monitoring Racetrack movements in 2012 as part of a “recreational science” experiment and was on-site for routine equipment maintenance in late December when the event occurred. “The sheets of ice start ramming into the stones and bulldozing them along. It’s all ultra-slow-motion.” The discovery, which has been sought scientifically since at least 1948, when the first academic paper was published about the rocks, is quickly making waves in the annals of popular science, with reports published this week in the Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, and Nature, among other publications.

Norris first visited The Racetrack in the 1960s with his father, the late Robert Norris, who was a professor of geology for many years at UCSB. The younger Norris, a graduate of Vieja Valley, San Marcos High, and San Diego State, became more intrigued in 2008, when he started scouring existing reports. He enlisted his cousin Richard, a paleobiologist at UC San Diego, in the completely self-financed hunt, and they set about equipping research-ready rocks with GPS tracking devices, which are one of the things that Norris makes for his engineering company, Interwoof. The first rocks were laid in early 2012 with National Park Service blessing, and the team made trips there every six to eight weeks.

In late November 2013, a brief rain and snowstorm formed a three-inch-deep pool on the playa, which was still there when the Norris cousins arrived in late December. Surprised by the pool and unable to enter the playa due to the “complete slop” of mud that sat on the surface, the cousins worked the northern part of the area and noticed that the pool seemed to be blowing uphill toward the playa’s mudflats as the winds increased. Soon, their rocks were actually moving for the first time.



“We started documenting it hard, not really understanding exactly what it meant,” said Norris, who determined what was happening over the next couple of days and subsequent trips, thanks to more observations and camera footage. “I think other people have probably been there when it happened, but they can’t tell,” said Norris. “It’s slow and so far away and at an oblique angle.”

The news throws a wrench into theories related to magic, magnetism, or Area 51. “I’ve even seen a wonderful photograph of a horned lizard pushing a stone,” said Norris, with a laugh. “It’s pretty amazing what the public will come up with.” But most in the scientific community figured the phenomenon was somehow reliant on ice and wind, so the Norrises had also erected a weather station as part of their project and were prepared to spend more than 10 years before reaching any conclusions. But despite the technology, had they not been on-site to witness the sheet ice bulldozers, the Norrises might still be scratching their heads, even with data in hand, especially since the movement occurred with relatively light wind rather than the hurricane force gales widely suspected.

Norris admits feeling “a little wistful” at having pulled the curtain off of Death Valley’s beloved mystery and knows there will be some public dismay. But he hopes it may shed light on processes elsewhere in the universe ​— ​important planetary scientists, for instance, have researched The Racetrack before ​— ​and he believes knowing is more important than supposing. He explained, “It’s hard to be a scientist, and I’m just an amateur scientist, and not want to figure stuff out and not get joy out of going, ‘Wow, that’s how this works!’”

Water for Desert Wildlife comes at an expense

Jim Niemiec
Western Outdoor News

Mother Nature has blessed the high desert with more than a normal amount of rain thus far this year, in addition to laying down some snow at higher elevations and freezing pockets of water in the crags of lava and granite rock. After last year's rather dismal inches of rain in the desert regions across California, Arizona and even up into northeastern Nevada, upland game bird hunters had to work hard at even finding small coveys of native chukar at higher elevations. Bird hunters that headed out after quail did a little better finding coveys of birds but they were small coveys and not near the number that a scatter gunner would hope for.

GUZZLER IN NEED OF REPAIR — This high desert guzzler is need of attention to provide desert wildlife with fresh water.

Down in Baja California and over to Baja Norte there was better rain that produced a good crop of California Valley quail for the San Telmo Valley and other arroyos south of Ensenada. Mexicali enjoyed good gunning for native pheasant and all three species of dove, but quail numbers were down. Clear down in Los Mochis there was excellent dove hunting for mourning and white-winged dove, blue pigeons and lots of ducks. One reason that Mexico seems to offer up good numbers of birds is all the farming that takes place, which brings along fresh water to irrigate and vast marshes flushed with seeds carried on to the wetlands by way of canals.

One outstanding organization that is working countless hours to bring life back to the high desert in general, the Mohave National Preserve and Bureau of Land Management holdings is the Water for Wildlife Project.

There were a total of 6 projects in 2012 starting with one in Goffs. During the course of the year Water for Wildlife volunteers completely restored 10 wildlife drinkers/guzzlers, rehabbed 3 others, Blue Maxed and patched 5 underground tanks, changed the oil in 3 windmills, buried 100 ft. of plastic pipe to prevent the public from removing a water source, installed a 100 gallon plastic tank inside an old windmill, dug out three springs and got the water flowing, built and installed two ramps for the wildlife to access the water, plus hauling over 4,000 gallons of water to the drinkers!

Cliff McDonald heads up Water for Wildlife and gathers many volunteers and supporters together and also coordinates the collection and transportation of products, material, and food that is used to bring a sustainable water supply in the desert for wildlife.

VOLUNTEERS WORKING ON A GUZZLER — These volunteers are active in Water for Wildlife and donate many man-hours to bring fresh water to the normally dry and vast desert.

Water for Wildlife has scheduled 5 more projects for 2013 and they are: Feb. Mojave National Preserve, Mar. BLM near Essex, April BLM near Essex or Mojave National Preserve, May Mojave National Preserve and June the Mojave National Preserve.

To give a person a perspective on how much material is required to repair guzzlers for the use of wildlife in the desert McDonald totaled up products and costs for 2012 projects: Concrete surfacing material cost $4,000, Merlex cost $400, Concrete ran $400, Tank cost $100,
Hydro-seal was $200, Misc. supplies and tools totaled $200 and there was another $1,000 spent on food to feed the many volunteers bringing the total expenditures for Water for Wildlife projects to $6,350, and this does not include the donated man hours, vehicle use, gas and the many other support items donated by members of this conservation group.

There were over 2000 man hours donated to Water for Wildlife projects last year, some behind the scene work and including financial donations which helped bring it all together.

Western Outdoor News thought it would be a good idea to report on one of the projects completed by Water for Wildlife in June of last year. The following is a recap of the events that took place on the Blair Ranch, which might give readers a good feeling of the valuable work being done by this organization.

June 2012 Review - Fifty-four volunteers showed up for the last project of the year. Friday morning around 8 a.m. Josh and I arrived at the camp site on the Blair Ranch. Lyle, Jim, Frank, BL and Doug had already been working on projects the previous three days. These guys finished one drinker, rehabbed another and hauled 2,500 gallons of water to the site ---they worked their butts off.

FINISHED GUZZLER READY FOR WILDLIFE — This guzzler has been rehabbed and is now ready to provide drinking water for desert wildlife. Many successful projects have been completed by volunteers and supporters of Water for Wildlife.

Myself, along with several volunteers headed out to dig and bury 100 feet of water line, the location for this dig was about 50 miles from our camp site at Marl Springs. Another crew headed south to dig out another spring, while the third crew ventured into the desert to work on another wildlife drinker. Lots of work was done this day and the crews managed to complete all projects that were scheduled for that weekend. We all returned back to camp and again the cooks and waiters were working hard making sure we were all were served a great dinner of ranch fed cattle hamburgers with all the trimmings, including BBQ beans, corn on the cob and Marie's famous per salad. We were also treated to an appetizer table that was overflowing with treats. Jim's homemade cheese-balls, homemade salsas, chips, 7 layer bean dip and pinwheel wraps. Topping off dinner after a full day of working in the desert there were 5 different kinds of homemade pies to choose from along with whipped cream topping...as told by Cliff McDonald.

Water for Wildlife receives a lot of support from many people and companies. A few that have been with this conservation project for many years include: CA Deer Association, Orange County Chapter of SCI, Predator Callers of Orange County, Quail Forever and Quail Unlimited, Society for Conservation of Bighorn Sheep and the Quail and Upland Wildlife Federation. Other companies supporting this valuable service to wildlife in the desert include; Alpen Optics, Barstow Wheel and Tire, H20asis (ice) Hargus Disposal, Daniel's Septic and the many volunteers that devote meaningful hours to Water for Wildlife.

To find out more about Water for Wildlife, future projects and how to get involved in their conservation projects call Cliff McDonald at (760) 449-4820 or contact him by way of his email at bigmc@ctaz.com.

Mojave Cross to return to desert home

National Park rangers to send back cross

Golden Gate National Recreation Area ranger Nijaune Winston stands by the Mojave Cross. The National Park district intends to return the cross to its original locale in the Mojave National Preserve. (Photo courtesy of Golden Gate National Recreation Area)

by Mark Noack
Half Moon Bay Review

National Park Service officials this week took custody of the Mojave Cross with plans to return it to its desert home, one week after the handmade monument was found mysteriously on the side of Skyline Boulevard.

Once found, the cross, a 6-foot steel-pipe structure, was delivered to the Half Moon Bay Sheriff’s substation. Then it was transported to an undisclosed location in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. GGNRA officials say the cross is being treated as evidence until it is returned to the Mojave National Preserve. Those arrangements are still being made.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, Yucca Valley resident Henry Sandoz, the caretaker of the cross, installed a replacement at the same location as part of a Veterans Day ceremony. The event also marked a successful land trade as a workaround to the delicate church-state issues at play.

Originally erected in 1934 to honor World War I veterans, the Mojave Cross became the target of lawsuits, appeals and court rulings after its surrounding property became part of the National Park system. The cross became a legal pawn in a larger controversy. Civil-rights groups viewed its as a blatant religious display on public land while veterans’ associations defended it as a memorial.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a 2010 ruling on the matter, but just days afterward the cross was stolen. It remained missing for two years until last week, when a television news crew discovered it lying on the side Highway 35. The cross was wrapped up and had a message asking whoever found it to return it. Sandoz and National Park officials later authenticated it was the same cross stolen in 2010.

Last week, the National Park Service announced it was transferring a small piece of the Mojave National Preserve to the California Veterans of Foreign Wars as a way to resolve the central conflict of the lawsuits.

Cross stands again

The new Mojave Cross after it was installed on Sunday, November 11, Veterans Day. (DAVID OLSON/STAFF PHOTO)

BY DAVID OLSON
Press-Enterprise

MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE -- After more than a decade of First Amendment court battles, a cross stands again in the Mojave National Preserve, for the first time with the legal blessing of the U.S. Supreme Court.

More than 100 people Sunday, November 11, watched as the seven-foot-tall iron cross was hoisted onto and then bolted into Sunrise Rock, which is 12 miles off Interstate 15 about halfway between Barstow and Las Vegas. Then, the commander of the California Veterans of Foreign Wars, Earl Fulk, formally rededicated it.

The Veterans Day ceremony occurred 78 years after World War I veterans erected the cross in honor of their fallen comrades, and 11 years after a lawsuit backed by the American Civil Liberties Union sought to remove it.

The ACLU, representing a former National Park service employee, argued that permitting a cross on public land was an unconstitutional government endorsement of Christianity.

After two federal courts agreed with the ACLU, the Supreme Court in 2010 ruled that a land exchange, under which the land around the cross was converted into private property, passed constitutional muster. The VFW now owns the acre under and around the cross. The land exchange was formally completed Nov. 2.

The ceremony occurred as Riverside discussed a similar land exchange after threats of a lawsuit over the Mt. Rubidoux cross. A military atheist group is objecting to a proposed veterans memorial in Lake Elsinore that includes a cross.

The iron cross that had stood on the Mojave site for years was stolen two months after the Supreme Court decision. It was found Nov. 5, south of San Francisco. A plywood box encased it during years of court appeals.

The cross installed Sunday was a replacement created by one of the cross's caretakers, Henry Sandoz, 73, of Yucca Valley. Sandoz said concrete will be poured inside the iron pipes on another day, to make it harder to steal.

For 30 years Sandoz and his wife Wanda looked after several crosses on the site, those previous either vandalized or stolen.

Wanda Sandoz, 68, said she was overjoyed when she saw the cross finally go up, at last with its legality undisputed.

“I can't even describe it,” she said of her feelings. “It was just wonderful to see it go up and know it's going to be able to stay. That's the best thing.”

The Sandozes traded five acres of their land in exchange for the acre ceded to the VFW.

Sunrise Rock sits amid a sea of Joshua trees just off Cima Road.

Rees Lloyd, a Banning resident representing the American Legion at the ceremony, said the lawsuit against the cross was an attack on religious freedom and involved a memorial that few saw.

“Why would anyone be offended?” said Lloyd, a former Legion district commander who was wearing a white button with a red line through “ACLU.” “You can't see it from the freeway. You have to drive to it to be offended.”

Chuck Wilcox, 47, Henry Sandoz's son-in-law and a Yucca Valley resident, said the years of litigation “was a bigger deal than it should have been.”

“It just seemed ridiculous to me,” said Wilcox, who helped carry the blanket-wrapped cross up Sunrise Rock and then helped raise it. “The whole time I've lived out here, it was just here, part of the landscape.”

The land swap was first negotiated by U.S. Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands. Congress approved it.

But a federal appellate court ruled against it, saying that transferring one acre of land to the VFW in the middle of the vast expanse of federal park land “will do nothing to minimize the impermissible governmental endorsement” of a religious symbol.

A divided Supreme Court in 2010 overturned that decision.

“The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement (of religion) does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote.

During the ceremony, Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for the Texas-based Liberty Institute, which focuses on religious-freedom cases and was involved in the Mojave cross case, talked of the indignities that crosses on the site have been through.

“This memorial has been bagged, it's been torn down and it's been stolen,” he said. “And now it's back, it's up and you're standing on VFW property,” Sasser said to loud cheers and clapping. “It's fantastic.”

A cable surrounds the newly private land, with signs stating that it is VFW-owned property open to the public.

The Sandozes became caretakers in 1983, when Riley Bembry, one of the WWI veterans who erected the cross in 1934, was near death and asked the couple to take care of the cross. Veterans Day was established to honor WWI veterans and now honors all who served in the military.

On a table topped with red, white and blue cupcakes to celebrate the installation of the cross sat a wood-framed black-and-white photo of Bembry. The photo usually is in the Sandozes' living room, near an oak dining room table that Reilly gave to the couple.

“My great friend Riley, he would really be smiling down on us now,” said Henry Sandoz.

“He probably is,” he said with a laugh.

Stolen Mojave cross mysteriously reappears in California

An unsigned note was found taped to the Mojave Memorial Cross, which was found Monday. A new cross is due to be raised atop Sunrise Rock at Mojave National Preserve at 11 a.m. Sunday, followed at 1 p.m. by a re-dedication ceremony. (The Associated Press)

By Henry Brean
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

A stolen cross that sparked controversy and a Supreme Court case may soon be headed back to its Mojave Desert home after it was left by the side of a road south of San Francisco.

The San Mateo County Sheriff's Office recovered the white metal cross late Monday morning near the town of Half Moon Bay, Calif., more than 500 miles from where it stood for decades before being stolen in 2010.

Based on a tip from a San Francisco television station, deputies found the cross strapped upright to a fence post with an unsigned note taped to it that read: "This cross is an important historical artifact. It is in fact the Mojave cross, taken on the evening of May 9, 2010 from Sunrise Rock in the Mojave Desert. I would be very grateful if you would be so kind as to notify the appropriate authorities of its presence here."

Authorities don't yet know who returned the cross or who stole it in the first place.

Its mysterious reappearance comes just days before a replica was due to be placed atop Sunrise Rock as part of a Veterans Day service.

Long before igniting a constitutional controversy over religious symbols on federal land, the welded steel symbol was mounted to the rock 75 miles southwest of Las Vegas by a group of World War I vets as a memorial to fallen soldiers.

For decades, it served as a site for Easter Sunday services and the occasional veterans event. A handful of volunteers maintained - and occasionally replaced - the cross, which was damaged from time to time by vandals and the desert wind.

The Mojave Memorial Cross, as it came to be known, still stood in 1994 when the 1.6 million acres surrounding it was designated as a national preserve. Three years later, a retired park service employee lodged a complaint about it because he considered it a government endorsement of Christianity.

A pair of lawsuits ensued, and the cross was cast into darkness, spending several years covered by boards like a roadside sign with no writing on it.

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in with a 5-4 decision that cleared the symbol to remain on display while a lower court reconsidered the case.

The cross was stolen two weeks later.

At least twice since then, replicas were placed at the site, only to be taken down by National Park Service employees acting under a court order.

The long legal fight was finally resolved last week, when the park service transferred ownership of Sunrise Rock and the acre surrounding it to the California office of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a private organization free to erect and maintain a cross there.

In exchange, the park service got five acres of formerly private land inside the Mojave National Preserve.

"We have a solution that honors those who died for their country and honors national parks," said preserve superintendent Stephanie R. Dubois in a statement.

A new cross is due to be raised at the site at 11 a.m. Sunday, followed at 1 p.m. by a rededication ceremony featuring longtime caretakers Henry and Wanda Sandoz and others.

It is unclear whether the original cross will make it back to the site alongside Cima Road, about 12 miles south of Interstate 15, in time for Sunday's event. Authorities in San Mateo County said the recovered cross would be turned over to park service officials in San Francisco.

No matter which cross is raised this weekend, James Rowoldt, CEO of the VFW in California, is just glad the underlying dispute has finally been settled.

"I'm just happy for the Sandozes. I'm happy it's over for them," Rowoldt said earlier Monday, before learning about the cross found near Half Moon Bay. "It's just a happy day for everyone."

Volunteers gather at Poste Homestead

By Kurt Schauppner
The Desert Trail


The cleanup at the Poste Homestead on Saturday, Sept. 26 was one of 82 statewide projects undertaken as part of National Public Lands Day. (Trail photo by Kurt Schauppner)


WONDER VALLEY — With about 75 participants doing everything from picking up the remains of a burned-out trailer to managing trails to putting up a kiosk and signs, the cleanup project at the Poste Homestead Site on Saturday, Sept. 26 was called a success.

Organized by the Bureau of Land Management with help from several lo-cal groups, including Community ORV Watch, the cleanup was one of 82 projects scheduled around California for National Public Lands Day.

In addition to the satisfaction of helping clean up an historic site, participants received T-shirts, lunch and a mini concert at Palms Restaurant in Wonder Valley.

Another project took people into Joshua Tree National Park to pick up litter, restore trails and make paper pots for Arid Land Restoration.

Mickey Quillman, one of the BLM organizers, said Saturday morning that he and Phil Klasky from Community ORV Watch did some restoration work at the homestead site about six months ago.

“We applaud the BLM and all the groups who came out to clean up and protect this special community resource,” Klasky said Saturday.

He said he thought about holding his office’s National Public Lands Day project somewhere else but added that the people of Wonder Valley convinced him otherwise.

“The people here care,” he said, adding that across the nation some 130,000 people were expected to take part in National Public Lands Day events.

We’ll do some great things today,” Klasky said.

After gathering at the Palms Restaurant a few miles from the homestead site and getting a quick safety briefing — wear gloves and decent shoes, watch out for critters, keep an eye on the kids — volunteers caravanned to the homestead for a morning of hard work.

Diana Akins, pausing between carrying handfuls of trash to a large Dumpster, said she took part in the project to help the community and because of her own memories of the homestead site.

“We used to use the place as a picnic for the kids,” she said. “It’s just gone to heck.”

Mickey Quillman’s wife, Mari, paused between carrying bundles of dried twigs to camouflage an illegal trail to say she was using the day in part as a learning opportunity.

“I am a wildlife biologist,” she said. “I wanted to learn how to do this. I am doing some mine restoration at the Mojave National Preserve and will be looking to close some trails.”

Pauline Dargis drove out from Twentynine Palms to take part in the project after hearing about it on the radio.

“I’ve never actually been out here,” Wonder Valley resident Richard Gosin said while raking a trail.

“I’ve been a weekender since the 1970s,” he said, adding that he still remembers the advertising slogan “blue skies, good water, clean air, sunshine” that drew him out to the area.

BLM Archaeologist Jim Shearer spent part of his time at the homestead removing what was left of the original homestead’s roof.

Time and the elements had made it a safety hazard, he said.

“It’s good, it’s good exercise, great people,” volunteer Chris Carraher said. “You really see, by the end of the day, a big difference.

“We live here right at the edge of the wild desert. This establishes not only the wild values but also the historical values and how that all comes together.”

Mojave Desert historian keeps California's heritage alive

Dennis G. Casebier stands in front of the library in Goffs, Calif., that bears his name. The railroad depot replica holds the world's largest archive of Mojave Desert history. Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Over the course of decades, Dennis G. Casebier has assembled the lost voices and hidden histories of a place largely washed clean of its past.

By David Kelly
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Goffs, Calif. — Out on the great swells of the eastern Mojave Desert, that vast sand sea lying between Barstow and the Colorado River, there is no crumb of history, no tall tale, no arcane bit of knowledge too small to escape Dennis Casebier's notice.

"I'm fascinated by who ate rabbits," he said, sitting inside a library that will soon hold his life's work. "Did they eat jack rabbits or cottontails? Did they fry them or roast them? Did they grind them up or make stew out of them?"

"You see, that's the level of history we get into here," he said.

The soft-spoken retired physicist is a legend in this harsh land, a sort of Willy Wonka of the desert who transformed 70 acres of rock and scrub into the Goffs Cultural Center, his personal Xanadu of history and imagination.

In this tiny hamlet of 23 on the barren edge of the Mojave National Preserve, he and a group of volunteers carved roads and towed in ore carts, a defunct wooden post office, a caboose, windmills and boxcars. He bought a collapsing 1914 schoolhouse and turned it into a museum. His own Tales of the Mojave Road Publishing Co. has produced 26 books, 16 of which he wrote.

Yet none of it compares to his masterwork, the recently opened $1-million Dennis G. Casebier Memorial Library. Housed in a replica of the old Goffs Railroad Depot, the two-story, climate-controlled collection of thousands of books, maps, photos and tapes is the exclamation point on his arid passions.

Steve Mongrain, president of the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association, a nonprofit group that has helped raise money for the project, calls it "the most extraordinary historical collection of Mojave Desert history and culture in existence."

"There is nothing like it in the world," Mongrain said. "Anything that pertains to the Mojave can be researched there. It is unprecedented."

The association's 800 members donated $250,000 for the library, and the California Cultural and Historical Endowment provided the rest in grants.

Casebier, 74, has assembled the lost voices and hidden histories of a place largely washed clean of its past. The homesteads are gone, the mines closed, the tiny towns swallowed by sand.

Freight trains, some 6,000 feet long, still lumber through to Needles and beyond, but they rarely stop anymore because there are so few towns to stop in.

A 1920s picture of Rock Springs Land and Cattle Co. cowboys is one of about 108,000 photographs Casebier has collected. The library also has thousands of maps, oral histories and biographical files. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Gone too are characters such as gunfighter Bill Hollimon, who, when he wasn't shooting rivals, liked to pour gasoline down anthills and set them alight.

"The history is just everywhere, yet nobody is here. It's empty," said Casebier, an especially polite man who speaks with great precision.

"The people have gone, their life ways ended somehow. We are gathering the history of this forgotten land, and we have done so with a vengeance."

On a recent morning, Casebier rattled around the library, dipping in and out of the new filing cabinets. Each one contained dozens of subject files filled with personal histories.

Harrison Doyle?

"He's the oldest guy I ever interviewed, 103 or 104," Casebier said. "He was walking the streets of Needles in the early 1900s."

Llewellyn Barrackman?

"Former headman of the Fort Mojave Indians."

Betty Ordway?

"She was like the Rosetta Stone," he said. "She came here in 1914 and knew everyone and remembered everything. She knew the gunfighters and the homesteaders and where the stills were. She was the belle of the valley."

Tucked away in library cabinets are 3,000 biographies, 1,000 taped oral histories, 108,000 photographs, 6,000 books and 6,000 maps, ready for perusal by those Casebier believes demonstrate "an advanced interest in the desert."

Jo Ann Casebier, right, and volunteer Carol Brown sort historical documents. Thousands of soldiers were stationed in the Mojave during World War II, and many of their personal accounts are on file in the library. (Irfan Kahn / Los Angeles Times)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., consulted Casebier and used information from his collection when writing "Searchlight: The Camp That Didn't Fail," a book about his hometown.

"This book is better because of Dennis," he wrote in the preface.

Students working on master's degrees have come to study the homestead period and the military history of the region. Thousands of soldiers were stationed in the Mojave during World War II. Many of their personal accounts are on file in the library.

Casebier's own history in the desert began in 1954, after he left his home state of Kansas and enlisted in the Marines. He was stationed in Twentynine Palms and spent his free time poking around what is now Joshua Tree National Park.

"It was love at first sight when I saw the desert," he said. "It's different for everybody, but for me it was the wide open spaces and maybe the simplicity."

He returned to Kansas in 1956, got a degree in physics from Washburn University in Topeka, and returned to California in 1960. He worked on guided missile systems for the Navy and lived in Corona.

Meanwhile, his passion for the desert led him into the eastern Mojave, where he was smitten by what he dubbed "the forgotten country" encircled by the Colorado River and the I-40 and I-15 freeways.

There, he found an awe-inspiring emptiness.

"All the people had moved away. The schools went away. Everything went away," he said. "You would think that people would be swarming all over this area looking for its past, but they weren't."

Casebier's Navy job often took him to Washington, D.C., where he spent evenings at the National Archives and the Library of Congress photocopying records and maps about the eastern Mojave.

At one point he found a defunct wagon trail stretching 131 miles from the Colorado River to Camp Cady, east of Barstow.

Casebier formed a volunteer group that turned the dirt track into the four-wheel-drive Mojave Road. Soon he was leading caravans down it.

Chris Ervin first toured the road in 1988.

"It was a really fun, educational and a socially uplifting experience," said the Orange County resident, who works on the archives as a volunteer. "Dennis single-handedly rediscovered the Mojave Road and got thousands of others involved. He is an inspiration and a visionary."

In 1990, after he retired, Casebier and his wife, Jo Ann, moved to Goffs and bought 113 acres that included the old Goffs Schoolhouse. Working with the Mojave heritage association, he set to work saving the school and building the cultural center, which he donated to the nonprofit.

At the same time, he traveled the country interviewing former desert residents for his oral histories, persuading many to part with photographs and personal papers.

His disarming approach put people at ease.

"I'd say, 'So, how did a nice girl like you end up in the desert?' "

Some subjects were duds, but others, he said, were "bell ringers." He interviewed Curtis Springer 54 times. In 1944, Springer founded a spa and resort in an area he named Zzyzx, just south of Baker. A road bearing the name still exists.

Betty Ordway was another bell ringer. Casebier, who found her in Auburn, Calif., was so impressed that he put her entire 155,000-word interview into two bound volumes.

"She had 500 photos and she cast light on the big things and the little things," he said. "We had gunfights out here between ranchers and homesteaders, who would help themselves to a cow once in a while. A 1925 shootout killed two gunfighters, and Betty knew both men."

And she liked her rabbit fried like chicken.

"You could see her salivate when she remembered," he said. "I just loved that. Maybe because I'm such a nut or maybe because I wish I lived back then."

With his research constantly expanding and scattered everywhere, Casebier came up with the idea of a central library.

The grants arrived in 2006 and the building was completed in July.

Archival material is still being moved in, and the rules on how people can use the library are still being worked out.

Casebier, who still does oral histories, said anyone interested in visiting must make arrangements first.

"We are targeting researchers of desert history, those who are writing books or papers or scholarly works," said Ervin, the library's project manager. "Our focus is how do we make sure this thing lasts longer than all of us? We are trying to get an endowment -- maybe $10 million -- to pay for and support all these wonderful materials in perpetuity."

Back in Goffs, Casebier hopped into a golf cart and motored down his complex's Boulevard of Dreams. He passed a Justice of the Peace office that once served the towns of Amboy and Ludlow, and pulled up in front of an old library built in 1927.

There are hundreds of books inside that have not been moved to the new library just up the road.

For desert aficionados it's a small, if dimly lit, slice of heaven. Books with titles such as "The Great California Deserts," "Our Desert Neighbors," "On Desert Trails" and "Desert Treasures" stand in dark wooden cabinets behind glass doors.

Casebier likes to sit in the back room and read. If he should ever get bored, which is highly unlikely, he could open the window and drink in unlimited blue sky.

He has spent the better part of his life studying the desert. For years people have asked him why.

"I want people to know the tremendous respect I have for the human beings who lived here and the tremendous respect I have for their self-reliance," he said.

"They were a special breed. I don't want that story to disappear."

Volunteers Sought to Help Restore Bonanza Springs

News Release

BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT
California Desert District

Volunteers willing to roll up their sleeves for a day are needed to help restore Bonanza Springs. As part of the 15th annual National Public Lands Day, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2008, volunteers will help eradicate tamarisk and arundo, which have endangered the spring’s vitality, as well as install a pedestrian pass-through gate, maintain and reclaim trails, and install natural stones from the wash as stepping stones.

Lunch will be provided to the first 50 registered volunteers. All volunteers will receive a free NPLD t-shirt and a pass good for one free entry, any day during the next year, at public land sites managed by the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the BLM, or the US Army Corp of Engineers.

"Last year we reached a monumental participation of 110,000 volunteers on National Public Lands Day, and we are expecting to increase this by an additional 10,000 this year," said Robb Hampton, director of National Public Lands Day. This year, National Public Lands Day commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Civilian Conservation Corps and is sponsored for the ninth consecutive year by Toyota Motor Sales, USA.

Bonanza Springs is a small oasis 45 miles west of Needles, just north of Route 66 between Essex and Chambless, Calif. This small spring in the desert makes surrounding uplands inhabitable by wildlife for up to several miles.

Nearly a decade ago, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) began clearing Bonanza Springs of noxious weeds, which were choking the life out of the springs. Tamarisk, often called salt cedar, is an evergreen shrub or tree growing to 50 feet in height and forming dense thickets. It can spread both by submerged stems and by seeds. Each flower can produce thousands of tiny seeds that are contained in a small capsule, usually adorned with a tuft of hair that aids in wind dispersal. Seeds can also be dispersed by water. Tamarisk species are fire-adapted and have long tap roots that allow them to intercept deep water tables and exploit natural water resources. They are able to limit competition from other plants by taking up salt from deep ground water, accumulating it in their foliage and depositing it in the surface soil. The salt build ups can be detrimental to other plants.

Arundo is a tall, perennial reed, growing in fresh and moderately saline water. It can grow to 30 feet in ideal conditions. This vegetative growth appears to be well adapted to floods, breaking up into individual clumps, spreading the pieces, then sprouting and colonizing further downstream. In 2007, BLM employees, with the help of volunteers, placed thick, black tarpaulins over the arundo to prevent light from reaching the plant, reducing its ability to photosynthesize. The lack of light eventually depletes the plants energy reserves, causing it to die back. Since the tarps have been in place for more than a year, they will be picked up and moved to other spots within the Bonanza Springs area.

To find out more about the project, including what to bring, directions, or to register as a volunteer, please contact Elaine Downing at edowning@ca.blm.gov or (760) 326-7003, or visit the website, Needles Field Office - Volunteer Program.

Needles man up for conservation award

San Bernardino Sun

Cliff McDonald, a tenacious Needles hunter-conservationist who almost single handedly beat back the National Park Service's attempt to remove all man-made water sources from the Mojave National Preserve, has been named one of four finalists for the Budweiser Conservationist of the Year award.

The award carries a $50,000 prize and just being a finalist means McDonald will win at least $5,000 to further his efforts.

Besides battling former Park Superintendent Mary Martin over the shutting down of over 100 water sources used by wildlife in the preserve, and eventually winning, McDonald has now been at the forefront of organizing manpower, equipment and money to refurbish and restore the water sources that were shut down and those that were degrading. It was also at his prodding that the Park Service agreed to study the importance and impact of these water sources of wildlife, focusing the study on desert mule deer.

"Thanks to Cliff's persistence and quality volunteer service, the National Park Service has not only withdrawn its resistance but has gradually become a participant and supporter of the effort to provide these important water sources," said Anna Siedman of Safari Club International. "In the East Mojave, Cliff is wildlife's greatest champion."

It was also announced this week that McDonald won the Californian of the Year Award given by the Outdoor Writers Association of California (OWAC) for his efforts in the Mojave.

Jerry Springer, a long-time California writer and hunter who runs the online magazine WesternHunter.com from his Fresno home, nominated McDonald for the OWAC award.

"This all started in the fall of 2002 when it became obvious to Cliff that something bad was going on in the Preserve," Springer said. "He saw empty water tanks and started asking questions and found out that the staff of the Preserve was allowing over 100 water sources to go dry.

"That's when McDonald started his one-man campaign of letter writing, testifying at numerous meetings and informing wildlife organizations, in his attempt to save the wildlife of the Preserve."

When McDonald first started his restoration efforts, it was just him and a couple of buddies from Needles filling gamebird guzzlers with water or making sure desert springs had pools of water where wildlife could drink.

Today, McDonald's e-mail list of helpers is over 400 individuals long, and he's pulled together groups and individuals to create a diverse coalition.

He's managed to have Quail Unlimited, California Deer Association, Safari Club, and Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep volunteers working together on "McDonald projects," as they've come to be called.

There was and really is no name for McDonald's "group." In fact, the group is doing a major work project this weekend at Camp Cady, a state wildlife area east of Barstow.

Since McDonald started the effort, the group has repaired and refurbished 52 guzzlers and six springs, contributed more than 3,200 hours of labor, and raised more than $22,000 worth of equipment and materials for these efforts.

The list for this coming year of work is already long, targeting 40 guzzlers for repairs on and off the Preserve. There are also plans hatching for the installation of new water sources for wildlife.

Five grand will be a big help toward that work. But $50,000 would be enormous. McDonald will turn either amount into about 10 times their value in on-the-ground effort. You can count on that.

The public votes on the four finalists on the Budweiser Web site, determining who gets the $50,000. While the site wasn't set up to accept votes yet or the process delineated, I'll keep you posted on when the voting opens.

Water For Wildlife Guzzler Repair
Mojave National Preserve
December 2007



This video is about Water For Wildlife, a group of volunteers who maintain the water guzzlers in the Mojave NP in CA. This repair was on the B-18 guzzler near Goffs CA.

The work involves prepping the pad, the big flat part that catches the rain first. Chippers are used to clean off the old sealant and then Quickcrete concrete bonding adhesive is applied to the cracks. 2 coats or Merlex are then applied over 24 hours to seal the pad so the water all runs down into the underground water tank. The tank is also cleaned out and tortoise nets are installed so the tortoises can get out of the tank.

These water guzzlers are vital to the desert wildlife like the deer, bobcat, coyote, cougar, quail, bighorn sheep and desert tortoise.

Great food was served by the group and a raffle was held Saturday night to raise money for supplies to maintain the guzzlers.

Temps were in the low 40s at night and 60s during the day.

Huge thanks go out to CDA (California Deer Association), QU (Quail Unimited) SCBS (Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep), SCI (Safari Club International), Bass Pro, DFG, BLM, PCOC (Predator Caller of Orange Co.), CA FNAWS and other groups that supplied gear, volunteers or other help.

We need more volunteers and it's a great campout in the desert.

For more info on Water For Wildlife please contact Cliff McDonald at 760-326-2935.

Remaking the Grade

A new fund from Porsche will help repair original path to Big Bear Lake

Postcard image of the Clark Grade, circa 1919. (Putnam Valentine, Photographer)

JOHN O'DELL
Los Angeles Times

A volunteer effort to repair Clark's Grade, a 142-year-old dirt track that once was the only way up to Big Bear Lake, is the first beneficiary of a grant from Porsche Cars of North America under its new Cayenne Crossing program.

Porsche created the program to promote its entry this year into the sport utility vehicle market with the Cayenne and will donate funds to the restoration of historic roads and off-road trails across the country during the next few years.

A second donation in California, to be announced this year, will assist a Route 66 support group's effort to restore portions of the historic highway in the Mojave Desert and to install directional signs and historic markers along that portion of the route.

Porsche executives will not say how much they have dedicated to Cayenne Crossing, but it is expected to be a multimillion- dollar program.

The initial grant, announced Tuesday in ceremonies at the foot of Clark's Grade, will fund a three-year effort by volunteers with the nonprofit San Bernardino National Forest Assn. to repair the steep six-mile dirt track that began as a trail for pack mules in 1860. These days it is used by off-road driving enthusiasts but has been severely compromised by erosion.

"We call it a challenging four-wheel-drive trail," said Kris Assel, executive director of the forest preservation group.

Clark's Grade was opened in 1860 by rancher Hiram Clark as a way to get supplies from the Redlands area to miners working in Holcomb Canyon in the San Bernardino Mountains. The canyon, site of Southern California's largest gold rush, is just north of modern-day Big Bear Lake.

Clark's mule trail followed a steep series of switchbacks originally tramped out as a footpath in 1845 by explorer Benjamin Wilson, who climbed up from the Santa Ana River at the foot of the mountains behind Redlands.

Wilson found a deep valley when he crested the mountains and, after spotting many grizzlies, called it Bear Valley.

The valley then had only one natural lake, at its east end (now called Baldwin Lake), and remained unpopulated for decades. It was ignored even during the gold rush, when by 1866 there were 1,500 miners living in nearby Holcomb Canyon, said valley historian Tom Core.

And though busy, Clark's Grade "was just a crude mule trail that remained a trail until the 1890s, after the dam was built," Core said, and the valley floor was flooded to create what now is called Big Bear Lake.

Bear Valley was dammed in 1884 by Redlands land speculators who had found that oranges grew quite well in the area. They wanted to create a mountain reservoir to supply water so they could sell the otherwise-arid land for commercial groves.

The resulting lake initially was called Bear Valley Reservoir, then Pine Lake and Bear Lake. It finally became Big Bear Lake in the late 1890s because developers farther down the mountain had created a smaller lake they called Little Bear, which later became Lake Arrowhead.

After the reservoir formed and fish began breeding in it, the area was discovered by lowlanders and became a popular, though hard-to-get-to, retreat for visitors from Redlands, San Bernardino and even as far away as Upland and the eastern edges of Los Angeles, Core said.

The first automobile road into the area came up from Running Springs to Fawnskin in 1885. The valley got its first hotel in 1894, Core said, "and has been a resort area ever since."

To help boost tourism, a group of speculators formed the Bear Valley Wagon Road Co. in the early 1890s, he said, and turned the Clark's Grade mule track into a one-lane dirt road that could be traversed by automobile to provide a second route into the valley.

Because the road was only one lane and quite steep, traffic up and down the grade alternated.

A group would form at the bottom of the grade and the road would be opened to let them drive up, while a group of travelers leaving the valley would form and wait at the head of the trail, Core said. The last car in the upward group was given a flag, and when the driver arrived in the valley, he would hand the flag to the driver of the last car waiting in line to go down and the direction of travel would reverse.

"They had to do it that way because there were almost no places to pass, and it was so steep you didn't want to get caught heading in the wrong direction and have to back up," Core said.

Although an asphalt road from San Bernardino into the valley was built in 1924, Clark's Grade remained a popular secondary route until the 1930s, and it has never been abandoned.

"But it's in terrible shape today," Core said. "I lead tours up here and used to take groups down the grade, but the last time I did it, about three years ago, one car burned up its brakes and I decided it had deteriorated too much to do group travel anymore."

Assel said her foundation's volunteers spend hundreds of hours a year keeping fast-growing brush cut back along the edges of Clark's Grade but have not had the money for other maintenance.

With the Cayenne Crossing grant, the forest association will be able to provide funds to the U.S. Forest Service for grading and other repairs on the road, Assel said.

Some of the funding also will be used to prepare and install directional and informational signs along the route.

"The support from Porsche will enable us to do a lot of postponed maintenance," she said. "It will remain a four-wheel-drive route, but we'll be filling in eroded ruts, shoring up crumbling shoulders and making sure this historic route can remain open for the public to enjoy."