197808 desert magazine 1978 august

8/14/2019 197808 Desert Magazine 1978 August

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AUGUST, 1978 $1.00

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W ILL IAM and JOYKNYVETTCo-Pub lishers/ EditorsGEORGE BRAGA, Art DirectorSHARLENE KNYVETT, Art DepartmentMARY FRANCES STRONG, Field Trip EditorK. L. BOYNTON, NaturalistMARVEL BARRETT, Circulation ManagerColor Separations byHenry Color ServiceLithographed byWolfer Printing Company, Inc.Available in Microfi lm byXerox University Microfilms

Volume 41, Number 8 AUGUST 1978

CONTENTSF E A T U R E S

EMIGRANT SPRINGS AND THE LOST GUNSIGHT 8 Harold O. Weight

GEOLOGICAL INFORMATION AND WHERE TO FIND IT 12 Roger Mitchell

THE COVER:California's towering SantaRosa Mountains hold wild-flower treasures such as thisrose mallow. Photo byGeorgeService of Palm Desert, Calif.See a rticle onpage 24.

FIVE PALMS 14ARIZONA'S PAINTED DESERT 16

MESA VERDE, A DRAMATIC LINK WITH THE PAST 20PICTURESQUE PINYON FLAT 24

THEPINYONJAY 28

PARASITES OF THE DESERT 32MADRID. GROWING PAINS AND GHOSTS 36

WHAT'S COOKING ON THE DESERT? FRIJOLES! 40

Dick Bloomquist

Charles Konopa

Ray Pomplun

Bill Jennings

K. L. Boynton

Wayne P. ArmstrongB. Lynne Zika

Stella Hughes

D E P A R T M E N T SA PEEK IN THE PUBLISHER'S POKE 4

NEW BOOKS FOR DESERT READERS 6

BOOKS OF THE WEST 42TRADING POST 44

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 46CALENDAR OF WESTERN EVENTS 46

William Knyvett

Book Reviews

Mail Order ItemsClassified Listings

Readers' Comments

Club Activities

EDITORIAL, CIRCULATION AND ADVERTISING OFFICES: 74-425Highway 111, P. O. Box 1318, Palm Desert, California 92260. TelephoneArea Code 714346-8144. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: United States and pos-sessions; 1 year, $7.00; 2years, $13.00; 3years, $19.00. All other countriesadd $2.00 U. S. currency for each year. SeeSubscription Order Form inthis issue. Allow five weeks for change of address andsend both new andDeser t /August 1978

old addresses with zip codes. DESERT Magazine is published monthly.Second class postage paid at Palm Desert, California and at additionalmailing offices under Act of March 3, 1879. Contents copyrighted 1978 byDESERT Magazine andpermission to reproduce any or all contents mustbe secured inwrit ing . Unsolicited m anuscripts and photographs will not bereturned unless accompanied byself-addressed, stamped envelope.


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B A C K I S S UB A R G A I N SODDS AN D ENDSMiscellaneo us C opiesfrom 1959 to 1965Package of 10$0003o selections av ailable

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DESERT MAGAZINEP.O. Box 1318Palm Desert, Ca lif. 92260

in thepublisher'syokeA NE OF the many intr ig uing facets ofo o the desert is its many tales of lostj p ledges, mines and treasures. TheLost Cunsight has been a favorite ofmany through the years dating back tothe Fortyniners. In this issue, historianHarold O. We ight sheds what well mightbe the last light on this legendary ledge.

For those who love the cool call of thehigher elevations during the hot sum-mers on the low desert, Bill Jenningstells about one of his favorite mountainareas, Pinyon Flat. It has a lot to offer,but a wo rd of caution to all w ho enter thewoodlands: Keep ever alert of potentialfire hazards. The dry grasses could spelldisaster for large areas of preciouswatershed.

While up in the pines, you might justcome across a Pinyon Jay, so K. L. Boyn-ton brings us the latest word on this jol lyl i t t le bird.

Wayne A rm s t rong t akes us f r ompinyon to parasites in his concludingart icle on these fascinating free-loaders;Arizona's Painted Desert gets a nicetreatment from Charles Konopa, and B.LynneZika reveals the enterprising newlife in an old ghostMadrid, NewMexico. Colorado also gets into thepicture this month with a visit to theinterest ing clif f dwell ing at Mesa Verdeby Ray Pomplun, and Dick Bloomquistcontinues with his California Oasesseries with a trip to Five Palms.

We 've had many queries on how to ob-tain geological information, so be sure tocatch Roger Mitchell 's informative ar-ticle on Page 12. And last, but not least,"What 's Cooking on the Desert?" Frijoles!as only Stella Hughes cancook 'e m !

AMERICAN IN;FOOD AND U a

E a r l y I n d i a nP l a n t U s eAMERICAN INDIANFOOD AND LOREby C arolyn Neitham m er.

The original Indian plants used forfoods, medicinal purposes, shelter,clothing, etc., are described in detailin this fascinating book. Commonand scientific names, plus descriptionsof each plant and unusual recipes.Large format, profusely illustrated ,191 pages. $4.95.Please add 50c for p ostag e/han dl ing

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GaptttitaSunshitieA marvelous ne w book aboutJohn W.Hilton"The Dean ofAmerican Desert Painters"byKatherine Ainsworth

Just one of the many beautifully reproduced Hilton paintings included in thebook.

The Man Who Captured Sunshine is a biography of arem arkable, modern day, Renaissance Man John W. Hilton.Though John Hilton is best known as the "Dean of Am ericanDesert Painters," he is also a distinguished botanist, gem ologist,and zoo logist. Hilton also is anote d writer and linguist, aguitaristand singer.

The author, Katherine Ainsworth, m akes no apology for the"lack of objectivity" inwriting this bo o k. . . she hasbeen a friendand admirer of John Hilton for ov er thirty yea rs. Katie's latehusband, EdAinsworth, wasJo hn H ilton's best friend for almostas m any years. This "labor of l o ve " hasresulted in a m agnificentbook about a m agnificent man.

Th e Man Who Captured Sunshine isinspirational. . . abook which inspires one to overcome adversity, to achieveexcellence, tostrive for agenuine joy of living. Thereader willcry,but mo re often will find him self/herse lf enjoying the pleasure ofhearty laughter, of grand adv enture. Thesignificance ofthis boo k,above allelse, lies in an impe lling force which inspires the readerto live a fuller , mo re m eaningful, m ore joyous l i fe . . . to be adoer,acreator, a giver.

TO PLACE ORDER:Please send check or money order ($12.95 per copy)

DESERT MAGAZINE BOOK SHOPP.O. Box 1318Palm Desert, California 92260

California residents add 6%sales tax, andplease enclose50 C for postage and handling. 5 AN ETCPUBLICATION


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'BooksforD e se r tTradersAll books reviewed a re available through theDesert Magazine Book Shop. Please add 50cper total order for handling and Californiaresidents must include 6% state sales tax.

s S s s s a T a s S f t S S f t i r a

SAND IN MY SHOE/ !y H e/en Bagley

Lit t le f irst hand l iterature is availableon Twentynine Palms, California, but a

unique and enjoyable book, "Sand in M ySho e," has just been published .

Twe ntynine Palms was known to whitemen at least as early as the 1840s, and toIndians of different tribes long beforethat. Nothing was writ ten about it unt i lthe 1850s, so far as known. From the1860s it was traveled and explored forgold and a railroad route. Thereafter,activities of miners and cattlemen madeit familiar to thousands of Southlanders.

But the remote oasis itself, until afterWorld War I , was called home by veryfew. I t is the men and women who wentthere and lived as pioneers in the '20sand '30s that "Sand in My Shoe" bringsvividly to l i fe.

The woman who tells this mult i-color-ed story, l ike so many others who tookthat far t r ip into an "unknown" desert ,left city comfort hoping her husbandFrank would f ind health. The youngcouple had two small boys and a son afew months old.

Frank, using his car's speedometer,squared off 160 acres for their home-stead. How the Bagleys l ived in a garage the f irst structure Frank builtgradu-

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ated into a tenthouse bedroom, andeventually developed the Plaza center oftown, is a portrait of what many u ntirecent days have thou gh t of as theAmerican Way. But probably few todayhave met the kind of basic challengesthat awaited these pioneers.

Because of its remoteness, this community's evolut ion, as portrayed in"Sand," presents a microcosm of l i fefrom a period far earlier than the '20s. Iis like using a telescopic lens to bringinto close focus a habitat and its humancharacters a view we normally see onlyfrom a distance and throug h an historian's haze. What a study this periodwith its virtually self-contained community, could have provided some socio-economics researcher!

The desert life of which Helen Bagleywrites was compacted between twoworld wars. These impacts alone shapedthe lives of these people to a considerable degree. And it was the physical effects on veterans of World War I thabrought them to the desert for healingMost of them, coming to the Oasisfound an environment foreign to theiown experience and to that of their generat ion. I t was l ike a f ict ional turningback of the clockthey started all oveagain the kind of pioneering throughwhich their ancestors had evolved.

Helen and Frank, as they operatedtheir pioneer homestead store in thaoriginal garage (after they pushed thedouble bed outside each day), saw thegathering homesteaders, and miners infrom the h il ls, from a vantage few othersh a d . Frank soon was postmaster and washelping newcomers locate homesteadsHelen became librarian for the t inycounty branch, the shelf of books at firswedged between hard-toed shoes, lanterns, ammunit ion and overalls. Sheworked many years on the school boardto bring the distr ict out of its infancy. Incountless ways the Bagley store becamethe heart of the community, even grubstaker and banker.

The author knew the scores of peoplein "Sand." Not all were stalwart and upright. But they are shown with an em

Gold M ine Stock C ertificateOriginal, engraved 1906 issue. Collectorsitem and conversation piece. Interestinghistory included. $3 each. Order five andwe include 3 silver quarters free. Moneyback guarantee.K I M C O Box 469 Yreka, California 96097

Desert/August 197


7/48

pathy that comes only from one who alsoknew their hopes and the struggles theyhad had along the way.

Included are the two cattlemen whodisputed a right of way un til one died ina blaze of gunfire . . . the Heidelberg Ugraduate who fled his cultural back-g rou nd because "h e once loved agyp sy" . . . the homesteader who provedup on his claim , but lost his min d . . . thecouple, working their mine alone, whosqueezed gold amalgam through an oldsock before sending i t to the m i n t . . . theconstable who carried a gun only onsheriff 's orders, and who took a culprithome to his wife's custody "becausemost of them need a friend, not moretrouble," and the miner, too blind to tella snake from his walking stick, but whoheard music made by the wind in hismountain.

Balancing adversities and depriva-tions against the gains in health and sa-tisfactions, Helen Bagley in summarysaw the hardships only as "sand in myshoe. "

The book is a minor classic, a distilla-tion of a life style that to a large extenthad vanished decades before the start ofTwentynine Palms as a community.

Introduction by Harold and LucileWeight. Hardbound, 286 pages, 35photos, $8.95.

BAJ A CALIFO RNIAAND ITS MISSIONSBy Tomas Robertson

This work provides a history of theconquest of Baja California, beginningwith an unsuccessful attempt by HernanCortes in 1534, followed by another fai l-ure by Padre Kino in 1683. Finally PadreSalvatierraof the Jesuit Order arrived inSan Bruno, then moved to Loreto, wherethe Mother Mission of the Californiaswas founded in 1697.

This book traces the activities of theJesuits and later those of the Francis-cans and the Dominicans. The story ofeach mission is to ld, together with noteson the present co ndition of each and howto reach every one of these wildernesschurches.Dese rt / August 1978

This book will be a delight to all ofthose who are interested in the peninsulaof Baja California and the saga of themission fathers. It will be enjoyed byarm-chair explorers but will be invalu-

able to those who may wish to visit thesealmost forgotten churches of the lone-some peninsula of Baja California.

Paperback, 96 pages, illustrated withphotos and maps, $3.50.

B L A C K R O C K 4d e s e r t

"Buck" Wheeler is widelyknown as an authority on Nevadahistory and geology. THE BLACKROCK DESERT is his 4th Caxtonbook.The unknown people who,thousands of years ago, lived be-side a large lake and left behindpuzzling evidences of their cul-tures; the first white explorers;the forty-n iners who fo l lowedLassen's "Death Route"; thedesert's vicious Indian war; lostmines; and the history of thebasin's big ranches are all in-cluded in the fascinating story ofan unusual part of our earth,Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

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IIIPhone D M


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m i g r a n t

!

N THE early 1950s, when we werefrequent visitors in the Rand MiningDist r ic t , J ames B. N osser was Justice

of the Peace for Kern County's 10thJudicial (Randsburg) Township. But Jimhad been a mining man much longerthan a juris t, and his l i t t le Just ice Courtin Johannesburg was a favorite stopp ingplace. It showed clearly where Jim'sheart lay. On the shelf behind his desk, a"Min ing Eng ineers ' Handbook" shou l -dered the "Cal i fornia Penal Co de." W ri tof process forms shared space with min-ing location blanks. Rolled mining mapswere piled on top of legal f i le cabinets.

Mining won out .on J im's stat ionery,too. It identified him as JP, but also asPresident of the Kern County Chapter ofthe Western Mining Counci l , Chairmanof the Kern County Chamber of Com-merce Min ing Comm it tee, and as a min-ing consusltant and investigator. In hiscareer Jim has been an assayer at Jo-

burg, a mine owner, miner, prospector,grubstaker. Mining ran in the family.His uncle, J. J. Nosser, was co-discover-er with Hamp Will iams of the great Cali-fornia Rand silver mine, at nearby RedMounta in , which produced more than$10,000,000.

In Jim's office, conversation was cer-tain to work around to mines, miners,and mining history. Nosser was widelyknowledgable about all three. He alsowas what would now be called a "re-source person" on lost mines. He wasnot, however, the wide-eyed, gull ible,fact-shunning visionary that lost mineenthusiasts are assumed to be. J im knewthat rich outcrops really were discoveredand for various reasons never again re-located. He had assayed the ore fromsuch f inds, and had attempted to f indsome of them himself.

Naturally in Joburgearly gateway toDeath Valleythe Lost Gunsight would

>y HAROLD O. WE IGHT

come under discussion. While it is Hydra-headed now, in the beginning thstory was simple enough. One of thFortyniners, while escaping across thPanamint Mountains f rom Death Val leypicked up a piece of native silver whiche later supposedly had made into front sight for his rif le.

Several of the Fortyniners authenticated this discovery of silver in the Panamints. John B. Colton, a teen-age Jayhawker of '49, gave details in a letter tthe San Jose Patriot in 1895. On Christmas Day 1849, Colton wrote, the Jayhawkers were camped on Salt Creek iDeath Valley. There was a snowbank isight of the mountains to the westthPanamints seemingly about 10 miledistant. The Jayhawkers, preparing tcl imb to the snow, were making packsaddles for their oxen out of the sideboards and spokes of their wagons.

Whi le they worked they were br ief lDesert /August 197


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rejoined by a party of emigrants calledthe "Georgians," who had separatedfrom their group some three weeks backon the t ra i l . The Georgians, heading forthe same snowbank, soon left for a directassault on the Panamints.

" W e finished our packsaddles at sun-set," Colton wrote, "and started on thetrail for the snowbank, expecting toreach it by morning. This t ime themirage deceived us, and in our weakcondition we did not reach the snow untilthe second morning about three o'clock. . . The Georgia boys built signal fires toguide us to camp and had plenty ofmelted snow for us to drink.

"The Georgia boys were old silverminers. They told us upon our arrival incamp that there was immense wealth ofsilver in sight of where we camped. Oneof the boys showed me a chunk of blackrock that he held in his hands, and toldme that it was half silver , and that nearlyall the rock we were walking over wasvery rich in silver, and that if we onlyhad provisions and water, and knewwhere, there was all the wealth in sightthat we could ask."

Another young Jayhawker, Will iam B.Rood, who returned to Death Valley in1869 to search for the Lost Gunsightafter he had mined silver in southernArizonaalso testif ied to the Georgians'ore. "I held it in my hands," he said. " I twas si lver."

Most of us who believe in the LostGunsight have theories about where it is,or was. Jim Nosser was more positivethan that. He knew where it was, be-cause he had rediscovered it.

"Back in the early 1920s," he said, " Iwas associated with Tom Logan, wellknown prospector and miner, and BenDeWitt. DeWitt heard of a discovery inthe Panamint Mountains near EmigrantSprings, and requested food and equip-ment co go over and inv estigate it. Logangathered more equipment, found a rideout to Emigrant Springs and the two menjo ined. It was agreed that if the oreshowed good values, I was to come onout.

" A few days later the first samplescame in with a returning prospector. Ahurried assay showed that they ran from150 to as much as 300 ounces in silver tothe ton. I sent the assay reports back.And the values were so exceptional, thecharacter of the rock so very interesting,I laid my other work aside. I made whatDese rt/August 1978

This tunnel,driven about

30 feet, bu tnot showingevidence ofmuch ledgematerial, in

areabetweenUpper and

LowerEmigrant

Spring fitsdescription

given byjudge

Nosser forthe one his

partnersstarted.

was in those days a rather hazardous tripin a 1915 Ford without any top, the typi-cal Model T that became so famous.

" I crossed over the Slate Range andPanamint Valley, climbed the PanamintRange, descended the other side towardDeath Valley, and approached the spotnow pretty well known as Upper Emi-grant Springs. All at once, without wa rn-ing, an old fellow stepped out from be-hind some rocks and brush and coveredme with a .30-30. I threw up my handsand just slid to a stop.

"The character who stopped me had ahuge red beard and hair down to his

This 1876map of the

SurveysWest of the

100thMeridian

shows foursilver minesoperating in

the areawhere the

LostCunsight

silver wassupposed to

have beenfound by theDeath ValleyFortyniners.

9

shoulders. He was very poorly dressed inoveralls and rough sh irt, with a belt w ithtwo revolvers strapped around his waist.And the .30-.30 just remained trained onme. When I got my breath I asked if thiswas the way they greeted visitors.

" ' W e l l , ' he says, 'there's a big strikedown the canyon, and we want to knowwho's coming in here. ' I told him myname, and he lowered the .30-.30. 'We l lyou're all r ight. Tom and Ben arewait ing for you.' "

Red Beard, whom Nosser found ouwas an old Death Valley prospectorknown as "Crazy Bob" Smith, got in to


10/48

A

Left: Looking down acrosslittle valley with silver pros-pects, between the two Emi-grant Springs. Built up bit oftrail indicated by circle.Smooth place foreground cen-ter is dump from tunnel, whitepatch right foreground, silverprospect. Emigrant Canyonruns through center of picture,Tucki Moun tain in backg round.Right: Stretch of ancient builtup trail in canyon between Up-

the car and guided J m to a place in thenarrows near Lower Emigrant Spring.They left the car and climbed the steephil lside to where Logan and DeWitt haddug a tunnel in 30 to 40 feet. They ex-plaine d to Nosser that the rich ore he hadassayed had been found right beside thetunnel face, scattered up and down thesteep slope. They had several powderboxes of the oreall picked up as"f lo a t . " They bel ieved there was a con-tact in the hill that had been coveredover with surface erosion until it was hid-den, and the best way to find it was witha cross-cut tunnel.

"So they didn' t wai t for my advice,"J im said. "H av ing suf f ic ient powder and

material, they just started their tunnel.They were great powerful mentheyweigh ed a total of 440 pounds so theyhad just about walked through that hil l inthe short time since they had receivedmy assays. We went over where theyhad found the float, and they showed metheir tracks, where they had carefullyworked the surface in picking it up.Pretty soon, hun ting, we picked up somemore of the ore.

"Finally I remarked that the ore hadbeen put there, because of the fracturedcondition of the rock, the sharp edges itshowed. It hadn't washed any distance,or weathered there. I explained to themwhy I thought so, and showed them

pieces I was positive had been blasted.Ben walked over to the powder boxesand soon returned with several piecesthat showed definite powder burns.Little as we knew about it, we agreedthat the burns were black powder, usedin early days for mining and muzzle-loading r i f les. "

The men abandoned the tunnel, andstarted searching the steep hill side,working back and forth across the slope.Logan discovered some rock work donein a litt le turn in the canyon. They com-menced to see the outline of a trail thathad once existed across the hillside.They started following it up.

"Pretty soon I not iced a l i t t le handle

Left: Lower Emigrant Spring, photographed about 1948, be-

fore all its water was appropri-ated for use in Death Valley.i f Right: Looking up Emigrant

Canyon. Upper Emigrant, Springs out of sight, in cove

right center. Mine dump, rightforeground, marks one of earlysilver mines in area. Far right:James B. Nosser believed hehad rediscovered the famousLost Gunsight mine. Photo-graphed in his Justice of thePeace office in Johannesb urg,7957.

10 "

Desert /August 1978


11/48

%..-.- " '*'"'

per and Lower Emigrant PSprings was wide for pack trains but too narrow for *wagons or automobiles. It .ends abruptly just beyond j f j*point shown at right, high Habove Emigrant Canyon. Tucki piMountain in background. * ARight: Looking across early sil- Iver diggings at T ucki Moun- Ita/'n. Emigrant Canyon runs J/ust beyond light ridge, center. ^

st icking out of the grou nd ," sa id Jim . " Irecognized it as the spoke of an oldwagon. I started digging around it care-fully and finally got it uncovered. It hadbeen tied onto part of the rim of a lightwagon tire with what I later identified asbuckskin thongs. The rim had beentwisted into the shape of a pick, and theends sharpened. The wagon spoke hadbeen used as a handle.

" I knew than that whatever the sourceof our ore , it was extreme ly o ld d atingback possibly to the earlier emigrants.Continuing up the trail I saw some lit t lediggings way up on the top of the hi l l ,and went directly to them . I found a kindof half-underground excavation rem-

nants of what a miner mig ht term a stope from which it looked as if 50 or 60 tonsof rock had been removed.

"I went in, and looking around foundthere was a little bit of the ore remain-ing, sticking to the walls. Just scales but I recognized those scales as enor-mously rich silver ore of the same char-acterhorn silverthat we had founddown below. I picked off quite a numberof scales large enough to identify. Therewas enough to secure an assay. The as-say, which I made later, ran better than4000 ounces of silver to the ton . It clickedin my mind then that this possibly wasthe old Lost Cun sight min e. That it was arich pocket, as so many Death Valley

mineral deposits are, and that the dis-coverers had re turned or someone elsehad found itand worked it out. Andsaid nothing about it ."

Nosser traced the old trail all the waydown. Its incline from stope to road wasvery steep about 40 degrees. The ea rthwas very soft. They sank right into it andwent over their shoes. Part way down,above the canyon at a point of rocks, thetrail made a hairpin t u rn . It was belowthis point that their rich rock had beenfound."The ore evidently had been draggeddown on a s led, " J im said, "by men, not

Cont inued on Page 39


12/48

GeologicalInformation andWheretoFindIt

^

by ROGER MITC HELLanswer their questions does not seem tobe available back home in the county li-brary. Where do you turn now?

Practically every state in the Unionhas an agency dealing with its mines,geology, and mineral sources. Some-S OO NE R OR LA TE R mo st rock- t imes these agencies have their officesho un ds, ghost town bu f fs , and only in the state capi ta l; others, l ike Cali-general desert explorers find they forn ia, have branch offices in otherhave questions about the rocks and min - major urban centers. Mo st of these

erals they have found, or mining areas agencies pu bl is h rep orts a nd mapsand curious rock forma tions they have which are often use ful, and all w ill an-visi ted. Somehow the inform ation to swer wri tten queries as best as possible.

1 2 Desert/August 1978


13/48

At the federal level of government,there are two addit ional agencies con-cerned with mines and geology. If youcan't get the information you want fromthe state people, try the feds.

Listed below is an annotated sourcefor information pertaining to the minesand geology of the southwest:

STATE AGENCIESARIZONA: Wri te to: Ar izona Bureau ofMines, University of Arizona, Tucson,Arizona 85721. Upon request they wil lsend you a f ive-page brochure of avail-able publications. This list includes sometwo dozen bullet ins and circulars as wellas 11 county geologic maps and a dozenother miscellaneous geologic maps.CALIFORNIA: Wri te to: Cal i fornia Divi -sion of Mines & Geology, P.O. Box 2980,Sacramento, California 95812. They alsohave walk-in offices in Los Angeles,Sacramento and San Francisco, wherelibrary facil i t ies and over-the-countersales are available. This agency pub-lishes a long list of geologic publica-tions, and some very interesting onescover California's desert areas. Theirmonthly publ icat ion, California Geology,is a bargain at 35 cents per copy or $3.00per year by subscription. This 24-pagebulletin contains geologic articles writ-ten so the layman can understand themand it reviews new geologic publica-t ions from a wide variety of sources.COLORADO: Write to: Colorado Geolo-gical Survey, State Centennial Building,Room 715, 1313 Sherman Street, Den-ver, Colorado 80203. Upon request theywil l send you a 20-page booklet givin g alittle history of the Survey and a list of alltheir publicat ions.NEVADA: Wri te to: Nevada Bureau ofMines & Geology, Mackay School ofMines, University of Nevada, Reno,Nevada 89507. Upon request they wil lsend you a 12-page booklet of availablepublicat ions. They have a long l ist ofbullet ins, reports, and maps. Of part icu-lar interest is their geologic guidebooksand bulletins covering the geology andmineral deposits of various counties.NEW MEXICO: Wri te to: New MexicoBureau of Mines & Mineral Resources,Socorro, New Mexico 87801. Upon re-Desert/ August 1978

quest they w ill send you a 35-page book-let of available publicat ions. W hile manyof their bulletins and circulars are verytechnical, they do have a dozen booksentitled Scen/c Trips To Geologic Pastwhich are inexpensive and useful to thenon-geologist reader and explorer of thestate.U T A H : Write to: Utah Geological &Mineral Survey, 606 Black Hawk Way,Salt Lake City, Utah 84108. Upon re-quest they will send you a list of some200 publicat ions dealing with a widevariety of geologic subjects. Most are in-expensive, a few are free! O f part icularinterest to Desert readers might be theirbooks on Utah's historic mining dis-tricts, or their catalogue of mineral local-ities. This agency also publishes UtahGeology, a biannual publicat ion (springand fall) covering a wide variety ofUta h's geologic topics. The price is$3.00 for a single issue, or $6.00 peryear.

FEDERAL AGENCIESThe best source of general informa-

tion is the U.S. Geological Survey. In thewestern states they have field offices inDenver, Los Angeles, San Francisco andSalt Lake City, where their publicationsand maps can be purchased over thecounter. Other offices in Anchorage,Fairbanks, Menlo Park, and Spokane sellonly l imited materials. All correspon-dence and publication orders can be di-rected to: Branch of Distr ibut ion, U.S.Geological Survey, 1200 South EadsStreet, Arl ington, Virginia 22202. Theyare also the folks who publish thosecolorful topographic maps at the inflatedprice of $1.25 each for the 7% or 15 min-ute series, $2.00 for the 1 -.250,000 series .Topographic map indexes for each stateare free upon request. All USGS topomap orders should be addressed to:Branch of Distr ibut ion, U.S. GeologicalSurvey, Box 25286 Federal Center, Den-ver, Colorado 80225. The number ofUSGS publications in print at any givenmoment runs into the thousands. Un-for tunate ly , there is no up- to-datemaster index available to the public. Fora free monthly list of new USGS publi-cations, write to USGS at 329 NationalCenter, Reston, Virginia 22022 and askto be put on their mail ing l ist .

The U.S. Bureau of Mines seems to

devote a lot of its energy on coal minesafety in the East, but they do publishInformation Circulars, Report of Inves-t igat ions, and other documents pertain-ing to mines, mining distr icts, andmineral resources of the West. Their ad-dress is: U.S. Bureau of Mines, 2401" E " Street, Washington, D.C. 20241.

There are also a number of privatelysponsored organizations like the Geolo-gic Society of America, and the NewMexico Geologic Society which have ex-cellent publishing programs. Anothersource of help is the Geology Depart-ment at your local college or university.Most of the professors feel a certain re-sponsibility to the public at large and notjust their studen ts. They wil l usually be awil l ing and useful source of informationwho can point you in the right direc-t i o n , i f no t ac tua l ly answer yourquestions.

So there you are, my fr i en d, do notdespa i r . S om ewhere , som e t h ing hasprobably been writ ten about that oldmine, that curious rock formation, orthat strange mineral you found. Theanswer may take a l i t t le research, butw i th perserverance, an answer canusually be foun d.

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14/48

NO. 21 IN A SERIES ONCALIFORNIA PALM OASES

f i d m sbyDICKBLOOMQUISTNE-TENTH OF a mile downstreamfrom the junct ion of Arroyo Saladoi and the Seventeen Palms trib uta ry,

another set of wheel tracks leaves themain wash on the right side; a state parkpost marks the tu rn . The roadway curvesthrough bare clay hills whose natural-ness has unfortunately been scarred bythe tracks of motorcycles and trail bikes.We have already paused twice within theAnza-Borrego Desert State Park (at Tra-vertine Palms and Seventeen Palms),and since most of our remaining oasesalso lie withtn its boundaries, perhaps afew words are in order at this time re-garding park rules and regulat ions.

Motor vehicles must keep to the roadsand established routes of travel (manywashes qualify as legal "routes oftravel"); camping is permitted almosteverywhere within the preserve's morethan half-mil l ion acres, but ground f iresand wood gathering are prohibited, asare loaded firearms; fires may, however,be built in containers off the ground; allfeatures, natural and man-made, areprotected by law, and digging for Indian

14

One of the two surviving treesat Five Palms in the Borrego Badlands.

Pencil sketch by author.artifacts or removing them is illegal. Acomplete set of rules may be obtained atpark headquarters or Borrego Palm Can-yon Campground a few miles west ofBorrego Springs.

Four-tenths of a mile beyond ArroyoSalado, we draw even with Five Palms.A spur road forks to the right here,ending almost immediately in a gulchjust below the oasis. (The main routecontinues onto into Tule W ash and even-tually passes the remarkable roundedconcretions of the Pum pkin Patch east ofthe park boundary.)

The name "Five Palms" is no longeraccurate, but unlike Twentynine Palms,Four Palm Spring, and other groveswhich have increased in size since theywere named, the original quintet herehas dwindled to a deuce. The f irstWashingtonia, a robust, full-skirted treeabout 22 feet ta l l , stands along a steep,waterless gully on one of the mud hills. Itbore a bountiful crop of fruit on myriadstalks when I passed by in late autumn,and a bevy of house finches was chatter-ing in the leafy crown. Someone had left

Desert/August 1978


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a jug half-f i l led with water beside thet ree, extending a tradit ion already w ellestablished at neighboring SeventeenPalms. Three fallen trunks lie nearby;they were dead but still erect when I firstsaw the oasis in 1962.

The second palm, a veteran some 28feet ta l l , grows 65 or 70 paces to thesouthwest on the other side of a lowr idge. Its abbreviated fronds reveal aweathered trunk nearly three feet in di-ameter. This tree is the older and lessvigorous of the two, and numerous deadleaves strew the grou nd around it. Storm

Mileage Log0.0 Christmas Circle in BorregoSprings. Drive east toward SaltonSea on San Diego C ounty Road S22.6.8 Pegleg Smith monument to left ofroad.11.8 Enter Anza-Borrego Desert StatePark.15.8 Junc tion. Turn righ t off S22 ontoTruckhaven Trail (dirt road). (Fortravelers coming from the east,this junction is 1 1 V 2 miles west ofSalton City.)16.0 Arroyo Salado Primitive Camp.Four-wheel-drive advisable beyondcampground .18.0 Junction. Truckhaven Trail turnsleft. Continue straight ahead (right)down Arroyo Salado.19.5 Jun ction . Continue straight ahead(left) down Arroyo Salado. (Rightfork leads to Seventeen Palms.)19.6 Junction. Turn right, leaving Ar-royo Salado.20.0 Junction. Turn right.20.0 +Road way ends just below FivePalms (elevation 400 feet abovesea level).

waters coursing down the normally dryborde ring gully have exposed its roots onthe uphill side, even tunneling throughthem in two places.

In a moist draw several hundred feetto the nor th, someone had planted a datepalm. Visible to the right of the roadwayabout halfway between Arroyo Saladoand Five Palms, it stood seven feet tall inFebruary, 1977.

The sunstruck, alkali-encrusted clayhills su pport only a suggestion of vegeta-tion at the oasis a bit of mes quite, a jotof grass, a dash of desert holly. A fineview of distant mountain ranges and aportion of the Salton Sea can be enjoyedfrom the hil ls' rounded summits, how-ever. Closer at hand, a solitary Washing-tonia pokes its head above the Badlandsa fraction of a mile southwest of FivePalms. This is Una Palma, the next waystation along our oasis t ra i l . Desert/ August 1978

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16/48

A R I Z O N A ' SP A I N T E DD E S E R T

by C HARLES KONOPA

HEN YOUR wheels are running quick and smooth on the interstate highway,with its hypnotic reduction of t ime and distance into mere ciphers, it wouldseem un thinka ble that a wilderness of nature could actually exist within earshotof your car's exhaust. But in northeastern Arizona such a wilderness actually doesexist. There, barely out of sight of the hurrying cars on Interstate 40/U.S. Highway6 6 , is the Painted Desert. The desert is colored like Noah's rainbow. It is also road-less, rugged and unpeopled.

At a point 70 miles west of the Indian town of Gallup, New Mexico, and 27 mileseast of the Mormon town of Holbrook, Arizona, Interstate 40/U.S. Highway 66 rollsthro ug h wha t many a motorist puts down as a xeric steppe seemingly devoid of l i fe.The prospect at f irst glimpse is as forlorn as Mongolia. Yet is is precisely at thispoint tha t the motorist who wil l shake off the hypnotic spell of the interstate convey-or belt and detour a mile through the brush wil l come upon the glory of the PaintedDesert. The contrast is as dramatic as a clap of thunder.You turn off the interstate at a white-on-green signboard po int ing to "P etr if ie dForest Nat ional Pa rk." H alf a mi le along a narrow paved road, a park headquarters

appears on the r igh t. A f lag is frayin g in the gusts which are combing the parking lotof its accumulat ion of cigarette butts and gum wrappers. There is a sprawl of lowboxy buildings enclosed by long high brick walls. Zigzagging up the walls aref issures ma de by ea rthquakes and the uneasy foot ing of a soil made unstable by itscontents of bentonite. The cracks in the wallsnew ones develope while old oneswiden alarminglyare runways for mice and rabbi ts and the rat t lers that dine onthe mice and the rabbi ts .In the visitor center a pretty blonde receptionist hands you a free park map andexplains that a fee for visit ing the park wil l be collected at the entrance stat ion out-

side. The fee is one dollar a carload. For another dollar she sells us This is PaintedDesert, a booklet of i l lustrat ions with captions in the haiku manner. Back on thepark road, then a pause at the entrance stat ion, where the fee is taken by a ran ger.Then you drive onward a minute or two to where the endless gray f lats terminateabru ptly on top of a clif f .

You park at an overlook and wacross glassy shards of gypsum to r i m . Sightseers from Omaha are snping pictures, and a reluctant small bis being scolded back to safety by mother. The c lif f swoops down , losincouple of hundred feet in alt i tude. Atbase it merges with a landscape thaexotic in form and color. This is southern edge of the Painted Dese

The desert runs north and west the Navajo and Hop i Reservations. I t textbook example in geological chaRows of coral-t inted hil ls, seamed bysures and pocked with holes, are arrain d i so rde r l y p rocess ion . The re ledges of tawn y and w hite sandstone broken-off slabs lying about in unpiles. In the gull ies rest fractured pand black logs of petrified /Araucar/'olon arizonicum, a stately evergreen

16

A colorful wildernessexists just

out of sight beyondInterstate 40 in Arizona.

Photos courtesy ofthe National Park Service.Desert /August 1978


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18/48

then vanishes in atoms of exploded sapand ce l l u l ose . A t r em endous bangfo l low s. For a quar te r hour ra indescends.

Dust and loose sand are washed fromthe eroding formations, whose colorsbrighten and sparkle cleanly. Now am arve lous t h ing happens : t he r a inloosens the surfaces, and liquified earthin all its tints is homogenizing and begin-ning to pour into the ravines and drawsand arroyos and washes. Presently thedese r t ' s a r t e r i es f i l l w i t h f r o t h ingstreams of pink and maroon.

Minutes after the heavy rain passesthe streambeds begin to dry. The blood-like streams recede. The sun shows over-head; i ts rays bore through the thinningclouds and like searchlights play insilence upon the damp ground. As twi-light comes on the day's bright colorsdeepen to magenta, at length fading intoneutrality. With night the badlandsbecome masses of dark imm obile crouch -ing beasts and Gaudi-like oratories.

Petrified Forest National Park is notTypical bentonite formations. Horizontalbands denote the presence of red andyellow iron oxides, manganese and otherminerals that make the Painted Desertso colorful.

the only place from which the PaintedDesert may be visited. But it is the mostaccessible, as well as being a likelyjump-off point for backpacking or horse-back tr ips in this primit ive wilderness.Nine overlooks spotted along five milesof park road give views of the desert.

In its entirety, Painted Desert is ofvery respectable extent, being roughly150 miles in length while ranging fromabout 10 to 30 miles in wid th . It is situat-ed along the right banks of the Puercoand the Little Colorado Rivers, from alittle east of the park to the region south-east of the Grand Canyon of the Colora-do . The fractional tract of Painted Desert some 67 square milesthat is enclos-ed by the p ark's boundaries has been de-signated by Washington, D.C., as awilderness area. It contains the 'BlackForest," an impressive deposit of petr i-fied trees, some of which are truly blackas carbon.

The desert is not a single continuousswath. Through the forces of erosion ithas been carved from the mile-high pla-18 Des ert/August 1978

. , : : , :


19/48

#

teaus of Arizona into a series of basins;separating the basins are corridors ofshort-grass plain, on which sheep andcows graze and dirt roads straggle.Seeps and intermittent springs occasion-ally burst forth in the basins. Theirtrickles give life to tiny oases, whichnourish small herds of deer and antelopeand the ubiquitous hares, coyotes andravens . There are a lmost sure ly amanada or two of wild horses, thoughthe Hopi and Navajo, on whose reservesthe greater part of the desert lies, are nottell ing . The godfatherly Bureau of IndianAffairs has meager sympathy for thecasual tolerance of native Americans to-wards grass-eating wildlife. Counter-product ive.

Around the turn of the century, out-lawsmost of them stock rust lers-found temporary haven in the desert 'sbadlands. Solitude and the lack of pot-able water generally evicted those thesheriffs and Indian police could not. Inthe 1920s and 30s a gang of car rustlerswould spir it away autos in the quiet ofthe night from the mom-and-pop touristcabins on U.S. 66 and cache them wherethey could be str ipped un molested. Partsof Model Ts and As and Nashes molderst i l l in hidden canyons.

Nature's relent less wearing away ofthe Painted Desert (a geologic study ofone site showed it disintegrat ing at thequite awesome rate of a quarter inch ayear, most of it dest ined to wind up inMe x ico 's Sea o f Cor tez ) , does notencourage plants to take roots andflouris h. N either does it encourage habi-tat ion by man. Not in this age, certainly,although in the bygone t imes of sturdyfoot travelers, the Anas azi, those ancientones, bu ilt rudim entary homes here fromsandstone blocks and chunks of petrifiedwood, and pecked out mysterious petro-glyphs on the rocks in the lulls betweencorn plant ing and rabbit hunts.

So the Painted De sert remains verymuch as it was when the early Indians,and later the Spanish soldiers, first sawit not for any p erma nent use, but fas-cinat ing, and painted l ike a trollop whosedesolation remains to be discovered.Halchiitah, "amidst the colors, " is thename the Navajo have given this wilder-ness, and it is revered as part of their an-cestral homeland. The whites haven'tfound any better use for it yet.

The Painted Desert remains A merica'swilderness by the interstate. Desert/August 1978

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CAC TUS COOK BOOK com piled by Joyce L.Tate. An excellent selection of recipes thatemphasize their edible or potable qualities.Also includes chapter on Food Preservation.Paperback, 127 pages, $2.00.SOURDOUGH COOKBOOK by Don andMyrtle Holm. How to make a sourdoughstarter, and many dozens of sourdough re-cipes. Paperback, 136 pages, illus., $4.95.CITRUS COOK BOOK by Glenda McGill is.An unusual and outstanding treasury ofcitrus cookery. Includes tips on freezing,juicing and shipping. Paperback, spiralbound, $2.00.CALIFORNIA COOK BOOK by Al and Mil-dred Fischer. Recipes divided into "EarlyCalifornia," "California Fruits," "CaliforniaProducts," "Sea Foods" and "Wine Cook-i ng . " 400 more unique collections by theFischers. Paperback, 142 pages, $3.00.

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20/48

M e s a V e r d eD r a m a t i c

L n kt o t h eP a s t

S O U T H W E S T E R N C O L O R A D O I Shome of the f inest prehistoric Indiandwell ings in North America. And theAnasazi (people who went before) are re-sponsible, with archaeological f indingsextending their culture farther and far-ther into the arid deserts of south-20

western United States.According to Ute Indian legend, these

people were once animals l iving withinthe bowels of the earth, assuminghuman form after cl imbing to the upperworld on a giant cornstalk. They f lour-ished.for better than 1,000 years, devel-

oping a civi l izat ion which blossomedduring Europe's Dark Ages. Without ex-periencing a gradual decline their cul-ture disappeared, leaving many ques-tions unanswered. Not even Indians firstcontacted by whites could explain theirleaving. Cliff houses, their last spectacu-lar homes, lay empty when Spain'sCoronado explored the four-corner areaand their descendants perhaps are scat-t e red t h roughou t A r i zona and NewMexico.

Clothed with pinon, juniper and thickvegetat ion, the high plateau was f irstcalled Mesa Verde by early Spaniards.Rising abruptly 2,000 feet from the floorof Montezuma Valley in the north, itslopes south to ' an expanse of bluffs1,000 feet high, cut by steep and almostparallel canyons. From a distance the f if -t een -by -e igh t -m i l e m esa l ooks l eve l ,with ravines and sheer-walled gorgesgoing unnoticed.

Early occupants of the area were prim-it ive Mongoloid hunters who had follow-ed the sun across the Asiatic landbridge, drif t ing down from northwesternCanada about 10,000 years ago. Cultural

Desert /August 1978


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available. These peaceful habits, per-haps, were instrumental in their dow nfalas warlike tribes drif ted down from thenorth during the 12th century. To theNavajo, Anasazi meant "the old ones"and when visit ing New Mexico and Ari-zona towns of Acoma, Zuni and othersthe hardy Indian culture from w hich theycame is still visible.

While natives were farmers living incaves on the mesa top and canyon floortheir culture also featured an excellentype weaving, using turkey feathers as abase. In the following centuries architectural improvements were made, f iredpottery developed, bows and arrowsawls, nets for hunting and tools for t i l ling the soil came in to existence . P eoplecongregating in larger communit ies outside the caves, built pit houses partiallyabove and below ground. Neverthelesthrough the centuries it was the old culture developing, not a new people takingover.

The Pueblo Period from 750 to 110A . D . was a time of prosperity when morattention was paid to farm ing. Came wastill hunted, wild seeds gathered anstored but emphasis rested on tilling thesoil and beans were added to the crop lisof corn, cotton and squash. During th

progress was slow for several thousandyears and the Anasazi cycle, as we knowit , began at the time of Christ when agroup known as the Basket Weavers set-tled in shallow caves on the canyons'floor. They eked out a livelihood huntingthe mesa's smaller game and peak de-velopement was reached in Colorado,Utah, New Mexico and Arizona betweenthe 11th and 13th centu ries. Because of adifference in head shape, an early theoryclaimed two tribes responsible for cultur-al advances over the centuries. But an-thropologists now maintain use of cradleboards, merely a fad in later centuries,caused the flattened heads.

Being a quiet, peace-loving people, re-maining calm when differences arose intheir society, progress was accomplishedthrough group action. A democratic exis-tence was instituted when an exchangeof ideas was permitted in both religiousand social life. And by this characteris-t ic, they're considered the f irst democra-t ic government in North America. Spe-cific weapons for war were never madeand if attacked, the ancient Anasazi de-fended themselves with whatever meansDesert /August 1978

/Above: Nestled inthe caves of MesaVerde, cliff houseconstruction offeredthe full range ofAnasazi architec-ture. This was theClassic Age andthese citadels grewout of the basketweaver culture 1,000years before. Right:Members of the1874 exploratory ex-pedition descendinginto Mancos canyon.Photos courtesy ofthe State HistoricalSociety of Colorado.

21


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"HE (U.WMS D'O HflVf TROUBLE WITH H'S SPOILING?

latter half ofthis period the huge pueblodwell ings atop the mesa, inMancos andChaco Canyons were built. They weremassive structures with multiple dwell-ings attached on the same or additionallevels and could be called North Ameri-ca's f irst apartment houses. Mesa Verdebecame densely populated andoccupantswere content to remain inhuge commun-ity-housing and worship in magnificentunderground kivas. Butprosperity at-tracted northern warl ike tr ibes.

Later, perhaps for security reasons,the Anasazi retreated tocaves betweenthe floor and rim of canyons, construct-ing fortress-l ike structures known todayas cl i ff dw ell ings. Huge sandstone slabs,taken from themesa topand pueblos,were lowered over cliffs andused asbuilding material. This final period ofAnasazi culture, known as the Golden orClassic Age, commenced in mid-12thcentury. Their beehive apartments werea maze of hundreds of units under oneroof. Largest and best known ofthese isthe Cliff House with itseight levels andcorner rectangular tower reaching fromthe ground through the eighth floor. Bythis t ime masonry had been so perfectedthat this unusual structure contained theful l circle of Anasazi architecture. Andtoday, after seven centuries ofabandon-ment, it shows surprisingly few signs ofdeterioration.

For decades Spanish under Coronado,de Onate and de Niza roamed the South-west, leaving no account of having seenthe mesa or tsru ins. Inthe year ofourindependence, Padre Escalante, view ingthe mesa from adistance but fa i l ing toclimb tothe top, gave it today's name.And not for years after United Stateswrested the region from Mexican controlwas an attempt made at exploration.Nearly a century fol lowing Escalante, anAm erican archeological expedition found+he ruins inMancos Canyon butMesaVerde's magnificent cl i ff houses wentunnoticed. Itremained for two cowboys,hunting strays in ablizzard in 1888, o bethe first known white men towonder atthe majesty of the wor ld 's now famousCliff House.

Life forthe Anasazi was a continualstruggle forwater and int ramp ingthemesa top and canyon floors one still seestheir efforts to trap rain and hold the pre-cious soil. Wi th a imited supply ofboth,these prehistor ic farmers were expertatnursing crops to matur i ty . Men were

22 Deser t /August 1978


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farmers, hunters, weavers and perform-ed religious r ituals while women weremillers, bakers, potters and assistedwith building construct ion. The modernAnasazi refer to their "m othe r 's house"and " fa ther 's f i e l d , " a throwback to theold belief one owns the place where he orshe spends most t ime.

Much remains unknown o f theseancient people and reconstruction oftheir history is possible only through amethod devised by Dr. E. A. Douglas, ascientist at the University of Arizona.His "calendar t ree" technique, measur-ing t ime by tree r ings of t imbers takenfrom pueblo and clif f house cons truct ion,made possible dating dif ferent periods oftheir developm ent. A nd it 's also a key indetermining the reason for leaving theirmesa home. On achieving the highestdegree of advancement they had walkedaway from 1,000 years of culture. Why?Earlier theories claimed these ancientIndians had, in some way, become ex-t inct. But examination of their bonestructure proves it so closely resemblesthat of present day southwestern Indiansthat the claim of a lost super race isdispelled.

Then, what was the reason for theirdeparture? Several theories exist but inthe end perhaps it was a combination ofmany. Nevertheless one thing is certain.During the last 25 yeas of the 13thcentury this area suffered a severe,prolonged drought. Cotton, corn andbeans withered, wild seeds and berries

shrank and dr in k in g wa ter becamescarce. Since the mesa's population ex-ceeded 70,000, starvation became a starkpossibil i ty. Perhaps a slow migrat ionwas taking place before the drought andaccelerated during those last 25 years.

There are several indications theselast decades were troubled times. Pres-sures from warlike nomadic tr ibes andunfriendly neighbors were growing anddefensive positions of many dwellingssuggest a strife of a sort. Evidence as tothe identity of these marauders is scantbut they 're b elieved to be forebearers ofUtes, Navajos, Apaches and Kiowas whoremain hosti le toward today's pueblopeople. Perhaps this i l l feeling was oflocal origin, clan against clan or clanunits against large cities, but there's nosign of a siege. Was there an epidemic?Again, proof is lacking but characteris-tics and habits of modern Anasazi indi-cate they wouldn't abandon their homesDesert /August 1978

Cliff Pa lace, gem of the Anasazi culture, is 100 feet high and 300 feet long. It con-tained 200 bed and storage rooms, 22 kivas [religious ceremon ial roo ms] andcooking was done on the outside. P hoto courtesy Colorado State Historical Society.for this reason. Others suggest an undo-ing not only from d rought b ut from sand.Ma terial e roding from soft sandstone in-struments used in grinding, found itsway into the diet causing bad teeth, gas-tric disorders and severe rheumatism at-tacks. An examination of mummif ied re-mains shows signs of suffering fromthese modern inf irmit ies. Those holdingthis theory believe mesa residents suf-fered constant ill health after reaching30.

Regardless of reasons, the "ancientones" dispersed from their "greentable," sett l ing in an arc stretching fromthe upper Rio Grande south to the Zuniregion in west central New Mexico. A

group also established a village clustenear the present day Hopi reservation innorthern Arizona. In their new homesMesa Verde's once great people nevereached their former grandeur. Whatever reason they had for leaving, theicultural life failed to recoup from assaults experienced at their former homeand farming Indians never moved inafter "the ancient ones" moved out. Intheir religious world all magical thingswent by fours and perhaps they believedevil spritis had entered their countryforcing out the good. With victory of eviattack of powerful enemies, rivers goingdry and crops turning to dust, it was timefor them to move on .

2


24/48

of Palm Desert, California.

by BILL JENNINGSOTORISTS BOUND in mid-summer

y for the seductive, air-conditionedpleasures of Palm Springs or the

fishing eden of Salton Sea rush r ight byhistor ic Pinyon Flats on California StateHigh wa y 74, the Palms-to-Pines route,without realizing they are bisecting anhistor ic benchland that has served in re-cent decades as the desert's cooling-offspot.

It 's probably just as wel l , because therelatively late-arr ival denizens of what isnow called Pinyon Pines rel ish their pr i-vacy. So much so, that they complainedcollectively a year or so ago when theR ive r s i d e Co u n ty Ro ad De p a r tme n tpaved their pr inc ipal streets. They l ikedthe old winding dir t lanes that took de-tours to avoid ancient pinyon pines orparticular ly large granite rocks.

Pinyon (we 'l l use the Anglo spell ing ofthis f ine old Spanish word meaning l i tt lepines) hasn't been a retirement vi l lagevery long. It became one about 20 yearsago when many of its erstwhile seasonalresidents from the Coachella Valley be-gan to retire and convert their seasonalhomes into permanent residences. Atabout the same time , Pinyon was discov-ered by many o ther people and its emer-

gence as a year-round community wasassured.

Now, the community has a commonmeeting place and purpose in the form ofa volunteer f ire department and a new,$50,000 state and county fire stationinstalled two years ago.

In the years immediately before andafter World War II, Pinyon drew its sum-mer population from the hot desert val-ley below because it was the first flatplace high enough (4,000 feet) to offermuch relief from the summer heat andalso had room for cabin sites. It is anoasis of cooling green, pinyon pines,scrub oak and juniper, blessed with aspotty water supply adequate for domes-tic use in all but the most seriousdrought years.

Long before the summer rush, PinyonFlat was known p rima ri ly as cattle rangeand mineral prospecting terr i tory, toabout the end of the Civi l War. The firstusers were members of the Arnaiz fa mily ,mountain pioneers, and their descen-dants, J im W el lman and h is fam i ly, st i l lrun range-wild cattle there.

Alon g w ith the cattle graz ing signsof which are found mainly on the slopesof Asbestos Mo unta in at the north end of

the Flats the re was sporadic prospect-ing and some actual mining. This hascontinued as recently as World War II,witness the open pit dolomite mine justsouth of the Sugar Loaf Cafe and storeand the fire station on State Highway 74Several asbestos claims are still on thebooks of the U S. Bureau of Land Ma n-agement (BLM), federal custodians of

Desert/August 1978


25/48

the mining laws.The late Elmer Dunn, a longtime

spokesman for the Western MiningCouncil in its running batt le with theBLM and the National Park Service overclosure of mining sites in the JoshuaTree National Monument, was a PinyonFlats asbestos miner, with several claimsand an old cabin remaining as evidence

of his long tenure. Dunn died about 25years ago and his cabin more recentlywas refurbished as a pleasant year-round residence.

The U.S. Forest Service recently mod-ernized its 29-space Pinyon Flats Camp-ground, which remains in the primit ivestatus but has toilets, running water,tables and charcoal stoves. The water is

exce l len t . The camp is a t t rac t ive lyframed by the finest pinyon pine forestin Southern California so the view aloneis worth any inconvenience.

The campground is part of the SanJacinto Mountains District oi the SanBernardino National Forest and sometimes may be full in mid-summer. A callto the Idyl Iwi Id ranger station is in order

Desert/August 1978


26/48

before you make the long trip up scenicbut winding Highway 74, known locallyas the Palms-to-Pines High way . If Pin-yon is fu l l , there are county camps atIdyllwild and Lake Hemet, 25 and 20mi les to the nor thwest . There a resmaller federal sites further up SantaRosa and Toro peaks, which are reachedby Forest Service Route 7S02, the high-est public road in Riverside County.

Roadside camping is not allowed any-where ih the forest, part ially due toperennial summer f ire problems, mademuch more restrict ive this summer dueto heavy winter rains. Near record-leveldownpours helped spur the heaviestchaparral growth in local history andended a record drought that had plaguedthe high country since World War II.

The 15-mile road up Santa Rosa, fromState Highway 74 five miles west of Pin-yon Flat, is a spring-busting dirt trackmuch of the time, except right after theForest Service grader passes througheach spring . By late summ er, the narrowroad usually disintegrates into a semi-passable rocky t ra i l . Heavy campers andtravel trailers are definitely not recom-mended. This road also is the access toan isolated section (640 acres) of theSanta Rosa Indian Reservation, off-limitsexcept to hikers and service trucks forthe several communications f irms thatAn old [circa 1910] photo of Lake Hem etin the San Jacinto Mou ntains. This bigreservoir o n the south fork of the Sanjacinto River provides irrigation waterfor several thousand acres of farmland inthe San Jacinto V alley, near H eme t.26 De se rt/ August 1978

have antennae for radio and television onthe 8,716-foot summit.

Toro's view is worth the short hikefrom the cable-lock gate near VirginSpring. To the south, you see well intonorthern Baja California, Mexico; to thewest, San Diego Bay, the Coronado Is-lands on a clear day, and to the east, thelower Colorado River Valley near Yuma.Only to the northwest is the view obscur-ed by the 10,805-foot bulk of n eighb oringM t . San Jac in to , h ighes t po in t inRiverside County.

Camping on Santa Rosa is difficult.There are only three official sites at theForest Service's little Santa Rosa Spring

Pinyon Flat camp grounds, maintainedby the U .S. Forest S ervice, offers a coohaven for desert residents at 4000-fooelevation in the Santa Rosa MountainsCampgrounds, four miles back down throad from Toro. Othe r sites at Stump anCedar Springs are for picnicking and fa lseasonal use by hunters.

The historic area north of Pinyon Flatis accessible by several rocky Forest Sevice truck trails and the improved PalmCanyon Road, which reaches a lockegate at the entrance to Palm SpringAtajo, a private enclave three milenorth of State 74. All of these are welmarked and detailed on the San Jacintdistrict maps available fr o m jh e ForeService.

One spur reaches both the old Asbestos Spring, f lowing f it fully with goowater last spring, and the partialruined Arnaiz catt le holding corral. Fisand game biologists have added a wi ldlife water tank near the old cattle watetrough at the spring and it's a good placto spot deer and other game animals

There's no trace of the old line shacthat used to hide in the pinyons near thspring but the w riter found a few boardand bolts from an old spring wagon therseveral months ago.

Asbestos wasn't the only somewhaexotic mineral sought in the Pinyon areaalthough gold glory holes were the moscommon activity. The dolomite minsouth of Route 74 has been active off an

:gi"


27/48

on for many years, the most recent spurtresult ing from a demand for the crushedwhite marble as roofing rock. The oldmine is at the trailh ead of the Forest Ser-vice's most remote foot and horsebacktour of the Santa Rosas, the CactusSprings Tra i l , 5E01. It offers a rigorousalternative route from the San Jacinto-Santa Rosa range to the Salton Sea byway of Martinez or Agua Alta canyons,two of the most rugged gorges on theeast side of the range. In mid-summer,however, the hiker or horseman is urgedto stop before passing either Cactus orAgua Alta springs, f ive and nine milesfrom the highway, respectively.

For one thing, neither spring is a re-liable summer water source, althoughboth produced canteen-sized flows ear-lier this wet year. Summer hiking is notrecommended in the arid Santa Rosasdue to high temperatures, dubious watersupply and lack of trail maintenance. Inthe neighboring San Jacintos, hikers andhorsemen don't have these problems,but they will need trail reservations touse the wilderness areas of both thenational forest and the adjoining statepark.

The lure of Pinyon Flat isn't restrictedto hikers and horsemen. Num erous high-crown dirt roads offer diversion to thecareful driver but recent off-road vehiclerestrictions adopted by the Forest Ser-vice apply to the Cactus Spring area.Motorcyclists hastened the restrict ions

DexterMayne,

longtimeSan JacintoMountains

miner,empties his

sample sackoutside his

Hemet Bellemine highabove Garner

Valley,which is in

thebackground.

Miningformerly

was a majoractivity in

the SanJacinto-Santa Rosaranges.

several years ago when they damaged anIndian village site near the CactusSpring junct ion by doing "wheel ies"over the surface site.

Accommodations other than campsitesare non-existent at Pinyon Flat, althoughmotels are available at Idyllwild, in thenearby Coachella Valley and in limitedsupply at the village of Anza, 15 miles tothe west on State Highway 371.

The most attractive alternative camp-ing areas near Pinyon Flat are at LakeHemet, in the Garner Valley about 15miles northwest. Here the county andLake Hemet Municipal Water Districtoperate high-class trailer and camperareasbut again, demand often exceedsspace available so advance reservationsare necessary. The district has an officeat the lake and the nearby Herkey CreekCounty Park also is staffed fulltime.There is a store and gas station adjoinin gthe lake.

There are overflow Forest Servicecampgrounds on nearby Thomas Moun-tain with lovely vistas of white fir andpine stands. Water, however, must bebrought by the camper during summer.Open fires are prohibited here also dueto the chronic fire danger.

Whatever attractions bring the visitorto P inyon F la ts and env i rons, thedesert 's summer home, visitors areurged to confine their picnicking andcamping to public facil it ies. Much of theland is private and by law doesn't haveto be posted as such.

The greatest worry to residents andpark-forest officials alike, is fire. Severalmajor blazes have occurred in recentyears and in the semi-desert environ-ment of Pinyon Flat, regrowth is slow.Be a welcome and appreciative summervisitor in the desert's high countryneighbor, but watch those smokes andmatches!

Desert/ August 1978 27


28/48

M ADE UP of a motley crew of loud-mouthed crows, jays and magpies,the Corvidae family is not known forshy and retiring ways. In fact, these arevery brash and noisy fellows, bright ofeye, alert, and no bird-brains when itcomes to knowing how to make the mostof their circumstances. Take the pinonjays, for example, who prosper in theface of uncertain food supplies and amost unpredictable and variable envi-ronment.

Maybe the pinon jays got off to a goodstart by being not exactly jays and notexactly crows, the end result somethingperhaps more efficient than either. Dullblue in color, they have the jay trap-pings, but they are shaped more likecrows with their shorter tails, and whenon the ground the adults tramp aboutwith crow-like decorum, never with thenervous hopping of jays. Behavior-wise,they have adopted some of the social pat-terns of Old and New World Corvids andNew World jays and what emerges fromthis combination is a bird society bothcomplex and highly advantageous to thepin jay clan.

Its members rejoice in a variety ofnames. Their scientific handle is gym-norhinus cyanocephalus (naked nose-blue head) referring to their featherlessnostrils and to the ir head which is darkerblue than their overall blue coloring.They are known as Maximilian's Jayafter the fellow who f irs t brought them toscientif ic attention, and further as bluecrows, which is getting pretty close.Finally, they are called pinon jays for thevery sound reason that they hang aroundin flocks where pinon pines grow. In fact,this tree is virtually the cornerstone intheir social set-up. So close is the ir rela-tionship with the pinon that the scarcityor abundance of its seed crop determineswhere these jays are going to be. Yearsof poor seed production in their homearea sets them to wandering, perhapsending up many hundreds of miles awayin places where they may never havebeen seen be fore.

The pinon jays have taken the crowtribe's flock idea and built it into some-thing magnificent. A flock of 25-125 ofthese jays is not unusual, time was when1000 wou ld be the num ber. A closely knitunit, the pinon jay flock is maintainedthe year around, the birds foraging to-gether, roosting together and in the pro-per season, raising their young together

28

The Pirnin colonial style nesting.Headquartered in the pinon-ponderosabelts of the m ountains and down onto thepinon belts of the desert ranges, eachflock has its home range. Within this,there may be a definite area traditionallydevoted to nesting , as Zoologists RussellBalda and Gary Bateman found in theirhighly valuable studies of the jays resid-ing near Flagstaff, Arizona.

The flock is actually the largest in thenon-reproductive parts of the year. Inth e fa l l , for instance, it is made up ofadults in their rich blue, yearlings look-ing like them but still learning the ropes,and youngsters in their grayish juveniledress beginning to get their adult color-ing. And, if the flock is composed of acouple of hundred birds, there are 200big mouths going most of the time, forlet it be said that of all the noisy Corvi-dae fam ily, the pinon jays hold first placefor clamor. A flock of these birds justconducting their normal affairs can beheard for miles.A day in a pinon jay flock in the non-productive season goes something liketh is : come daylight, there's a st irr ing inthe trees where the flock has roosted en-masse, and then a sudden featheredexplosion as the birds leave the trees.Form ing into a flock quick ly, they streakoff towards the feeding grounds in theircharacterist ic f l igh t pattern a roll ingmass of strong flying birds, every jay" k r a w w i n g " and each apparently tryingto out-squall the next fellow in creatingdin and clamor.

Reaching the foraging grounds, theyswoop down and light, jostlin g, crowdingyammering, some late comers perhapseven landing on the backs of those al-ready on the ground. Yet, with only anindignant squawk or two, the birds sortthemselves out without conflict. Highlytolerant, they feed communal style, theirranks moving steadily forward and, asthe birds march along feeding, some inthe far rear may sail forward to landahead of those in front.

While the flock feeds, some four to

twelve sentries are on the job, posted ohigh vantage points. They sit silentlwatchful . One spots a fox! He lets looswi th loud and raucous krawws owarning and the whole f lock takes winup into the trees. The sentry now pinpoints the trouble by flying 10-15 feeabove the fox calling loudly, squalling. Adozen or so other jays join him at onceFlying around the intruder, they creatsuch a clamor th at the fox at last streakaway. More vocal work by the sentry anhis allies apparently indicating all iclear, and the flock settles down oncmore to its feeding.

Mu ch of the day dur ing the non-reproductive season is spent flying about thhome range and feeding, the last intensive foraging period taking place in thearly evening. Bedtim e, the birds streamoff to their roosting areas, calling loudlas they land in the trees and scramblamong the branches . The noise begins ttaper off as they settle into roostinclumps of two to five birds, and by thtime night's curtain is down on the jaboudoir, every big mouth is finally shuup . Next A.M., i t 's up with the dawntime for clamor and a big communabreakfast.

These jays have a passion for storingroceries. Come pinon seed harvest ime, the flock is hard at it most of thday. G athering seeds takes a lot of enegy, and must be done in a relativelshort period in hot competition witother birds and squirrels. The jays havto be sure of a good supply, for it is thespinon seeds that will not only feed thflock during the winter, but will also determine the success of the upcominbreeding season.

The jay whacks and beats the coneopen, extracts the seeds and partiallswallows them. Holding them in itthroat until a load is gathered, it flies tthe flock's cache site, located very closto the area in the home range whercommuna l nest ing w i l l take p laceLanding on the ground, usually on thsouth side of trees where the winte

Dese rt/August 197


29/48

by K. L. BOYNTON1978

snows will be lightest and first to melt inthe spring, the bird carefully clears aspot. The n, fl ickin g its head it brings theseeds up into its bill and pushes theminto the grou nd. N ext comes the cover upjob, needles, grass, debris added forcamouflage. Then it's off on a speedywing for another shipment.

The crux of the whole thin g, naturally,is that only good seeds should be stored,it being a big waste of t ime to bu ry badones no good to eat. Now, not all seedsin a cone are good, yet zoologists whohighjacked loads from working jaysfound there wasn't a bad seed in thecargo. How do the birds tell the goodones?

. Zoologists David Ligon and DennisM ar t i n , carefully examining pinon seedsfound a big difference in color. The goodones were dark brown on one side, light-er on the other with dark spots, while thebad seeds were consistently lightercolor. Weight wise, the good seeds weremuch heavier.

Working with adult captive birds, theyoffered various combinations of goodand bad seeds and found that the birds,eyeing them, picked the good ones, ob-viously judging by their looks. So thezoologists changed the color by roasting

The pinyon jay.San Diego Zoo photo.


30/48

C o l o r a d oR i v e rG h o s t T o w n sBy Stanley W . Paher

The skeletal rem ains of abandoned m inesand towns in the Cerbat Mountains andother barren ranges in western Arizonaalong the Colorado River are visi ted bythe author. Lavishly illustrated with rareo l d p h o t o s . L a r g e f o r m a t . S t a n d a r dedit ion is $2.95.B e a u t i f u l 9 1 / i x 1 2 % h a r d c o v e r e d i t i o ncontains 15 four-color reproductions ofetchings by noted Roy Purcell. $9.95

Limited autographed Co l lector 's Edit ionincludes (in addition to the 15 reproduc-tions) a numbe red and signed o riginaletching by Roy Purcel l . This vo lume ishard bound and inserted in a handsom e,gold-em bossed sl ip jacket . $60.00.Please add 50c for postage /handl ing

C alif , residents please add 6%s tate sales taxOrder fromMagazine Book Shop

P.O. Box 1318, Palm Dese rt , Cal i fornia 92260

all the seeds. This didn't throw thebirds, for they ca lled up test #2: the goodold m anible click wherein the bird opensand closes its bill over the seed severalt imes m aking a clicking sound. Some au-ditory cue then helps in making a correctselection when color isn't reliable.

In further tests with jazzed-up seeds,the birds showed they also use weigh t asa cue. Puzzled by appearance and inde-finite clicks, they pick up a seed andeither keep it or put it down promptly,the heavier ones being retained in eachcase. Not about to give up, Ligon andMartin dril led holes in bad seeds,weighting them with shot. This causedplenty of confusion at f irst, but ult imate-ly the tested birds learned to distinguishthe weighted bad seeds from the heavygood ones and reject them. All but onebird which never did get the differencethrough its head. Quick recognition ofgood seeds nets the individual a goodmeal when the flock is shoving alongeating together. It is essential, too, atseed harvest if big stores are to be col-lected.

What with their grocery problem solv-ed by storage and since the pinon jaysquite sensibly pair for life and thus avoidthe t ime consum ing business of findin g amate each year, a good portion of theflock is ready to start the social seasonearly. Along about December or earlyJanuary t hen, the pairs begin feeding alittle distance from the main flock and toexhibit the very best Pinon Jay CourtingEtiquette, a display of social manners soelegant that they must have been devis-ed by some feathered Emily Post in thelong dim past.

To mention but a few: the re's the Sidl-ing Shashay where the pair, feathersf luf fed, sits on a branch and sidles back

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30

and forth towards each other vocalizingsoft ly. And the Swagger Walk, a kind offeathered cakewalk on the ground, thebirds strutting along side by side, bodieserect, tail and wings vibrating, headsmoving back and forth in time to somebeat heard only by them. M ost importantthere's the Courtship Feeding with thegent prese nting choice seeds to the ladyBeing a great hand to look forward, healso finds jus t the righ t stick for nest con-struction and offers it to her after theseed present. Old and experienced nesbuilder she might be , but this early she'snot about to catch on. The seed presentsare gobbled up at once. But the stick.What ' s that for?

It may take a couple of weeks of seedstuffing and rejected sticks before thegent can entice the lady up into a likelytree where he places a stick in a goodnest location, hastily rams another seedin her b i l l , and while she is regarding thestick with faint interest, rushes off to gemore seeds for her. Finally, after manyanother day of seed presentation andstick manipulation, the gent may be sitting dejectedly on a branch about readyto give up on getting the messageacross, when the lady suddenly decidesIT'S ABOUT TIME TO BUILD A NESTAnd why doesn't he start bringing thebuilding supplies?

He's galvanized into action. Togethethey pick just the right tree crotch. Hebegins hauling in sticks for the strongoutside platform of the nest, all the timeforaging the seeds to keep the lady fedup and interested. They work on the nestogether, the gent doing most of theheavy outside work, the lady makingmost of the inner cup of shredded andwoven grasses and finding insulationmaterial for the layer that goes in between. It takes about seven days tocomplete the job if all goes wel l . However, since the flock's breeding pairs areall building at the same time, a lot oswiping of nest material takes place, prec ip i t a t i n g ch a se s a n d w in g - f l a p p in grows, the only really aggressive behavioof the whole yearly cycle. One pair wasdelayed 10 days by constant pilfering.

Now all the seed stuff ing durin g ritua lized courtship pays off. The female isprepared for the energy depleting worof egg production, incubation and broodi n g . The male continues to feed her during the entire t im e, furnis hing at least 8percent of her daily intake. And where

Desert /August 1978


31/48

do the seeds come from that he lugs tohe r for 15 minutes every hour? From thestored caches hidden away during theharvest. She's on the nest 99 percent ofthe t ime after the naked slate-coloredchicks arrive , for theweather isst i l l cold,perhaps snowy, and now the male mustbring food for the hungry newcomers aswel l .

The f i rs t 15 days the parents alonefeed their youngsters, butdur ing the lastfour to f ive days of the chicks' nest lifethey get help from some of the non-breeding birds in the f lock. There maybe seven adults w orking a nest until theyoungsters are f inal ly out. Poor flierseven though now ful ly feathered, thel i t t le birds sit about hidden in the fol iageand guarded bysentries. They are fed bycommunal efforts of the f lock. Incomingadults land on the branches and arecrowded backward by the eager yam-m e r i n g o p e n - m o u t h e d y o u n g , w h i l eshoving in seeds and, hopefully, insectsby this t ime. Communal feeding stopswhen the chicks are out of the nest some20 days, and the parents continue tohandle the job alone for the ensuing 10,at the end of which the youngsters canfeed themselves w ith a l i t t le help. But bymid-August all handouts cease abruptlyand anyyoungster begging from then ongets the old hunched-up-bil l-pointed-lunge BE OFF! t reatment from the erst-whi le dot ing parent .

The breeding cycle over, the f lockcomes together once again with the re-sultant increased daily clamor. Now tothe human ear, all this vocalization isjust one big racket. Zoologists L. R. Ber-ge r and J. D. Ligon, however, workingw i t h soph is t i ca t ed sound ana l yz ingequipment, found that indeed the jayshave some 15 dif ferent calls with muchgradiat ion within and between them.Studying the behavior of the birds ancnoting which calls they used under spe-cif ic circumstances, they concluded bygolly it's just not " jus t no ise . " Maybethese highly social jays have a system oicommunication perhaps as complex ancdif f icul t for scientists to fully understancas that of some of the higher primates

Certainly the jays, with the help of thepinon tree , have learned to exploit somevery chancy environmental condit ionswith th eir year around f lock maintenanceand colonial nest ing, and within thisvocal commun ication is bound to play big part.Desert/ August 1978

P R E S E N T I N G T H E T W E L F T H S E A S O N OF . . .

A S PE C T A C U L A R S O U N D A N D L I G H T P R O D U C T IO NT H A T R IV A L S F A M O U S E U R O P E A N S H O W SOur season is Easter Sunday through October

Canyonlands By Nightis a unique two-hour cruise on the Colo-rado River at dusk, as twilight fades intonight.Along the way, a start ling variety of light-ing effects bring to life the darkened redrock cliffs of the Colorado River gorgeduring an inspiring program dramatizingsouth-eastern Utah's unusual natural andhuman history.Canyonlands By NightCruises leave our dock at the highwaybridge

197808 desert magazine 1978 august

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