197802 Desert Magazine 1978 February

8/14/2019 197802 Desert Magazine 1978 February

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FEBRUARY 1978 S1.00


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C o m evisitus. . .PALM SPRINGS

A GREATSELECTIONOF BOOKSON TH E W EST

M A G A Z I N EBOOK SHOP74 425 HWY 111

I NDI O

STORE HOUR S:MONDAY THRU FRIDAY10:00-4:00SATURDAY, 10:00-3:00

W ESTERN ARTNOTES PRINTS

MAPS GOLD PANSG R E E T I N G C A R DS

A N DA LARGE

ASSO RTM ENT O FC U R R E N T A N D

OLD BACK ISSUES

MAGAZINE BOOK SHOP74-425 Highway 111 at Dee p Canyo n Road Palm De s e rt , C ali fornia


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WILLIAM and JOY KNYVETTCo-Publishers/ EditorsGEORGE BRAGA, Art DirectorSHARLENE KNYVETT, Art DepartmentMARY FRANCES STRONG, Field Trip EditorK. L. BOYNTON, NaturalistMARVEL BARRETT, Circulation Manager

Color Separations byHenry Color ServiceLithographed byWolfer Printing Company, Inc.Available in Microfi lm byXerox Universitv Microfilms

DutnLVolume 4 1, Number 2

MAGAZINE

FEBRU ARY 1978

CONTENTSF E A T U R E S

THE COVER:A lonely tributary of PalmCanyon just a few milesfrom the bustle of PalmSprings, California. TheMountain Station of theAerial Tramway is justabove the " e r " or the logo.Photo by George Service,Palm Desert, California.

A WILDERNESS TREK IN THE SANTA ROSA MOU NTAINSSKELETON CAN YO N-S ITE OF HISTORIC SURRENDER

STEPHEN J.HUBBELLJ U L I A N , CALIFORNIA

UTAH SEAGULLS AND THE NEVADA DRY LAND SHRIMPTHE LIVING DESERT RESERVE

MOJ AVE R ATTL ESN AKE "M AL E C OMBAT D AN C E"VALLEY OF LITTLE SMOKES

A VALLEY OF UNLIM ITED RECREATIONRECIPES FOR M 'LA DY

HIDDEN SPRING

812162022254144485456

Jerry SchadLee CoeWestern ArtistHoward NealJohn SouthworthA Bonus SupplementJames K. BradyMary Frances StrongBill JenningsHelen Pe tersonDick Bloomquist

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

NEW BOOKS FOR DESERT READERSBOOKS OF THE WEST

TRADING POSTLETTERS TO THE EDITOR

CALENDAR OF WESTERN EVENTS

46

58606363

William KnyvettBook ReviewsMail Order ItemsClassified ListingsReaders' CommentsClub Activities

EDITORIAL, CIRCULATION AND ADVERTISING OFFICES: 74-425Highway 111, P. 0. Box 1318, Palm Desert, California 92260. TelephoneArea Code 714 346-8144. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: United States and pos-sessions; 1 year, $7.00; 2 years, $13.00; 3 years, $19.00. All other countriesadd $2.00 U. S. currency for each year. See Subscription Order Form inthis issue. Allow five weeks for change of address and send both new andDese rt/Februar 1978

old addresses with zip codes. DESERT Magazine is published monthly.Second class postage paid at Palm Desert, California and at addition^'mailing offices under Act of March 3, 1879. Contents copyrighted 1 ? ^DESERT Magazine and permission to reproduce any or all conl>^be secured in writi ng. Unsolicited manuscripts and photographsreturned unless accompanied by self-addressed, stamped e n v e ^ A


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H e r o ' s B o wY o u C a n O r d e rH i g h Q u a l i t yR E P R I N T S

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The Gold Rush

The Mining Camp

The Mining Town

in thepublisher'syokeThe fol lowing is an important noticefor al l rock col lectors from our Field T rip

Editor, Mary Frances Strong." W e have received a letter from W . R.Brubaker advising he has a claim in the

picture rock area ("Hidden Dunes, Des-ert, November 1977) and does not allowcollecting on said claim.

"When we visited this area i t was notposted. We did not observe any claimmarkers, discovery monument or anysigns of mining activi ty.

"This locale has been a popular col-lecting area since at least 1954. Clubsand individuals have scheduled fieldtrips and detai led maps to the site havebeen published in club bul letins.

"It was certainly not our intent todirect anyone to a private claim. We ad-vise our readers not to trespass withinthe boundaries of the Brubaker Claim.M r. Brubaker has claimed 750 feet northand 750 feet south of a discovery monu-ment; and 300 feet both east and west ofsaid monument.

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The Ghost Town

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Desert/ February 1978


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collectors on his claim , it can be assumedthat markers, as required by law, arenow in place."

This month we again spotl ight South-ern California's Coachella Valley wherethe opportunit ies to enjoy all the greatfeatures of the desert are seeminglyendless.

Bil l Jennings extolls on some of theValley's fantast ic campground and re-creational act ivities a vailable to visitors,and, of a more rugged nature, JerrySchad recalls a 40-mile backpack tripthrough the wilderness area of the SantaRosa Mountains that r im the Valley.

A tremendous bonus is a 16-page sup-plement on The Liv ing D esert Reserve, awonderful development located in PalmDesert that is staffed by dedicatedpeople at every level. If you haven'talready seen the Reserve, you'll want toset aside time for a visit after readingtheir story.

Moving over to Arizona, an unusual"snake dance" was captured on f i lm bya couple traveling in Organ Pipe CactusNational Monument. Ernest Bird told hisstory to James Brady, who gratefullysent it along to Desert Magazine.

Arizona is also the site of Ceronimo'ssurrender in Skeleton Canyon, as de-scribed by Lee Coe.

Other items which we hope you wil lf ind interest ing in this issue include daterecipes by Helen Peterson; another palmoasis is revealed in Dick Bloomquist'spalm oasis series; Mary Frances Strongwaxes about "The Valley of Lit t leSmokes," one of her favorite spots inNevada, and Howard Neal pays tr ibuteto Julian, California in his ghost townseries.

We are proud to welcome Stephen J.Hubbell as our featured Western ARtistthis month, and last, but not least, JohnS ou t hwor t h , i n h i s usua l hum orousmanner, retells the story of the seagullsand the Mormon pioneerswith a l i t t leupdate!

Happy reading and happy tour ing!

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phone (714) 325-1391Des ert/February 1978


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*BooksforTtesertTradersTRAVELS IN THEINTERIOR OFMEXIC OIn Baja California andAround theSea ofCortes, 1825,1826,1827 & 1828ByLt.R. W.H.Hardy, R.N.

This isoneof those previously almostpriceless, and exceedingly rare, booksthat most Mexican travel buffs couldonly glimpse in a collector's glass case,until RioGrande Press came outwith ahandsome reprint this year.

Thanks to the miracles of modernlithography, even theancient type facesand woodcut i l lustrations areascrisp o-day as when the book first appeared in

N E W T I T L E S F O RF A L L / W I N T E R , 1 9 7 7 . . .Dick d'Easum . . . SAWTOOTH TALES . . . paper . . . $6.95

Ralph Friedman . . . TRACKING DOWN OREGON . . . p a p e r . . . $5.95Don andMyrtle Holm . . . BOOK OFFOOD DRYING,PICKLING ANDSMOKE CURING . . . paper . . . $4.95

Gene Plowden . . .SINGING WHEELS ANDCIRCUS WAGONS . . . paper . . . $4.95Sessions S. Wheeler . . . THEBLACK ROCK DESERT . . . paper . . . $4.95Details of these andother t it les in our 1977Color Supplement Cata log.Please write for a copy.

The CAXTON PRINTERS, Ltd.Box 700Caldwell, Idaho 83605

London in 1828.Thepublisher's prefaceoutlines the diff icult ies Rio Grande'sBob McCoy encountered in the technicalreproduction process.

Classic or not, Hardy's account ofearly travel to the Peninsula is valuableas a curiosity. Hisvoyage bysmall boatprecluded anypenetration of the interiorof the spiny barrier between the PacificOcean andGulf of California.

Hardy left his family 's name on hedelta tributary oftheColorado River, RioHardy, butmade noother impression oneither the Baja geography or its writ tenhistory. He came as a trained observerfo r the London-based General Pearl andCoral Fishery Association, with some apparent fluency in Spanish butonly a briefresidence in mainland Mexico.

His professional background, as aRoyal Navy officer and in later days anastronomer, did not prepare him for therugged life of an overland explorer.However, he was a good student ofhuman nature, had a latent talent forpolit ical intrigue and therefore left uswith aunique view ofthe newly-indepen-dent nation of Mexico.

Only an index, thepublisher's prefacean d an all- important scholar's introduc-tion have been added to this 1977edit ion. The in t roduct ion, by David J.Weber of Southern Methodist Univer-sity, places Hardy accurately at the vaof a number of foreign visitors who leftwritten accounts of their impressions ofth e newnat ion.

Hardy was the f i rst of these to tourmuch of Sonora and Baja California andhis impressions are therefore most im-portant to anystudent of northwesternMexican history. Part icularly is this trueof his descriptions of Indian life in heColorado River delta region, where hissmall sail ing craft was beached for several days.His description of the delta, and tsaboriginal inhabitants, provides the f i rstEnglish-language account of this remoteregion, and, indeed, it appears he wathe f irst non-Spanish visitor. Hardy'svivid account of his f irst encounter withthe Colorado's fearsom tidal bore also isconsidered a classic.

A l l in al l, he Hardy book offers bothhistoric and contemporary value to thereader and the handsome reprint isworthy of a spot on anyone's bookshelf.Hardcover, sparsely i l lustrated, withone excellent m ap, 558pages, $20.00.

Desert/February 1978


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C A M P ANDCA M I NOIN LOWER CALIFORNIAExplorat ions andAdventureson the Baja: 1908-1910By Arthur W. North

This handsome newedit ion from RioGrande Press is an old favorite of BajaCalifornia aficionados dressed up withnew il lustrat ions by Michael Mathes,member of the University of San Fran-cisco faculty and director of the historicarchives for the Mexican state of BajaCalifornia Sur.

The combination is rewarding, forNorth's crisp descript ion of a Baja hetoured widely 70 years ago is accom-panied by a handful of historic black andwhite photos. Dr. Mathes ' 72color printscomplement theolder pictures and offera contrast in the rapidly changing prof i leof the long peninsula that was a federalfront ier terr itory during North's toursan d is nowdivided into two autonomousstates.

North has an importance to all Bajabuffs. He was among the f irst NorthAmericans to do more than hit the t radi-t ional towns, Ensenada and La Paz,below the border fleshpots of Mexical iand Ti juana. Heoffers agraphic descrip-t ion of the land and its people; its geo-graphy and wildl i fe that is as viv id in1978 as it was when wr i t ten.

North was aprofessional write r and anamateur naturalistanthropologist, ex-plorer and histor ian. A natural for at ravel wr i ter !

As a result his observations are as val-uable today as when they were gatheredon muleback and coastal boat in 1905and 1906. His experiences also appearedin travel magazines of the day and pro-vided a model of accuracy and colorfuldescript ion for many more famous writ-ers who produced Baja books in more re-cent t imes.

For those adventurers who havedriven the length of Baja California inD e s e r t / F e b r u a r y 1978

Model T Fords and even four-wheel-drive rigs, North's accounts of personaltravel adventures make excit ing fare. Tothose current visitors who f ind the two-lane peninsular highway too narrow fortheir motorhomes, his matter-of-fact de-scriptions and incredible journeys mustbe nearly impossible to believe.

This is one of the book's major valuestoday. It offers thebest, andpossibly thef irst account of travel into the backcorners of Baja that even the modernmotorist can f ind invaluable because heknew where the passes were, where youcould get dependable guides and foodsupplies andeven today this informationis vi ta l , once you get out of sight of themain roads and principal towns.

North's Camp andCamino is the 115thmember of Rio Grande's Classic re-pr ints, a notable contribut ion to the his-tory book shelf of the American South-west. With the addit ion of Mathes ' com-pa ra t i ve pho t og raphs , show ing the" a f t e r " to go wi th Nor th 's "before"black and white pr ints, the book be-comes invaluable.

Hardcover, 130 photos, 346 pages,$20.00.

All books reviewed are availablethrough the Desert Magazine BookShop. Please add 50c per totalorder for handling and Californiaresidents must include 6% statesales tax.

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O NE OF my favorite pastimes duringth e long, hot summer months is tounroll a set of topographic maps onthe living room carpet and plan hikingtrips for the following winter, or to relivepast desert journeys.

A swir ling pa ttern of l ines on the m apsnow before me represents the contoursof eroded, steep-sided slopes and ra-vines in the Santa Rosa Mountains ofSouthern California. Colored shadingsgive some indication of the exceptionalvariety of vegetation types found hereeverything from forest and'scrub at thehighest elevations, to a virtual absenceof gro und cover on the sun-scorched des-ert floor at the base of the range. Broken

blue lines also appear on the maps, pro-viding a good picture of- drainage pat-terns. Signif icantly, symbols represent-ing human habitations or man-madestructures are lacking over most of thearea depicted.

On these maps, I trace an additionaldetail a thin pencil line tha t meandersfrom one end of the Santa Rosa Moun-tains to the otherand recall again thecircumstances associated with that par-t icu lar t r ip .

The summit ridge of the Santa RosaMountains stands high above the desertfloor, seldom penetrated by human andhome of one of the last big herds ofdesert bighorn in the West. Few places

Left: The cairnat Peak "6582."Opposite page: Ahardy pinyon at the4,000-foot elevation.Color photo byGeorge Service,Palm Desert, Calif.

by J E R R Y S C H A Din California adhere to the definit ion ofwilderness more closely. On viewin g thisridge from a distant vantage point aboveBorrego Springs one day, I was struckwith its apparent continuity. I wondered could there be a natural pathway fortravel along the ridge from Toro Peak,the crown of the rang e, to the low-desertsands of the Borrego Badlands some 20air-miles southeast? No guidebook, oreven a detailed map could hope toanswer this question to my satisfaction.Only experience would settle the issue.

Late win ter was the season. On a cold,blustery morning my companion and Icrawled sleepy-eyed from the warm com -fort of our down-fil led bags. Our camp-site in a snow-free patch on the shoulderof Toro Peak allowed us to gaze south-ward over the rugged spine that leadsdeep into Anza-Borrego co untry. No signof the works of man was discernible, ex-cept the checkerboard pattern of irrigat-ed fields in Coachella Valley and BorregoValley, 8,000 feet below us.

My friend would return to the car wehad left parked along Palms-to-PinesHighway the previous afternoon. But forme, a continuous stretch of primit ivewilderness lay ahead, inhabited only byratt lesnakes, coyotes, bighorn and smalldesert rodents. I faced the sun to begin27 miles of trackless, solo hiking alongone of California's most spectacular es-carpments.

I was equipped with the usual back-packing items sleeping bag, high-car-bohydrate foods, f irst-aid and warmclothing plus f ive pounds of cameragear. More importantly, however, twogallons of water were stowed in plasticcontainers in anticipation of lack of avail-able water for the remainder of the hike.

D e s e r t / F e b ru ary 1978


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-* f $


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My immediate destination that morn-ing was the area known by some as AltaSeca Bench (or Flat), about 500 feetbelow. Faint jeep tracks led downthrough the high-elevation mixed forestof pine, f ir and cedar to a gently rol l inglandscape of Jeffrey pine and graniticrock outcroppings. An old Indian t ra i l ,I'm t o ld , descends the steep southwest-ern slope of the bench to the old SantaRosa Village ruins at the head ofRockhouse Canyon. I could find no traceof it, though it is doubtless overgrown onthe upper end.

Manzanita and scrub oak impeded myprogress as I moved southeast along thebench. Out in the open now, only an oc-casional Jeffrey pine dared brave thee lemen ts . Appear i ng ha l f -dead w i thlimbs spread back in a gesture of def i -ance against the prevai l ing survivors atthe extreme l imit of their habitat. At thispoint, the transit ion to the " h i g h " des-ert, devoid of tal l trees, was nearlycomplete.

I looked back at Toro Peak which, inspite of its 8,716-foot elevation, hadshrunk to a modest dimple on the land-scape. Rab bit Peak, a 6,666-foot hogbackrising in the southeast about 10 milesaway, wou ld now serve as an identi f iablemarker for my forward progress alongthe r idge.

Beyond Alta Seca Bench, the water-shed divide drops sharply to a pinyonand juniper biotic community. What wasshown as a mildly undulating ridge l ine(or so I though t) on the topo maps tu rnedout in reality to be uneven terrain infest-ed with brush thickets and punctuatedby gigantic boulders. Sometimes the ap-pearance of a small rock cairn or duck(small stone placed on top of a largerstone) guided me through the rough

spots. Other t imes, considerable back-tracking was required to ferret my waypast obstacles. I discovered that, uponlooking back, hindsight often revealedsome easier path down a hillsidearoute that was otherwise invisible.

As the day warmed up, I beganwhistl ing loudly and thrashing about inthe brush in an effort to alert ratt le-snakes , rea l or imagined, o f mypresence. (It 's not surprising, then, thatI saw l i tt le of any kind of wi ldl i fe thatday.)

Airy vistas, encompassing nearly all ofthe Colorado Desert, unfolded atopevery peak. Equally impressive, how-ever, were the passages across the"troughs" or saddles connecting thehigh points of the ridge. Here, at theheads of two opposing canyons, themountain slopes reach their steepestgradients.

In late afternoon, a high point wasreached about halfway between Toro andRabb i t an un name d peak labe l led" 6 5 8 2 " on the topo. I was astonished todiscover a free-standing, six-foot tallpillar of stones on the summit. Could thisbe a relic of the Indian days, or a morerecent monument? Below the cairn, in ametal band-aid case, was a small note-book placed the re in 1971 a fter thecairn was built according to the firstentry. Four parties had passed this waysince then , including one pair of mis-ad-venturers who had spent two days grop-ing along the ridge from Toro Peak insnow and fog. Their last remark was"Hope we make i t ! "

Before leaving, I added my e quivalentto "Ki l roy was here" in the register. Bythis t ime a gusty northwest wind hadarisen, and clouds of dust kicked up fr omClark Dry Lake could be seen billowing

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hundreds of feet into the air over theBorrego Badlands.Two hours later the wind was batter-ing the ridge-top at velocities approach-

ing 60 miles per hour, and the normallystiff and immovable branches of the pin-yon pine were swaying to and fro accom-panied by a roaring noise. By keeping tothe left (leeward) side of the ridge, I wasable to avoid the worst of the gusts.

The plethora of obstacles facing meboulders, impenetrable patches of man-zanita and scrub oak, and the ubiquitousSpanish daggerwas a deterrent to myexpectations as well as my progress. Myoriginal plan to camp near Rabbit Peakwas abandoned fol lowing a particularlynasty episode where one hour of bould-ering and bushwacking yielded only one-half mile of forward progress. I settled



11/64

instead for a nicely-protected flat spotwell below the r idge top, two and one-half miles short of my goal.

Awakening at 5:30 next morning, mylegs were not quite ready for the taskthat awaited them; nevertheless I washopeful that with anearly start I wouldcomplete the hike in t ime formy rendez-vous with transportat ion in the BorregoBadlands that afternoon. The wind hadceased blowing overnight, and a sky ofpurest azure overhead allayed myfearsof a rain- or snowstorm. Gaining ther idge again bysunrise, I could see thef lat-topped prof i le of Rabbit Peak ahead,an d the tortuous path between.

Two hours later put me on the chil lysummi t . I stood reading through scrawl-ed entries logged in the register. Most

Continued on Page 62Desert/February 1978

View from ToroPeak, lookingnortheast acrossthe CoachellaValley.

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F i r s t P h ase ofOur R e m o d e li ngP r og r am Now C o m p l e t e dTHE DESERT'S

MOST FAMOUS BISTRO346-2314


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S k e l e t o nC a n y o n -H i s t o r i c

S u r r e n d e rby LEE C OEI T A turno ut on Highway 80 that runs06 along the east side of the Chiricahua

4 } M ountains to Douglas, Arizona, is anhistorical marker brief ly describing thesurrender of Ceronimo, legendary Apa-che Chief, to the United States Army.This f inal act in the war against theApaches took place in Skeleton Canyon,a few miles east qf the highway.

We continued south a short distancealong the highway and then turned ontoa graded dirt road that m eandered in thegeneral direction of the Peloncil lo Mou n-ta ins. At the mouth of Skeleton Canyonis a cattle ranch. Three gates farther upthe canyon the road ends. Leaving thecar, we walked along the rocky stream-b e d , dry and hot in the summer sun but12

full of rushing waters in more propit ioustimes. Ahead the canyon opened wideand split in two, each new branch nar-rowing once more as it led its separaterugged way into the heart of the Pelon-cil los. A sign posted by the governmentstated that this was Skeleton Canyon,the site of Geronimo's capitulation.

It was very st i l l . The hot sun beatdown on the grassy spot. A few twistedsycamores shaded small areas. Thenorth bank was high and rocky, jutt ingout into the canyon. We clim bed a zigzagtrail to the top. Wh at a view! Across thedusty miles of the San Bernardino Valleyth e ma je s t i c C h i r i ca h u a Mo u n ta in sstood. We looked down into the canyonbelow. No wonder the canny Indian hadset up his camp on top while the Ameri-cans spread out below. Here he was safefrom surprise until he was ready to nego-tiate. I stared down the valley to the dis-tant Mexican border, trying to feel as

this last, rebellious Apache chief musthave felt.

Geronimo was the son of a NedniApache, a tribe noted for its warlikeabilit ies, which made its l iving raidingand pil laging. The Nednis l ived in theSierra Madre Mountains of Mexico,which run north and south along theborder between the Mexican states ofSonora and Chihuahua, and are anextension of the Guadalupe Mountains.The Guadalupes are south of the Mexi-can-U.S. Border, themselves an exten-sion of the Peloncillo Mountains justnorth of Arizona.

Geronimo's father m arried a woman ofthe Warm Springs Apache tribe andcustom decreed that he become a mem-ber of her tribe and assume their ways.They were farmers primarily, so hisfather also learned to farm, as did Ger-onimo as he grew. However, his fatherdid not neglect to train him in the proper



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ways of a Nedni Apache, teaching himall his old warrior skil ls, which were tostand Geronimo in good stead in lateryears.

"Geronimo" was not h is t r iba l name.He was known by his friends andrelat ives as "Goyalka" or "One WhoYa w n s ! " H e w a s g ive n t h e n a me"Geronimo" by h is Mexican enemiesduring a part icularly f ierce batt le. I t isSpanish for "Jerome." When Geroni-mo's father died, his mother took him tovisit his Nedni relatives to continuelearning the art of a warrior. He wastaught how to f ind water by looking forpatches of green, and to avoid drinkingth e re b e fo re n ig h t f a l l , t o ke e p h ispresence hidden from any others whomight venture to water during the day-light hours. He was told large, shadyareas in the heat of summer could be atrap. It was safer to utilize small bits ofshade tha t o thers m igh t ove r look.D e s e r t/ F e bru a r 1 7R

Geronimo,[mounted] withhis son and

grandson, takenin 1886, supposedly

at the time of hisfirst surrender from

which he and 20 ofhis braves

[with their families]fled during a

drunkencelebration. Photo

courtesy ofArizona Historical

Society.

Looking southinto SkeletonCanyon from therockypromontorywhere Ceronimohad his camp.

Apaches made hiding an art and couldconcea l themse lves on open deser twhere a rabbit would be hard put fora hiding place. They admired bravery,but not heroics, acting as a predatoryanimal does, slipping from hiding placeto hiding place, rather than charging inboldly to the assault. They felt ourAmerican way of f ighting was foolhardy.While they fought courageously whencornered, it was not the way they pre-ferred to f ight .

Geronimo married a woman from theChiricahua Apache tri be , and so Cochisebecame his chief. Since he also marriedwith in h is own t r ibe, the Warm SpringsApache Chief, Mangas Coloradas, wassometimes named as his chief, also.Both tribes w ere closely related, and Co-chise was much admired by Geronimo.No doubt influenced by Cochise's at t i -tude, Geronimo surrendered to the pres-sures of U.S. forces several times. Eacht ime, since they were late arrivals, hissmall band was settled in vacant areason the San Carlos Indian Reservationwhich proved unsuitable for farming.There was lit t le to do other than try toscratch a living from the barren soil andaccept the handouts of the Government.


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Your personal VISAto the land settledby the Am erican Indian

Intertr ibal Nat ive AmericanVISA and Certificate ofEcolog-ical Awareness, an ideal gift,suitable for framing, signifies yoursense of Oneness-With-Nature thattypifies the Native American tradi-tion. Grandfather's Voice, withsignatories who are members oftribes native to the North, South,East and West, welcome you! Each VISA is numbered, regis-tered with hand-lettered name. Attra ctive wallet-size VISACARD is included with eachorder.For your personal VISA andCert i f i ca te of A w a re n e s s s e n d$5.50 to:GRANDFATHER'S VOICEP.O. Box28441, SanJose , CA95159Please rush me my 11 x 14" VISA andCertificate. Enclosed is my check for$5.50 (including postage and sales tax).Proceeds from the VISA and Certificatewill go to non-profit Indian self-helpprograms.Name to appear on VISA (Please Print):

NameAddressCity State. .Zip .

After putt ing up with this sterile exis-tence for a t ime, Geronimo would gatherup his fol lowers and their famil ies andflee the Reservation. He wanted to livethe life he hadformerly l ived as a " w i l d "Apache, growing the crops his peopleneded and hunting game without inter-feren ce. Th is , w i th sporad ic ra idsagains t o ther t r ibes or occas iona l l yaga ins t the Mex i cans or even theAmericans, for manufactured goods,would make them independent.

He might have made it work, evenraiding into the United States from hisstronghold in the Sierra Madres, if hehad been less greedy. As it was, hisraids in Mexico and the United Statesfinally forced both countries to relaxtheir border laws to permit members ofeither mil i tary who were "in hot pur-su i t " of Geronimo and his band tocontinue on into the neighboring coun-try. This nearly led to Geronimo's cap-tu re , as he had become accustomed tohaving thearmy halt at the border whilehe got away with his loot.

One time, when the Americans were" i n hot pursu i t " of Geronimo and hiswarriors, hoping to persuade him to sur-render, they crossed the border and fol-lowed him into the Sierra Madres. Atroop of Mexican soldiers, also fol low ingthe trai l of the Apaches, came into thesame val ley, saw the Apache scouts ofthe American Army, and opened fire. Adozen soldiers were killed before theAmericans could stop the f ighting longenough to explain the situation. Whilethis wastaking place, Geromino and hismen, who had stopped to watch the un,were able to outdistance them all.

After several more returns to the Re-servation, only to f lee again, Geronimofinally agreed in March of 1886 to sur-render and accept exile in the East fortwo years, after which he would be re-turned to the Reservation. Unfortunate-ly , in celebrating the occasion, liquorwas made available to the Apaches.Geronimo and his men got roaring drunkan d 20 of them, wi th thei r fami l ies,followed Geronimo back to the SierraMadre Mountains.

The campaign to capture and subduethese last " w i l d " Apaches was steppedup m onumental ly. To null i fy the Indiansmoke signals, which enabled them tocommun i ca te ove r many m i l es , theUnited States Arm y set up 27heliographstations, thus bending the forbidding

mountain peaks andsearing sun to theiraid. Over 2,000 messages were sent re-garding the Indian movements betweenMay 1 and September 30, 1886. Onemessage wassent over 800 miles in lessthan four hours. Heliograph Peak in theGraham Mountains was once such astation.

An expeditionary force under CaptainW . H. Lawton fol lowed Geronimo forthree months, aided by these helio-g raphed desc r i p t i ons of G e r o n i m o ' smovements. With him was a f r iend ofCeronimo, Lt. Charles B. Gatewood.Gatewood wasseriously ill and ready forret i rement but, knowing his f r iend's dis-t rust of the white man, he had agreed toaccompany the troops and try to per-suade Geronimo to surrender once more.When he was f inal ly able to talk withGeronimo under a f lag of t ruce, hepointed out to the oldwarrior that all theWarm Spring and Chiricahua Apacheswho had been living on the Arizona Re-servation had been sent to Florida andwere l iving in a land of many trees andmuch water. All that were left was hissmall band. If hewould surrender to theGreat White Chief, as represented byGeneral Miles, he and his warriorswould be sent, along with their famil ies,to Florida to join their tribe.

Many members of his group were re-bellious andwanted to surrender and re-turn to a less hazardous and more com-fortable way of l i fe. Even Geronimo wast i red of the cont inual running. He hadwanted to live as he had l ived as a youngman. But the two armies never gavethem anypeace. It was impossible to livethis way, t ry ing to keep homes and raisechi ldren. He agreed to talk to the manbeing sent by the Great White Chief inWashington. But, it must be in a place ofhis own choosing. And he chose to comeacross the border into the United States,ito the Pelonci l lo Mountains to a highpoint of rocky land jutt in g above the con-fluence of the two branches of SkeletonCanyon. Here he could see for milesacross the San Bernardino Valley to theChir icahua Mo untains. No onecould sur-prise him. And the white men couldcamp below. They would meet in thewhite men's camp. And thus it cameabout. After much talk, Geromino's oldfriend persuaded himthat he had no re-course, hisonly hope for peace lay in un-conditional surrender to the wi l l of theAmerican Army.

14 Desert/February 1978


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,

The road continues, b ut fords across the stream are impas sable for a passenge r car.It came hard for Geronimo, but his

men were weary of f ighting and running.At last he agreed to surrender, but withthe understanding that he and his smallgroup would join the rest of his tribe inFlorida, where they would grow crops,raise cattle and be happy. In five years,he and his tribe would be returned totheir beloved Gila River drainage, on asmall area reserved for them alone. Thisis what his frie nd , Lt. Gatewood, accept-ed as the terms of his surrender.When General Miles f inally arrived atSkeleton Canyon, he accepted Geroni-mo's surrender and arranged for themall to be transported to Florida. Unfor-tunately, none of the terms agreed uponby Lt. Gatewood and Geronimo wereconsidered binding on the Army. TheApache leader and his scraggly warriorswere bundled off to Fort Pickins in Flori-d a . His women and children w ere sent toSt. Augustine, another Florida fort, andthe men who were members of the C hiri-cahua Apache g roup went to For tM ar ion . The hot, humid climate of Flori-

D e s e r t / F e b r u a r y 1 9 7 8

da did not agree with the desert Indians,and many died. Public opinion changedwhen their sad plight became known.After much polit ical maneuvering, thewhole group of Apaches in Florida werereunited at Mt. Vernon Barracks, Ala-bama, in 1887, where they remained forf ive full years. But the desire of the Ari-zona Apaches to return home was neverto be realized. Though dwindling innumber, aging and il l, the Apache tribeof Geronimo was still feared by the whitem a n . To prevent any chance of anotheruprisin g, the Warm Springs and Chirica-hua Apache tribes were sent to Fort Sill,Oklahoma in 1894. They were neverperm itted to return home to Arizona , butended their days surrounded by PlainsIndians, alien to their ways, in a roll in g,grassy land that had none of the ruggedmountains, soft valleys and open desertof their hom eland.

Geronimo died on February 17, 1909. Ilooked out across the rugged deserts andmountains he'd loved. Perhaps he hadgone home at last.

INOW...IGood things i rore happening at...D e a t h W i l e y

J u n c t i o nStay at the his toricAMARGOSA HOTELThis lovely 50-year-old hotel is [be ing restored. 20 rooms openyear 'round. Al l carpeted. Al lbeaut i fu l ly furni shed. Electr icheat and air condit ioning. Makethe Amargosa Hote l your head-quarters whi le in the Death jValley area.Telephone Death Val ley Junc-tion #1 for information or reser-vat ions .

Vis i t Marta Becket ' s famousAMARGOSA OPERA HOUSE.You 've read about thi s beaut i fu land unique attract ion in Desertan d National Geographic. S eeM a r t a B e c k e t ' s p r o g r a m o fdance -mimes . See her fabu lou smura l s i n s ide the Opera Hou se .Performances Fr iday, Saturdayand Monday Through Apri l .Saturdays only in May, Septem-ber . 8:15; doors open at 7:45.

J Telephon e Death Val ley Ju nc-t ion #8 for reservat ions . ToursWelcomed.

The General Store , Fi l l ing Sta-t ion and Pottery Shop are op en .RV Park coming. Space avail-ab le for development.

For further information aboutDEATH VALLEY JUNCTIONplease wri te:Death Val ley Jun ct ion, Inc . I

P.O. Box 675Death Val ley Junct ion ,California 92328


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WESTERN ART 30"x40", oil.From the private collectionof Mrs. H. C. Stevens.

Stephen J. Hubbell, AICA16

D EEP B LUE skies and cloudformations of unparalleled art ist icbeauty are just two of the featuresyou will see in Steve Hu bbe ll 'spaintin gs. These lend a scenic backdropto the m ajor port ion of his works whichmay feature horses, an old b arn , someIndian teepees along the river , or a

Desert/February 1978


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miner find ing his way out of themountains after an expedition.A ll th is subject matter can be found inbeautiful Trinity County, California. Thearea is fu ll of history starting with theCold Rush Days and many things arestill in evidence. For an artist interestedin depicting the American W est,

Hubbe ll has extensive references at hisfinge rtips. A finished piece of art bySteve Hubbe ll, whether it is an oilpainting, pencil drawing or a sculpture,is the end result of hours of carefulresearch, numerous sketches and thecombination of exacting deta il and alabor of love.

He was born and raised in Pasadena,California of a pioneer fam ily. As a smallboy, his grandmo ther, also a painter,presented him with his first set of oils.Steve did hid first oil pa inting at ageeight. Throughout his elementary andhigh school years, he excelled in a rtclasses and was encouraged by h isDes ert/February 1978 17


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"Cowboy,"BronzeEditionof 20.

fam ily. Afte r high school, and like mostyoungsters start ing out on their o wn , ajob was necessary so he attended FrankWiggins Trade School in Los Angelesand learned to be a technical i l lustrator.Afte r a couple of years in this f ie ld,Hubb ell felt he must expand hispoten tial as an artist so he opened hisown commercial art service. Altho ughthis was a successful ventu re and he wasable to expand his talents by usingdifferent mediums and techniques, itwas st i l l "commercia l" and unfu lf i l l ing.

Hubbell spent some years as ArtDirector of an electronics firm and alsoan ad agency, b ut always there was thefeeling of searching for something m ore.His spare t ime was taken up by paintingand draw ing, usually scenes with horses.

Steve's f irst love is pencil drawin g. Hehas done some very in tricate anddetailed drawing s. He believes that anart ist should f irst learn to draw beforetrying to paint in water color, oils or anyother m edia. This he tells to thoseaspiring young a rt ists that come to himfor advice. He was the sole illustratorand co-publisher of the book, " Th eAppaloosa Breed Characterist ics."

Hubbe ll realized his direction was

18"x24"oil.Privatecollection.18


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20"x30"oil.

Wes tern A rt and in 1971 the fam ilymoved to Weav ervil le, where he nowspends full t im e as a f ine art is t, p aintingand sculp turing. He has recently beenvoted into the AICA (American Indian &Cowboy Artists Society).

Hubb ell has exhibited in m anygalleries around the West such as theSaddleback Inn , Santa An a, C alifornia,

Hobarts Gallery in Ferndale, Californiaand House of Bronze in Presco tt,Arizona to mention a few. His work isalways on exhibit at theSnyder-Highlands Art Gallery inWea vervil le where he is resident art ist,and some of his fine pain tings canpresently be seen at the DesertMagazine A rt Gallery in Palm Desert,

California. He has also exhibited inmany g roup shows and has hadnumerous one-man shows.

As a completely self-taught art ist,Hub bell feels he has come a long wayand each experience along that road hashelped him reach his artistic goals. Healso feels that every new day offers him achance to broaden his scope.

"Jerk Line,"28"x40"

oil.D e s e r t / F e b r u a r 1 97 8 1 9


20/64

by HOWARD NEALH O S T SJ u l i a n , C a l i f o r n i a

THE BROTHERS, Mikeand Webb J ulian, arrived inthe m ountains east of SanDiego in November of 1869.W ith th em , to look for goldin the newly formed ColemanMin ing Distr ict , were theirtwo cousins, Drury and J imBailey.

J ust a few weeks before,Fred Coleman had f irstspotted the glit te r of gold ina small mountain creek.Memories of California'sMoth er Lode stil l burnedbrigh tly in the minds ofmany. So, by the t im e theJ ulians and the Baileysarr ived, there were alreadynearly 150 miners on thescene.

The Coleman discoveryw a s , unfortunately, notanother M other Lode. Theplacer gold was t h in . If aman could pan two or threedollars wo rth of gold in a dayhe was very lucky .

Prospects did not lookbright for the new arrivals.That is, they d id not lookbright until Mike Julian andDrury Bailey discovered a

The original stamp mill,brought to the minein 1872, is on displayat the Eagle Mine.Mine tours are conductedat the Eagle and High Peakgold mines and visitorsare also welcome atthe Washington Mineas well as the site ofthe Stonewall Mine inCuyamaca RanchoState Park. Photographsby Howard Neal.20 D e s e r t / F e b r u a r y 1 9 7 8


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rich pocket of gold-lacedquartz in February of 1870.Although the gold depositthat they discovered turne dout to be shallow, it provedthat hard-rock go ld could befound in the area. Othersjoined the search and, w ithina week, three other str ikeshad been made .

Now was the t ime for areal gold rush. From SanDiego, from Los Angeles,and from as far away as SanFrancisco, the miners andprospectors came. By theend of Marc h, more than 20claims had been f i led.

Even before his discovery,Drury Bailey had decided tostay and make his home inthe picturesque mountainvalley. He had staked landfor bo th a house and a ranch.With the inf lux of goldseekers, it was DruryBailey's land which becamethe towns ite. He laid out citylots and , in honor of his

The Witch Creek Schoolwas originally built in1888. It was recen tlymoved to its presentlocation next to theMemorial Museum andrestored to serve as apublic library as well asa mining days one-roomschool house.of the Spanish land grantknown as Rancho Cuyamacaclaimed that their gran tembraced the land of Julian .The m iners of J ulian an d, int ime, the U . S. SurveyorGeneral disagreed. For fouryears the battle raged beforethe Cuyamaca claim wasrejected and J ulian boomedagain.By the end of 1876 the goldof J ulian seemed to be all butgone. The mines wereclosmg, and the populat iondeclined to l i t t le more than100. The gold was not really

I gone, thou gh, and in 1888two more rich discoveries

cousin, M ike , he named histown Jul ian.

It took only a few monthsfor the tents of J ulian to giveway to wooden structures.Stores were built,three stamp mills werebrought in and put intooperat ion, and the f led glingcommunity had no less thana dozen saloons. The town'spopulat ion quickly reached300.

Then came the great landbattle . It was a battle in thecourts that put J ulian in thenational spotl ight andbrought m ining a ct ivity to ascreeching halt . The owners

The Julian Hotel,built in 188 7. A sign on

the building proclaims thatit is the "Southland's oldest

hotel in continuousoperation." Many buildings

along the m ain street ofJulian date from miningdays nearly 100 years ago.

were made. J ulian grew andprospered again. Old mineswere reopened. New mineswere es tablished. By 1895the pop ulat ion was up to over1,000and Julian boastedhotels, churches, schools andmany m ore than the dozensaloons of two decadesbefore.As t ime passed, miningactivity again waned andfinally stopp ed, but thecommu nity of Juliansurv ived. Today there aremany who wou ld haveagreed with Drury Bailey.The beautiful mountainvalley th at looks so much asif it could be a part of theMo ther Lode country of theSierra foo thil ls, is a f ineplace to have a home.

J ulian is northeast o f SanDiego, approximately 40miles east of Escondido onCalifornia State Highway 78.It is also approximately 50miles west of H ighway 86and the Salton Sea.

rt/Fohmnru 1Q7A


22/64

Utah SeagullsandThe NevadaDry LandShrimpby JOHN SOUTHWORTH

T IS il legal to kil l aseagutl inUtah. Astrange law for a landlocked state? Notat all. In fact, the me aningful law was

probably onthe books long before heseagull was protected in seaboard states.All this for a very good reason which thefarmers of Utah have never forgotten.Even after their land began to bear"goody" crops such as luscious largered (or black) cherries whic h the seagullsjust love, depredations by the big whitesea birds still don't arouse toomanycomplaints. Change crops but don ' tbother those birds!

Such anavian Utopia might now besuffering just abit as government inter-vention and he big brother att itudetakes over. But before the time of air-planes and easily spread effectivebugk i l l e r s , se a g u l l s w e re U ta h ' s "Bu gBr ig a d e . "

It all started a long time ago, in 1837 tobe exact, when the f irst small group ofMormon pioneers reached the Great SaltLake Valley, exiles from their establish-ed homes inIllinois. This early advancegroup, all148 ofthem including womenand children, were charged with theserious responsibil ity of preparing theway for more p i lgr ims of the Church ofLatter Day Saints who would later becoming inever-increasing numbers.

Working with Mormon di l igence, theadvance group set up housekeeping andplanted acommunal 500 acres ofwheatand other green crops.

As with the Massachusetts Pilgrim s of200 years before, their f irst winter wasrough and thecarefully tended f ieldswere badly struck byf rost . Butspringcame, new green started, and with everypassing day thesettlers foresaw evengreater success intheir crit ical frontiermission for the Mormon Church.

All the newly cult ivated land loadedw i th t e n d e r g re e n p la n t s a t t ra c te dunwanted guests in aform of apest theemigrant Mormons had never encoun-tered before, something not native eastof the Rocky Mo untain s. Like a march inginvasion of giant ants two inches long,advancing steadily but clumsily on longlegs, antennae waving andmandibleswork ing in eager anticipation of he com-ing feast, hordes inunaccountable mil-lions ofwhat are now cal led "Mormon

The Seagull Monum ent on TempleSquare, Salt Lake City. Illustration byMerle Graff am.22 D e s e r t / F e b ru ary 1978


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Crickets" descended upon the preciousgrain f ields, devouring everything edibledown to the ground. Those behind, un-fed and ravenous, chewed on the legsand fallen bodies of those who had gonebefore. I t was a typical Mormon Cricketincursion, vast, fr ightening and un-stoppable.

To the hard-beset Mormon band, itlooked l ike the sudden end of their bravenew world. Their best efforts with f ireand f lame only slowed the voraciouscreatures temporarily as acre after acreof f ine crops fell to their destruct ion.

Shoveling the s quirm ing insects by theton into irr igat ion ditches only pluggedthe ditches and provided dry passage forfollowing ranks of the marching, inexor-able plague of crickets.

Beaten and broken in spir it , the Mor-mons stood aghast as now an apparentsecond plague descended to tormentthem. This t ime it was giant white birds.Some of those birds had been seen be-fore from a distance but now in greatscreaming f l ights of thousands they ar-r ived to attack the already doomedfields. Surely they would f inish whateverlitt le the crickets left. Utter despair toreat the hearts of the front ier families.

But the green crops didn't disappear,the crickets did. Recently abandonedhope returned to the hearts of thepioneer spectators as they watched amiracle unfold before their very eyes. I twas now obvious that, rather than eatingthe grain, the gulls were devouring theinsects in great numbers, regurgitat ingthe revolt ing meal when they could holdno more, and returning refreshed to thefeast.

It was a big job but the seagulls werecapable adversaries. The depredationsslowed and then stopped. When the sea-gulls were f inished, the f ields were freeof live crickets. It was an entomologicalArmageddon. There were no l iv ing in-sects of any size or shape left to be seen.All was quiet where disaster had recent-ly visited and the victorious seagulls re-turned to their island home, now calledBird Island, in the Great Salt Lake. TheMormon crops, and the very future ofthe Mormon Church in Utah, weresecure.

In 1913 the Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter Day Saints erected a suitablemonument to their feathered deliverers.A marble column commemorating thehistorical event stands proudly and

prominently in Salt Lake City's TempleSquare. I t is the only monument in theworld dedicated to the common seagull.

Through the mi rac le o f se lec t ivepoison bait and airborn sprays wieldedby Government pest control services, theMormon Cricket is no longer a threat.Though no longer of such great impor-tance to the vast agricultural acreage ofmodern U tah, the seagulls of Bird Islandare still protected by State law.

The story is quite different in Nevada,however, where there are no seagullsand where much of the land remainssubstantially as it was before settlementby the white m an. In vast p rimit ive areasthe crickets st i l l reproduce and migrateas they always did. Unless they threatenhuman wo rks, they are not controlled tooseverely and their annual springt imeemergence still makes the papers once ina whi le.

Mormon Crickets appear in greatestnumber in North Central Nevada, thehome range of that feisty l i t t le weekly,the Reese River Reveille, the oldest con-t inuously act ive newspaper in the State.It is always a delig ht to see -that litt lepaper consulted and quoted by nationaland international news services whenthe cr ickets begin to move. " Au st i n, Ne-vada? New York cal l in g." W onde rful !

The cricket migrat ions make interest-ing copy and may be followed for daysand weeks by large city newspapers.Since the crickets no longer threaten anycrops, the stories are usually limited toblow-by-blow descript ions of their ad-vance and retreat as they near centers ofhabitation. Their hordes can still slowtranscontinental traff ic using NorthernNevada highways by providing enoughcrushed bodies to make pavement slip-pery and unsafe for travel. Similarly,their crushed bodies cause railroadtrains to lose traction, especially on sig-nif icant grades, despite the heaviestsanding of the rails. And the story of adevoured full grown rattlesnake livensup any city desk on an otherwise dullafternoon.

The Mormon Cricket is not a realcricket. It looks more like a large stumpygrasshopper about two inches in lengthand three-quarers of an inch in each ofthe other two dimensions. It has longpowerful hind legs much like those of thecommon grasshopper, but is too heavy tojum p muc h. Instead, it crawls slowly andclumsily, eat ing everything in sight, no

matter what, even its own companions.It is brown to black and not at all pretty.It cannot fly since it has no wings underits wing covers, but by never rest ing, itmight cover miles per day. Mostly it isjust an ugly ap petite on the m ove. I t cancause terr ible damage to wheat and al-falfa crops and to range grasses. Writershave called it , among other bad things,"The f r igh t fu l bug, " the b lack Phil i-st ine," and "a cross between the spiderand the buf fa lo. " T heir migrat ions,when in good form, can clear the coun-tryside of every l iving thing.

The Mormon Cricket is really a katy-d id , related to the grasshopper and Bib-lical locust. It is known to science asAnabrus Simplex. Because it cannot fly,metal and wood barriers in its path serveas effective control devices for smallnumbers of the pests. Large numberswil l f i l l irr igat ion ditches and pack highagainst buildings and fences.

During the days of the Civil ian Con-servation Corps in Nevada, the annualcricket invasions were hailed with muchenthusiasm. I t was great sport, and notvery t ir ing, to get out with st icks andpans, make a great noise, and " h e r d "the slow moving beasties into preparedpits and ditches where they would besoaked with fuel oil and destroyed ingreat f laming pyres.

I t was during CCC t imes that an in-credulous Eastern visitor stopped for asummer drink at the typical Westernstore and gas stat ion, which comprisedall of Primeaux, Nevada, on old trans-continental Highw ay 40 just north of st i l lvisible Beowawe. That visitor became achance witness to one of the CCC cricketdr ives mov ing r igh t th rough " town. "Overcome by curiosity, she asked OldMan Primeaux just what in the worldwas going on.

Now the Old Man had regularly sat inthat big chair of his outside the way sta-t ion he had started from scratch manyyears before, had seen every kind of ten-derfoot go thro ug h, and was always fullyprepared to answer the sil l iest green-horn question. But this one was easy.

" W e l l , ma'am," he repl ied, in his al-ways gracious and pleasant manner, andwith an airy wave of his arm , "th at is mysummer crop of Nevada Dry LandShrimp. You are a very lucky lady to ar-r ive at just the r ight t ime to watch myboys bring them in off the range on theirway to the cannery over yo nd er."

D e s e r t / F e b r ua r y 1 9 78


24/64

"FLOWERING DUN ES"WICKENBURG YUCCAS "

" P o w e r a nd t he G l o r y "" T h e H i lls o f H o m e "( I l lus t rated)

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MAG AZINE BOOK SHOPP.O. Box 1318 Palm De sert, California 92260Calif, residents please add 6% state sales tax

DESERT PRJNTSThro u gh a spec ial a gree m e nt w i th f am ed dese r ta r t i s t , J ohn H i l ton, Deser t M a ga z ine i s p l ea sed too ffer a lim i t ed nu m ber o f bea u t i f u l fou r-c olor pr in ts .Printed on 20"x16" qual i ty paper. Actual pr int s ize1 6 " x 1 2 " . W h i t e b o r d e r m a y b e l e ft o n fo r m o u n t in g,b u t a re m o s t a t t ra ct i v e w h e n m a t t e d o r f u ll fr am e d .

A w o n d e r fu l gi ft i t e m !Shipped ro l led in tu be s !

O r de r n o w t o a v o i d d i s a pp o i n t m e n t !

" PA P A G O D A W N ""TH E HILLS OF HO ME'


25/64

A Supplement to Desert Magazin


26/64

\ S A D S R T ?Depending on whose definition you accept,desert covers from one-seventh to approximately 20percent of the earth's land surface. More than12,000,000 acres of inland Southern California fallinto this category.Desert perhaps can be defined as a state of

mind. Some people consider everything east of Losngeles or west of Chicago as desertbare, ugly,possessed of terrible weather and forbidding land-Other people live in it because they love it, orit at every opportu nity. They find the sparse ve-; to them , the grotesqueand formations, technicolor sandstones and the ex-The true desert denizens whether plant or ani-including man , stick it out. They have learned to

s. Adap tation to extremes of temp erature, lack oflittle moisture during the hottest or dryest times.

Man, or at least that considerable portion of hisburgeoning population dedicated to desert living,

has begun to adapt, primarily by learning from theplants and animals he lives with. Man probably de-veloped air-conditioning because he couldn't burrowinto the ground w here even a few inches w ill drop thetemperature 12 -1 5 degrees on the hottest day. Manhasn't qu ite learned how to get along w ith little or nooutside water as have many of the desert denizensbut at least he has learned to avoid strenuous laborduring the times of peak water requirement.And man has something else going for him, anability that only the birds have as well . He can es-cape, for the day or the season, to a more equitableclimate.If we agree that desert is here to stay, and welike it, then perhaps we should learn a little moreabout it. This booklet will permit you to learn aboutdesert, its lifeforms at least, the easy way, in yourfavorite chair. After you read it, you may wish to ex-perience desert firstha nd, if you haven't already, andthat's where the Living Desert Reserve comes in.Through its trails , exhibits, indoors and out, you mayexperience the endless variety of desert life and sur-roundings. Or, you may regard the Living Desert Re-serve as a door way to the REAL DESERT, the huge ,harshly beautiful, sometimes benevolent land outthere beyond the fence.DESERT BY DEFINITIONIf you can't quite put into words what you think"desert" is, don't worry. Most of the experts can'tagree either. However, we should start this sectionwith an agreeable definition, so we'll follow the ex-ample of most successful desert writers and borrowbits and pieces from several sources.

First off, most agree, desert is typified by a lackof rainfall, say under 10 inches annually. What thereis falls in an erratic, uneven manner. Some of thedesert lands along the lower Colorado River havebeen known to avoid the U.S. rainfall records for aslong as three years.And, most definitions agree that desert ischaracterized by persistent, frequently high winds.Th irdly is the matter of tempe ratures. They tendto be high during daytimes much of the years. Thecombination of wind, high temperature and amplesunlight lead to a major a ttribu te, a high evaporationrate.A definition of "desert" might read:A desert is a region of scant unevenly distri-buted rainfall, w ith persistent winds and highdaytime temperatures that combine to createa high evaporative rate.The deserts of North Am erica are found in a nar-row latitudinal belt, from 15 to 40 degrees north ofthe equator, generally inland behind high coastalmountain barriers (the exception being northwesternMexico), and west of the continental divide. Thereasons for this are complex meteorological condi-tions but it suffices to say that the drying, hot windsgenerally blow INTO the desert and that mountainsact as a buffer to keep moist air out, hence the highevaporative factor.


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In the United States all deserts are found in thesouthwest and several are continuations of desertsthat start in Mexico. There are five North Americandesertsthe Chihuahuan, Sonoran, Painted, Mo-have and the Great Basin. Only the Sonoran needconcern us directly because the Coachella Valley ispart of one of its six subdivisions, the Colorado nam-ed for the Colorado River which forms its easternboundary. The others include the Arizona Upland,the Yuman, Vizcaino, Gulf Coast and the SonoranProper.Coachella Valley is part of the lowest lying NorthAmerican desert, the Colorado, which consists of allthe C alifornia lands draining into the Colorado Riverfrom a vaguely defined point between Needles andLas Vegas. Not properly a valley, the Coachella andneighboring Imperial Valley are depressed troughscreated by the action of the San Andreas fau lt systemThe Coachella Valley is not the lowest p ortion ofNorth A merica . That honor goes to a small section ofDeath Valley (in the Mohave Desert) near Badwater,but th is area does have the g reatest mass below sealevel and the bottom of the Salton Sea, at m inus 270feet m ore or less, is wi thin 15 feet of the Death Valleynadir.The Colorado Desert is distinguished from itsneighbor, the Mohave (the Indians of the same trib eprefer the " h " to the more often used " j " spell ingfrom the Spanish) by higher average temperaturesand lower elevation. The two regions, sometimesdifferentiated as the "low" and the " h i g h " desertshare many of the same plants and animal forms.The generally warmer Colorado has other dis-tinctions that may be of little concern to the casualvisitor, and even to most of its longtime residents,but it does include a most varied and colorful plantand animal lifeand by animals we mean reptiles,mammals, birds and insectswhich you will readmore about in later pages.Because it is dry, and because it is hot, the Colo-rado Desert frequently gives an impression oflifelessness, particularly at midday in August, but itsplant and animal denizens are still there . The formertend to lose their leaves as a water retention deviceor "m ec ha nis m ." The latter go overhead in the treesor underground during the hottest parts of the day,except for a few highly visible species, notably theantelope ground squirrel or "dese rt ch ipm unk ," andthe desert iguana lizard.The Colorado Desert is a highly variable com-munity of plants, people and other animals, withmuch more than just pretty rocks and sunsets. It is alovely, if forbiddin g land that w ill govern your life, ifyou let it. A nd , if you give it more than 30 days or so,it will grow on you.By reading this descriptive text and studying thediverse color photos that accompany it you may betaking that fatal step toward a consuming love a ffairthat should leave you with only happy memories.

T o p : J o s h u a T r e e s o n t h e M o h a v e D e s e r t .B o t t o m : S m o k e T r e e s o n t h e C o l o r ad o D e s e r t .


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D9GRTThe desert's harsh environment poses difficult problems for itsplant li fe. They cannot migrate or escape the extreme temp eratures,drying wind, abrading sand, low humidity or poor soil. Their basicproblem is the limited availability of moisture. Plants cope with anenvironment providing less than three inches of rainfall annually inthree ways. Some are drought escaping; some, drought avoiding,and the truly desert adapted, are drought tolerating.Annual plants, which grow from seed each year, escape thelong, dry periods and extreme temperatures by growing and flower-ing in the brief sp ring , after winte r rains and before summer heat. Afew annuals also bloom after infrequent fall rains. During the rest ofthe year their seeds lie dormant. In the Coachella Valley, fields ofsand verbena, desert primrose, sunflowers and many other annualsare a common sight in February, March and April.Drought-avoiders are those which are only able to grow wherethere is a continuous supply of water. The palo verde, one of thedesert's largest trees, and the smoke tree grow only in washbedswhere their deep roots reach permanent ground water and wherethey have the additional benefit of periodic floodwater. The stately

Washingtonia native fan palm grows only where water is near thesurface in springs or oases.Drought tolerating plants are truly adapted to desert living,able to get along without water for long periods. Many of thesespecialized plants have small leaves or none at all. Small leaves helpreduce water loss through evaporation. Ocotilloan d brittlebush losetheir leaves after spring; creosote bush, one of the most commonCoachella Valley plants, has small leaves coated with resin to hold inthe moisture. Most drought-tolerators have extensive, shallow rootsystems which take advantage of even a slight amount of moisture.Cactus is known for its ability to store moisture, yet even the"desert canteen," the common barrel cactus does not store cool,clear water if you cut it open. Rather, the stringy, hard to reach pulpis high in mineral salts and nearly impossible to consume. You willuse more precious energy try ing to open the cactus than you can getfrom it. In addition to cacti, several other plant species store mois-ture, generally in their tubular roots.The Living Desert Reserve has 15 acres dedicated to the devel-opment of a botanical garden, named for its sponsor, the JamesIrvine Foundation. W ith in the still-evolving Irvine Gardens you willfind plants in all three of these basic drought-coping categories,from all of the North American desert regions and from otherdeserts throughout the world. The plants are attractively labeledand are growing in natural surroundings and ha bitat settings.

The James Irvine Gardens also feature a Demonstration Areawhich has been developed to show how native plants can be used forhome landscaping. Ano ther section of the Gardens has been design-ed to display those native plants which were used by local Indiansfo r food, fiber, medicines and housing mate rial.

L e f t : O c o t i l l o ; O p p o s i t e p a g e , cl o c k wis e f r o m up p e r l e f t , D e s e r t A g a v e ; D e s e r t L i l y ;M o h a v e M o un d C a c tus ; B r i t t l e b us h , F ie l d o f S a n d V e r b e n a a n d S un f l o w e r s ; P in -c us h io n C a c tus ; A p r ic o t M a l l o w .

A l l P ho to C r e d i t s : K a r e n Sa us m a n a n d G e o r g e S e r v ic e


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D < O T B IR D SAs are many desert animal natives, birds often are takenfor granted by the visitor. Only when a quail wh irrs up at yourfeet, or a roadrunner darts and sails across the road in front ofyour car or the lovely, cascading call of a canyon wren echoesdo many people notice desert birds.Many desert animals have evolved special mechanisms to

cope with the lack of moisture and temperature extremes, butnot most of the birds.Some, such as Gambe l's q ua il, endure extended dehydra-tion without ill effect; others rely on their flying ability toforage for food and water over relatively long distances. Insecteaters and birds-of-prey, such as hawks and owls, get much oftheir moisture from their food.Some birds avoid heat and drought by migrating; thephaino pepla and some other species nest here in the spring andthen leave. The white-crowned sparrow winters on the desert,just as many humans.The Coachella Valley is a permanent home to more than 70bird species. The more common include the Gambel's quail,mourning dove, black-throated sparrow, verdin, cactus wren,roadrunner and burrowing owl.Living Desert is a haven for these birds. Early morninghikers see many species in the Occasional Lake and Oasisareas. During spring and fal l , migrating songbirds and water-fowl visit the oasis.In addition to wild birds, the Reserve's large, walk-through aviary contains many "home guard" species, quail,dove, warblers, orioles, woodpeckers, hummingbirds andothers who behave naturally as you walk through the nativepalm oasis.

O p po s i t e p a g e : G a m b e l 's Q u a i l ; Be l o w , yo u n g C o s t a 's H u m m i n g b i rd ; R i g h t ,t o p to b o t t o m , G o l de n E a g le ; Y e ll o w - ru m p e d W a r b le r ; M o u r n i n g D o v e ;R o a d r u n n e r .


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Y : F - f l ow e rs ; B b i rd i n g ; H h i k i n g ; P p icn i ck i n g ; C cam p i n g .1 . A N Z A - B O R R E G O D E S E R T S T A TE P A R K - F-B-H-P-C.A geologic wonderland filled with spectacular scenery.2. BIG MORONGO WILDLIFE RESERVE - B-H-P. An oasiswhich is one of the finest birding areas in the desert.3. BOB HOPE DR IVE - F. February to Ap ril , wildflowe r fieldsof sand verbena along the road.4. BOX C ANYON-PAINTED C ANYON - H-P-C. Interesting geo-logic form ations created by the a ction of the San AndreasFault.

5. C OTTONWOOD C ANYON - F. March to May, spring wild-flower fields along the road.6. C OTTONWOOD SPRINGS - H-B. Good spring bird ing.7. C OYOTE C ANYON - H-B-C-P. Good spring birding along aflowering stream access by hiking or 4-wheel-drive.8. DESERT LILY PRESERVE - F. March to M ay, rare desertlilies and other flowers.9. DEVIL'S GARDEN F. March-Ma y, many species of flow -ering ca cti.10. HENDERSON C ANYON ROAD - F. Febru ary-April, springwildflower fields of sand verbena, primrose and many others.


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t

JOSHUA TRE^ NATIONAL MONUMENT

14

i \ fa*CHOCOL'ATE MOWNTAIN AERIAL GUN

o11 . HIGHWAY 74 FROM PALM DESERT TO ID YL LW IL D -F-H-P-C. Bea utiful scenery and a variety of wild flow ers . Avariety of campgrounds at various elevations.12 . IDYLLWILD COUNTY PARK - F-H-P-C. Summer moun tainwildflowers. Interpretive center.13 . INDIO PALMS C OUNTY PARK - H P . Natural palm oasis;an unimproved facility.14. JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL MONUMENT - H-B-F-C-P.Mohave desert plants and animals.15. LIVING DESERT RESERVE - H-B-F-P. Live animal exh ibits,botanical gardens, nature trails, interpretive center.

16. MT. SAN JAC INTO STATE PARK - H-B-F-C-P. Reachedfrom Idyllw ild or from the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway.17. PALM CANYON - H-B-F-P. Good spring bird ing in a largepalm oasis.18 . RED CLOUD MINE ROAD - F. March-Ap ril, a wide varietyof wildflowe rs along the road.19 . SALTON SEA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE - H B P .Feb rua ry-A pril, fantastic spring water fowl b irding , especiallysnow geese.20 . SALTON SEA STATE REC REATION AREA - H-B-C-P.Good water fow l birding. Fishing and boating.


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The desert is home to a wide variety of mam-mals everything from bats to bighorn sheep. Thereare over 40 species of mammals native to the Coa-chella Valley. Yet, when you take a walk at midday,nothing is stirring. The reasonmost desert mam-mals are nocturnal. They avoid the dehydrating sunby spending the day far underground, or if they aretoo large to burrow, in the shade of a rock ledge ortree. Here they wait patiently for the cool of evening.The desert literally comes alive at night. Deermice, pocket mice, pack rats, and kangaroo ratsemerge from their cool, hum id quarters to forage for

seeds and other plant ma terial w hich they ca rry backto their burrows. These small rodents in turn arehunted by nocturnal predators such as the desert kitfox. This tiny five pound hunter can hear mice mov-ing in their tunnels underground. A quick pouncebreaks open the tunnel and earns the fox a m eal. K itfoxes will also eat large insects, snakes and lizards.Rodents m ust also be wary of bobcats, coyotes, bad-gers and ring-tailed cats, a relative of the raccoon.

T o p le f t , M e r r l a m ' s K a ng a ro o R a t ; C e n t e r , A nt e l o p e G ro u n dS q u i r r e l ; R i g h t , you n g B l ack- t ai l e d Jack R ab b i t ; B e l ow , C oyo t e ;O p po s i t e p ag e , D e s e r t K i t F o x .

..


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There are a few species which are active duringthe day. The commonest are the antelope groundsquirrel and his close relative, the round-tailedground s qu irrel. The largest of the desert mammals,the majestic bighorn sheep, also spends the daybrowsing among the rocky cliffs in the desert moun-tains where he makes his home.How can mammals survive the extreme temper-atures and very limited water of the desert environ-ment? As we have seen, most of the smaller speciesremain underground druing the day. While the tem-peratu re outside may reach 120 degrees, the temper-ature in an underground burrow may be a comforta-ble 80 degrees. M oisture in the soil and from the ani-mals' own breathing makes the burrow far morehumid than the air on the surface. By staying in acool, humid environment, small mammals like mice,and even the kit fox, do not have to waste water tocool their bodies. The kangaroo rat is so efficient atretaining water in his system he never needs to takea drink. He gets all the water he needs from theseeds that he eats.

Predators, such as the fox and the coyote, re-ceive much of the moisture they need in the freshlykilled food they consume. The antelope ground

squirrel, which is active during the day, has other in -ternal mechanisms which allow his internal bodytemperature to rise without any ill effects, so hedoesn't use much water cooling himself. The desertbighorn will spend the hottest part of the day in theshade. They can withstand dehydration far beyondthe point that would cause the death of a humanbeing. When there is plenty of moist plant materialin the sprin g, bighorn may not drink more than everythree or four days.In McManus Hall you may have a close-up lookat many species of small mam mals. The Desert Afte rSundown Room, where the day becomes night, isfilled with active kangaroo rats, pack rats, ring-tailedcats and other nocturnal species. The Dr. RaymondB. Cowles Medical Ward is the temporary home ofTwix and Cricket, the desert foxes that are the mas-cots of the Living Desert, and Cindy, the coyote.Soon a large permanent enclosure will be built forthem. Finally, the Reserve is cooperating with theUniversity of California and the California Depart-ment of Fish and Game on research on the desert

bighorn sheep. A two-acre enclosure houses a smallband of rams, ewes and lambs of this endangeredspecies.


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For many people the words "rattlesnake" or"reptile" are synonymous with desert. While it istrue that the desert is the home of a wide variety oflizards, snakes and even tortoises, far more reptilespecies make the ir home in the tropics where the lessextreme temperatures are more to their liking.The C oachella Valley is home to many species oflizards ranging in size from the four-inch bandedgecko to the 14-inch chuckwalla. While most lizardsare carnivores, hunting for insects, the chuckwalla isa vegetarian preferring to consume flowers anddesert vegetation. At least two species of lizards, thecollared lizard and the leopard lizard, eat otherlizards.Almost all of the desert's lizards are activeduring the day. In order to maintain their internaltemperature within a comfortable range, they spendmuch of the day moving into the sun to warm up andretreating into the shade when they begin to over-heat. A few species, such as the banded gecko andthe yucca night lizards, are nocturnal and are able totolerate cooler temperatures. There are only twopoisonous lizards in the world, the gila monster andthe beaded lizard. Neither is found in Southern Cali-fornia.

Oppos ite page: Clockwise from upper le ft, Zebra-tailed Lizard;Long- ta i led Brush L izard; Red Diam ondback Rat t lesnake;Speckled Rattlesnake; Chuckwalla; Desert Tortoise. Top left,Gopher Snake; Bottom le ft, Horned Lizard; Right, Co llaredLizard.

Many people are afraid to hike in the desert be-cause of the chance of coming across a rattlesnake.W hil e the Coachella Valley is home to five species ofrattlesnakes, and over 12 species of non-poisonoussnakes, it is very unusual to see them d urin g the day.Most snakes are noc turna l, becoming active on warmsummer nights. During the day they retreat into rockcrevices, under a bush or down into a rodent burrow.Here they are safe from predators and from the heatof the midday sun. If they were forced to lay in thesun on a summer day for even a few minutes, theywou ld d ie f rom over -hea t ing . There fo re , yourchances of seeing a snake during the day are small.One of the most popular reptiles is the deserttortoise. These large, slow-moving land turtles arevegetarian. They browse on a variety of plants.During the summer months they are active duringthe early mornings and late afternoons whentemperatures are less extreme. They hibernate dur-ing the winter underground in a burrow that mightbe 30 feet deep. Because they are becoming rare andare in danger of becoming extinct, desert tortoisesare protected from hunters and collectors by law.The Living Desert Reserve has a variety of des-ert reptiles on exhibit in Pearl McMan us Hall . In the"Desert After Sundown Room" you will find rattle-snakes, king snakes, gopher snakes, banded geckosand many other nocturnal species. Many species ofsmall lizards are displayed in the "Sunrise Room."Larger lizards and tortoises are exhibited in an out-door enclosure near the entrance of the Reserve.The staff of the Living Desert is cooperatingwith the California Department of Fish and Game onresearch on desert tortoises. Several acres have beenset aside for this work just beyond the James IrvineGardens.


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L I I / I M GOne of the Colorado Desert's most unusual in-terpretive centers for native plants and wildlife isfound just a mile south of Palm Desert on PortolaAvenue. Th is is the 900-acre Living Desert Reserve,rapidly achieving a wide reputation since its found-ing in 1953.Living Desert, as the Reserve is generallyknown, is a privately-endowed membership organi-zation dedicated to the preservation and interpreta-tion of the native plants and animals of the ColoradoDesert, with emphasis on education for the generalpublic, particularly school children. Thousands ofyoungsters visit the Reserve each school year.Currently, the facilities include two major ex-hibit buildings, McCailum Hall and Pearl McManusHall , with capacity for large study groups, along w ithmore than six miles of nature trails in a beautiful ba-jada, cove and wash bed area at the foot of Deep

Canyon's huge floodplain. The Chase walk-throughaviary has just been added to the visitor area, per-mitting a close look at the native bird life of the lowdesert in near-natural surroundings.In addition to the natural surroundings, indoordisplays of plants and animals, interpretive materialon Indian artifa cts and the complex geology of the re-gion, Living Desert features the 15-acre James IrvineGardens. These botanical gardens soon will featureexamples of all of the major desert plant habitats ofNorth America. Research for the development of theGardens is carried on in the Bolz Development Cen-ter and the Hansen Lath House.The trails are marked for self-guided tours andthe Reserve's Curator of Education conductsfrequent field excursions along the wide, easily navi-gated trail system. One trail climb s distinctive Eisen-hower Mountain, officially named for the late presi-dent, a winter resident of nearby Indian Wells in hislater years.Classes and public programs also center in Liv-ing Desert's spacious McCailum Hall and field tripsare conducted during season to many scenic high-points of the surrounding Colorado Desert.The Reserve is administered by a professionalstaff and guided by a dedicated Board of Governors,several of whom having served since the early days.A board of d istingu ished scientists serve as ad-visors to the staff and governing group.The Reserve's present membership is well overa thousand, divided among student, individual,family and special endowment type memberships.Throughout its development, the organization hasneither solicited nor accepted a cent of taxpayers'funds for its operation. Rather, memberships andspecial contributions have enabled the Reserve togrow each year.

It all began when a group of longtime desertresidents and research specialists from nearby uni-versities and agencies with the assistance of the


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Palm Springs Desert Museum succeeded in securinga long-term lease on flood control acreage from theCoachella Valley County Water District. The agree-ment, which has been expanded since 1953, alsoinclude the U.S. Bureau of Land Management andthe City of Indian We lls as willin g participants today.The original 360-acre water district lease has grownto more than 900 acres and the site now encompassesvirtu ally every type of plant and animal habitat in thelow desert.Until about 1970 there were no buildings, staffor organization. All that existed was a native palmoasis and a system of nature trails. Today, LivingReserve ranks as the finest example of preserved andprotected natural land left in the Southern Californiadesert. The membership program is open to every-one and all facilities are open to the public during thecooler months of the year. Living Desert is closedduring June, July and August but that doesn't meanthe staff is on a long leisurely vacation. During thehot summer much of the display maintenance andpreparation work occurs.One of the most important aspects of this contin-ual program is a joint research program concerning

desert bighorn sheep, conducted with the Universityof Ca lifornia 's Ph ilip L. Boyd Deep Canyon ResearchCenter, a facility for all types of desert environmen-tal research, just two miles up Deep Canyon. Here,and at Living Desert, field researchers have beenstudying the behavior and physiology of this rareanimal, the largest naturally-occurring mammal inthe Colorado Desert, since the late 1960s.Living Desert, therefore, performs a vital rolenot just for the pleasure of seasonal visitors andschool children but also for the important studiesrelating to just how plants and animals are able tocope with, and thrive in the desert of N orth Am erica.The Living Desert Reserve is open every dayfrom September 1st to June 1st. We hope that youwill enjoy hiking the trails, viewing the many liveanimals, photographing the flowers and picnickingunder the palo verde trees. The Living Desert Re-serve is yours to enjoy.

O p p os i t e p ag e : [ T op ] M cC al l u m H a l l , [ Bo t t o m ] B u r ro w i n g O w l .A b o v e : Sm o k e T r e e s a l o ng t h e N a t u r e T r a i l . B e l o w : J a m e s I rv i n eG a rd e n s , M o h a v e D e s e r t Se c t i o n .

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L N IM G D 9 R Tt P. O. Box 1775I 47-900 Portola Avenu e Palm Deser t , California 92260714-346-5694

F r o m L o s A n g a l m

THE LOC ATIONOpen 7 Days a Week from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PMSeptember through May

T h o u s a n d


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M o j a v eR a t t l e s n a k e" M a l efabatD a n c e "As T o l d T o Jam e s K. Brady

by Ernest Bird

E d it o r 's N o t e :Ernest Birdwas in theright placea t t he r i gh t t i m e ,wi t h f i l m i n hi scam e ra, to catcht h is r are " co m b atd a n ce " s e q u e n ce .

TRAVELING ALONG the 2 1 miles of gradeddesert road, which makes up the Ajo M ountain Drivein Arizona's Organ Pipe Cactus National Mon umen t,we happened upon a strange event which is rarelywitnessed by human eyes.My wife , N elda, was the first to see it; we weresome 50 yards away at the tim e, and traveling alongat a very leisurely pace in our truck. I'll let her tellyou about what she saw." W e l l , I saw a couple of sticks, at least th at'swhat I thought at fir st, s ticking up by the side of theroad. I was startled by the fact that they w eremoving. W hy, I wondered; the wind wasn'tblowing nothing else was m ovin g?"W e were closer now, and Nelda had alerted meto the fact that she had seen some thing. She pointedout the objects to me; they w ere just off the shoulderof the road. I stopped the truck quickly and we gazedupon a spectacle w hich sent shivers up our spines.De se rt/ February 1978 41


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The sticks were really two very largerattlesnakes! They were swaying rhythm ically,moving as if synchronized to the beat of somemystical music not perceived by our human senses,and perhaps perform ing a dance which had someritualistic significance or symbolic mean ing. Theirheads, which were inclined some 60 to 70 degreesfrom th eir scaly bodies, were only inches apart asthey peered into each other's eyes almosthypno tically. Th eir tongues flicked in and outnervously, yet in perfect harmony with their swayingmotion. The head and more than a thi rd of the bodyof each was raised u prig ht, loosely entwined like thestrands of a frayed rope. The rema ining part of thebody of each lay para llel to the other and formed asem i-circle on the arid desert floo r.They swayed grace fully back and forth ; oneleaned against the other and was being pushedagainst in re turn . The minutes passed; the pressureof contact was obviously increasing; the conflictbetween them mounted. Their bodies slipped apart;the rhythm was interrup ted; one of them fell to theground, wr ithing as he caught his balance. The other42

towered above, maintaining his poise.Several mom ents passedthey againentwinedthey swayedthey gazedthe pressureof contact intensified there was a slipafallp erhaps a different w inner it began aga in.We were still about 40 feet away from them andI decided to get out and take a closer look. I moved asclose as I dared, with in eight feet, and one of thesnakes lowered his head and kept it hovering justinches above the gro und. It also made that rattlin gnoise for which it is famous. I decided to get back inthe truck so that I wo uld n't scare them off.Afte r a few minutes the snakes decided that Iwasn't a nything to worry about and continued w

197802 Desert Magazine 1978 February

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Transcript of 197802 Desert Magazine 1978 February