This article discusses the formation of desert pavements through the accumulation of dust over long periods of time, rather than through wind erosion as commonly believed. Desert pavements form as fine dust particles slowly accumulate beneath gravel surfaces, causing the gravel to float upwards over thousands of years. Studies show it can take over 50,000 years to form a strong, interlocking pavement and pavements in some areas of Australia may be over 1 million years old. The accumulation of dust beneath pavements challenges common misconceptions about their formation process and highlights how slowly they develop.

1. the Survivor
The quarterly journal of Desert Survivors • Experience, Share, Protect • Summer 2007, 26, 2
Desert Pavement and Dust
Poetry and Prose
Survivor Tips

2. Letters
S H O RT TA K E S
Don’t Mess With
Virtual Wilderness
[The following email exchange was for-
warded to the editor, whose guess is
that the facility pictured is a biometric
border security station.]
June 14, 2007
Directors and General Counsel:
I am forwarding an e-mail and attachment
sent to me by a firm that wants to use a jpg
image from the DS website that ended up
being archived somewhere on the web.
The guy called me and said he was patent-
ing a product to be sold to and used by the
U.S. Army in Afghanistan. It looks like a
jail. The image in the background appears
to be a portion of the homepage image of Image of commercial product superimposed on photograph from DS website
Death Valley that we formerly had on our
website (at least somebody likes it!). I told Mountain Peak
him NO. My response to him is also for- June 14, 2007 3:44 p.m.
warded. Mishap
Mr. Dorsey:
Steve Tabor October 5, 2007
This e-mail will serve as a formal response
to your request to use the image you refer The caption to the picture found on page 2
June 13, 2007 to as “RENDER11.jpg” that you have of the Spring 2007 Survivor, is wrong. The
taken from Desert Survivors material that peak in the picture is Montgomery peak,
Subj:Using your Desert Survivors web not Boundary peak, although one can just
you found on the World-Wide Web.
image for project barely see the northern shoulder of Bound-
Desert Survivors expressly forbids you to
ary behind Montgomery in the photo.
To: President of Desert Survivors, use in publication or otherwise this image
or any other image that you derive from us Richie Schwarz, New York, NY
Steve, via web search or any other means. Desert
Survivors expressly disapproves of the pur- [Corrected caption is printed below.
Per my message yesterday, we would like to pose for use of this material that you have -Editor]
use your image as a background plate for a represented to us. You are hereby ordered
product rendering. I felt your permission to cease and desist any attempt(s) to pub-
would be required before we proceed. lish material that you have derived from
Attached is the image and it's use.
Desert Survivors for this or any purpose.
For sake of our client, could the use be
I will duplicate this instruction in writing
kept between the two of us? It is for a
patent on a new product. Thank you for and send it to you by postal mail. Copies
your courtesy, we appreciate it! Have a nice of this letter and e-mail have been sent to
day. our General Counsel, as has a forward of
Judy Kendall
the image you have sent to me as the object
Sincerely, of your communication.
Tyler J. Dorsey
Trial Technology/Graphic Specialist Steve Tabor
Video Discovery, Inc. Montgomery Peak as seen from
President
Cleveland, OH Benton Hot Springs
Desert Survivors
Cover: The Sump, western Nevada; see page 22. Photo by Bill Johansson.
2 The Survivor Summer 2007

3. Sur vivor Deadline Notices and DSOL (DS On Line) interac-
S H O RT TA K E S
How to Reach Us tive Forum. DSEM Notices allows mem-
(See the new submission instructions Looms bers to receive most regular mailings from
in the next column, and the notice at The deadline for the Winter issue of The the Board of Directors by e-mail rather
the end of this page.) Sur vi vor is December 22, 2007. Maxi- than paper. Trip schedules, party and meet-
[See website for curent information] mum word length: letters-to-the-editor ing announcements, alerts – everything
Editor: (200), feature articles (4000), trip reports except renewal notices and The Sur vi vor
Cathy Luchetti (2000), as well as desert conservation arrive in your inbox, often days before
issues, natural history articles, book reviews, other members receive theirs in the mail.
gear tips, and backpacking/camping You receive 100% of the text contents of
Art Director: recipes. A new column on desert etiquette the regular mailings (and nothing else).
Andrea Young is included, written by a mystery member. Desert Survivors protects the e-mail
Also wanted: short descriptions of unusual addresses of its members fully, never lend-
foods, gear improvisations, or desert-related ing, selling or giving them away to others.
Membership Information discoveries. All submissions which relate to
Steve Tabor the mission of Desert Survivors will be DSOL is our interactive Forum, which
(510) 769-1706 considered for publication, including liter- allows members who sign up to broadcast
ary or artistic works inspired by the desert. e-mail to everyone else signed up for
DSOL Forum. Recent topics included
Desert Survivor Website Please submit text electronically, with all floods, desert wildflowers, road conditions,
www.desert-survivors.org text longer than a paragraph sent as an and DS service trips. Be careful, though, to
attached file. Formats of choice: (in order not inadvertently send personal e-mail to
Board of Directors 2007-2008 of preference) Word (.doc), WordPerfect everyone on DSOL Forum.
(.wpd), Rich Text Format (.rtf) and text
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and state of residence and phone number. either DSEM Notices or DSOL Forum
Send editorial material to Cathy by e-mailing tortoise, desert-survivors.org.
Secretary: Garry Wiegand Luchetti. For the subject use “subscribe regular mail-
ings” for DSEM Notices, and “subscribe
For photographs, please identify the people listserv” for DSOL Forum. Don’t include
Managing Director: Loretta Bauer and locations as shown. Digital photos the quotation marks and do include in the
should be approximately 1600 pixels resolu- body of the message your name and
tion to be printed the full width of a page address so that we can verify your member-
Communications Director: (8.5 inches). Please do not submit digital ship. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have a
Andrea Young photos with only 640x480 pixels resolu- completely automated system, and Tortoise
tion.. Send all artwork to the Art Direc- can be a little slow, so it might take several
tor, Andrea Young. days.
Activities Director: Bob Lyon
New Editor and Art
Volunteer Coordinator: Mission Statement for Director
Lynne Buckner
Desert Survivors Cathy Luchetti is taking over as Editor, and
Desert Survivors is a nonprofit organiza- Andrea Young, who was elected Communi-
Directors At Large: tion dedicated to desert conservation and cations Director at the Annual Meeting in
Neal Cassidy exploration. Our members enjoy hiking in September, is taking over as Art Director.
and learning about America’s desert lands, Complete coverage of the Annual Meeting
Judy Kendall and seek to protect those areas for future and Board elections will appear in the next
generations. issue. Since I had started the Summer issue
John Moody some time ago, I was given the opportunity
to complete it before the new team takes
Jannet Schraer Sign up for Desert over. Look for major improvements in the
future. I would like to thank Desert Sur-
Kenneth Logan Survivor E-Mail vivors for the opportunity to work on The
Survivor for the last four years, my prede-
Notices and On-Line cessors, previous editor Jessica Rothhaar
The Survivor is printed by Forum and art director Hall Newbegin, for advice
My Printer, Berkeley, CA, Desert Survivors has two e-mail lists for and instruction, and especially the many
www.emyprinter.com. members, DSEM (DS Electronic Mail ) excellent contributors to The Survivor.
-Paul Brickett
The Survivor Summer 2007 3

4. Desert Pavements
NAT U R A L H I S TO RY
and Dust: The Rest
of the Story
By Marith Reheis, Golden, CO
D
esert Survivors frequently hike across long stretches of
desert pavements because they are, in the absence of
Paul Brickett
trails, the easiest ground to walk and are common in the
low-altitude arid regions. When well developed, pavements are
composed of interlocking clasts of gravel that can be darkly var-
nished on top if the rock type is suitable; desert varnish will not Hiking desert pavement in Palo Verde Wilderness, Nov., 2005
form on rocks that are soluble, like limestone, and does not usually
become thick and black on rocks that disaggregate easily, like sand- more uniform in size and the clasts begin to interlock, forming the
stone and granite. Other than blessing these pavements when they kind of surface we enjoy for hiking.
extend in the direction of travel, many people do not think about
pavements or how they form. Many of those who do have mis- The basic elements of this story of pavement formation have been
taken ideas about how they form, and very few understand how documented by several key papers written by Les McFadden, Steve
old they can be. Wells, and others. They used a dating method called cosmogenic
nuclide accumulation to estimate the length of time that the sur-
A previous article in a Desert Survivors issue described pavements face stones have been exposed to cosmic rays at the ground sur-
as forming by wind erosion, which winnows and removes fine sed- face. And they used ages of the gravel or bedrock (basalt flow)
iment grains, including silt, clay, and fine sand. These fine sedi- deposits underneath, dated by potassium-argon and uranium-series
ments are removed from alluvial-fan sediments that were deposited methods, to show that the age of pavement clasts is the same as
as poorly sorted mixtures of fine sediment and gravel. In fact, the age of deposition of the gravel or bedrock beneath the dust
most pavements form by exactly the opposite process in the west- accumulation. Other studies by people like me have shown that
ern deserts of North America and on other continents as well: the fine sediment, which forms a soil horizon called a “vesicular A”
addition of silt, clay, and fine sand to a gravelly fan surface! Many horizon (for its bubble-shaped pores) beneath the pavement, is
geologists and soil scientists have studied desert pavements and identical in mineral composition and dominant elemental chemistry
their relations to underlying dust layers, and have used many differ- to the modern dust now being deposited at the same sites. This
ent approaches to understand how they form. What follows is a shows that the fine sediment represents a long-term accumulation
summary of their work; for more information, check out the
papers listed at the end of this article.
Fresh fan surfaces are usually very rocky and rough, with bar-and-
swale topography and sediment of all sizes at the surface. As a
result, these surfaces are very good and efficient natural dust traps;
their unevenness creates small vortices and an overall surface
roughness that slows the surface winds and causes dust particles to
fall out. The dust, if not immediately blown away, may filter down
or be washed down into pore spaces. Then a mechanical process
takes over that in effect is analogous to taking a jar of mixed sizes
of nuts, screws, and bolts, and shaking it. The coarsest materials
will move to the top of the pile in the jar. A similar thing happens
with time in the formation of pavements: wetting and drying
events move the fine particles into pore spaces below the surface
and a layer of gravel floats on the top of the fines. Over long
periods of time—thousands of years of gradual deposition of
dust—the layer of fine particles thickens and the layer of stones at
the surface stays on top (the surface as a whole rises a little due to
Marith Reheis
inflation by the dust layer). Because the stones are at the surface,
they are more affected than stones at depth by mechanical weath-
ering that breaks large rocks down to smaller sizes by thermal
expansion, wetting and drying, and crystallization of salts in cracks
and pores. By such processes, the surface gravel clasts become Closeup of surface clasts in a pavement; they are beginning
to form an interlocking pattern
4 The Survivor Summer 2007

5. of desert dust that was
NAT U R A L H I S TO RY
deposited slowly enough that it
did not bury the pavement. In
a very few places, such as the
Cima volcanic field downwind
of Soda Lake, deposition rates
of dust from playas were at
times fast enough to bury a
pavement; in such cases these
dust deposits are called “desert
loess”. But mostly, the stone-
free dust layers beneath the
pavements are no thicker
than 15-20 cm.
Marith Reheis
How long does it take to
form a pavement? Many
studies have shown that this Desert pavement surfaces on the west side of the McCoy
varies depending on the climate, climate change, dust-influx rates, Mountains, California. Note the old WWII tank tracks in the
and surface slope. Where fans are vegetated by sagebrush and foreground.
trees are nearby, pavements either won’t form or will be disrupted
by bioturbation (roots, burrowing animals, etc.). In such higher rainfall zones, the dust is still present, but it is usually infiltrated
deeper below the surface and is better mixed with the original sand
and gravel. In more arid zones, with normal dust-deposition rates,
it takes about 10,000 years to form a fairly weak, patchy pavement,
and at least 50,000-100,000 years to form a strong, interlocking
pavement with 10-20 cm of underlying dust. In Australia, the
desert landscapes are very old, erosion rates are extremely low, and
vegetation changes in the past glacial-to-interglacial cycles have
been much more limited than those in the western U.S. Aus-
tralians call the surfaces with desert pavement “gibber plains”.
The gibbers may be underlain by as much as a meter or two of
dust-derived sediments—and these gibbers can be as old as a mil-
lion years!
So, the next time you step out for a stroll on a desert pavement,
(or feel tempted to dig a hole in one, or see someone driving off-
road on one), consider how long it took to form and how slowly it
may recover from disturbance. Patton’s World War II tank tracks
on pavements in the Mojave Desert are clearly visible today.
References
McFadden, L.D., Wells, S.G., and Jercinovich, M.J., 1987, Influ-
ences of eolian and pedogenic processes on the origin and
evolution of desert pavement: Geology, v. 15, p. 504-508.
Marith Reheis
McFadden, L.D., McDonald, E.V., Wells, S.G., Anderson, K.,
Quade, J., and Forman, S.L., 1998, The vesicular layer and car-
bonate collars of desert soils and pavements: formation, age
Soil beneath the same pavement in the previous picture (the and relation to climate change: Geomorphology, v. 24, p. 101-
lower part of the soil is oxidized red and speckled with 145.
white spots that are calcium carbonate). Soil horizon Reheis, M.C., Goodmacher, J.C., Harden, J.W., McFadden, L.D.,
boundaries are marked by nails along the left side. Gravels
Rockwell, T.K., Shroba, R.R., Sowers, J.M., and Taylor, E.M.,
are concentrated in the surface pavement layer and below
1995, Quaternary soils and dust deposition in southern Neva-
the sign. At and above the sign there are very few rocks;
most of the soil sediment is sand, silt, and clay. The upper da and California: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v.
8 cm, just below the pavement, has no rocks and is nearly 107, p. 1003-1022.
all a pale-colored silt, the so-called Av (vesicular) horizon,
consisting of desert dust added to the soil.
The Survivor Summer 2007 5

6. These Are the Things I Have Seen Today
F E AT U R E
By Chris Schiller, Redding, CA; www.schillerimages.com
I’ve been told there is very little time left, that we must get
all these things about time and place straight. If we don’t,
Chris Schiller
we will only have passed on and have changed nothing.
-Barry Lopez, Desert Notes
I
Mating rattlesnakes
have seen two snakes mating on the trail today. I’ve seen but-
terflies on horse apples. A mining boomtown reborn. Prong-
horn lambs learning to run. I have seen ravens playing about
II
a high peak. Snow left from winter’s longing. A curtain of rain Still these things are in our path. This trail was born by the pas-
stretched across a desert land. I have felt the slight air of heaven sage of horses, crossing the creek many times, unmindful of wet
upon my face. boots. The horses drop apples, bake meadow biscuits, leave trail
mulching. A hay burners’ unregulated exhaust. The butterflies
come in search of salts or perhaps some secret nectar bargained
I for in a long ago equine-lepidoptera agreement. All butterflies are
The snakes, these two fat rattlers, are dancing and twisting in my colorful except for these. Their wings are an inkblot test for their
path. So intense their interest, they do not notice me approaching. predators, but a wondrous block print for their admirers. If only
Or they note me and dismiss me. When I coil a length of cord the world were this simple: float the breeze in black and white,
improperly, and then try to use it, there is a nest of knots in the alight upon the compost of travelers, then fill the sky with flutter-
untangling. This is the shape of their sex: knots in the untangling. ing visions. The butterflies, too, demure when we approach.
They seem drunk in their desire, lolling each other nose-to-nose, a They lift like a handful of wild coins tossed in the air, then land
slow tilting of viper necks, then flopping to the dirt. Bodies again, all heads and tails random. A harbor full of painted sails
entwined. A shifting of knots, a boy scout’s nightmare, then the upon grassy waves.
passion of vines up an invisible trellis again. I step silently for-
ward for a closer picture, and they still do not see any of the
world but their own. I look down at my camera settings, and in
III
that second they have seen me. They are sat up like lovers in a This town died once upon a time in the west. Long enough ago
spied-on bed. Ahem, they say with forked tongues, facing me. I to have left only weathered boards, crumbling bricks, and tailings
retreat shamefully and cast a wide path around. spilled about the hills. The previous boomtown lived at the end
of a long supply chain stretching to San Francisco and beyond,
perhaps to London or Shanghai. Nothing grew here that people
could eat directly. Gold and silver were born here, and that’s all.
The town died when the ore ran out, like the thousand other
dusty collections of buildings and mills scattered around the west.
A few hardy loners in rusted travel trailers held on and hid from
wives, previous lives, the law, or maybe themselves out here
beyond the reach of civilization. They drove to Tonopah to col-
lect checks and at the same time bitched about the government
that fed them.
I helped a broken-down resident of this town about ten years ago,
and heard at least his view of his world. This was remote country
traveled only by ranchers and a few hikers most of the year, and
hoards of hunters for two weeks in the fall. Ten years ago that
was. I’ve visited frequently since then, but always traveled other
roads. Passing through today there are fresh new houses on the
old mining claims. Shiny custom-built houses with materials
hauled from Fallon or maybe Reno, hundreds of miles away. How
much did each nail cost once it was purchased, transported, and
driven into wood? And there’s an even newer church on the hill,
let’s not forget that. This is far, far off the grid, and there are
tracking solar panels in each yard. Who are these people to build
Chris Schiller
houses out here? Retirees? Californians with ponzi-pyramid
returns on house sales? Do they know what the winters are like
out here? How soon will they tire of the hour-long drive to
Butterflies on horse apples Tonopah, and how will they be disappointed in what it has to
6 The Survivor Summer 2007

7. offer? Will their satellite TV carry them through? Their
F E AT U R E
supply chain stretches to Saudi Arabia, and is as tenuous
as the miners’ supply chain a hundred years ago. But
these new boomtown residents take nothing from here
but the views. The money comes from elsewhere. If I
return in twenty more years, will these houses already be
on their way to ruin?
The landscape contracts again as the boomtimes expand
again. I can only conjure the patience of the sagebrush
here in the heart of the Sagebrush Sea. It will reclaim,
like water, this folly of men.
IV
Chris Schiller
No, there is more than gold and silver born here. In
Antelope Valley (yes, there are about seven of them in
Nevada, but I’m talking about this Antelope Valley)
nature obliges. A pronghorn which hesitates at the
Ghost town
approach of a truck is a spectacle. If the distance from a
moving vehicle is less than a hundred yards, they are usually hammer and thunder back there in the empty pickup bed. Wash-
flying over the sagebrush before you see them. And a stopped board here on the roads of the mortal, and the ravens soar. They
truck demands even more space. Oh, they are a wondrous beauty do not feel joy, they are joy embodied in a grand dance about the
when running. Effortless and smooth across the land. As if some peak. Rising and dipping, they are prophets cycling the summit
force other than legs were propelling them. The deep evolution eddy. Their words come in quorks and hoots; they answer the
bestride extinct predators is still large in their oversized hearts. But wind. We fight the fires of our own making, separating dust from
they start small, like all things. Like storms launched by butterflies. flame. We heave the heavy breaths of our burdens, and the ravens
Wars from the flick of a forked tongue. Oceans from the first soar effortless above. We roll stones from the mountain, and the
raindrops of a summer afternoon. ravens know where the fresh dead lie. And if the fire crowns, if
the smoke and inferno take us, flesh and static and dust, might
And so the pronghorn lamb appeared from its napping place in they find indulgence in us. Take sacrament, take spirit, take flight
the sagebrush. Then another, and its on a thunderstorm afternoon. Cackle
ewe too. A few weeks old, they were and play on black wings: if only this
still growing their wings and after- were our destiny, our journey, our
burners, so the ewes only trotted as soul. We top out the rise and the
they led, like race cars idling ahead of radio clears and there is only air there
scooters. They live on this plain, on above us now. And whooping black-
another plane. What is it to be faster winged birds below.
than anything which exists, to be born
with one of the few superpowers VI
granted creatures on this Earth? To
You hear the snowfield before you
grow into this legacy of open valleys,
see it. A gurgle where a moment ago
to rise wobbling from the shrubs, trot
there was only the wind. All things
a few weeks and then never be out-
on the mountain, even the rocks,
raced by anything but the wind?
seem alive and awake, but the snow
left white sleeps on in inert repose. It
V is an icy momentum of winter, exist-
There, high in the battlements of the ing still only because it still exists.
glaciated ridgeline, the ravens seek the Smaller patches are long melted. This
answers. one thaws about the edges but keeps
its center cool. Its dribble of meltwa-
Preachers and the holy static over- ter joins others, is a creek, becomes a
power truth on the truck radio. river, and then dies a reincarnated
These dozen black disciples encircle death by evaporation in the far salty
the wind-blasted pinnacles like a playa. The snowfield’s outflow will
crown. Sunlight flares through the not reach the sea in this life, but
Chris Schiller
cracked, buggy windshield of the downweather, at the extreme edge of
sky. Darkness in the clouds from hazy vision, lie the ranges which drain
upweather, and the ravens soar. to the ocean, and there is a definite
The mighty Pulaskis of the father intent of storm in the sky this noon.
Rain curtains
The Survivor Summer 2007 7

8. A choir Thor might direct. The only music Amelia
F E AT U R E
could pick up across the blank Pacific. Songs of for-
lorn propellers at great altitudes. Your body shakes
with the harmony. Curtains of rain, come wash me
clean. I’ve been in these heights too long. Come wash
me clean. The land is dry and the sky too blue. Come
wash me clean. Come wash me clean.
VIII
Except it’s not your dream, it’s mine. And it’s not a
dream, it’s reality. High above treeline on the summit
ridge with the storms on a transept across the sky.
If I died here this moment, I would be at peace. No
regrets. The air calm and my head full of light. This is
Thoreau’s bequest: live each day as if it might be your
Chris Schiller
last. Some days I am more successful with this legacy
than others, but this day finds me complete. My heart
is as light as the white grouse feather caught in the
whiskers of a coyote. Hunger slaked, it trots through
High in the Great Basin
the sagebrush on the mountain flanks below. This is
the measure of the breath of heaven: grouse down,
VII whiskers grinning, coyote breathing. Rain falling on the shores of
This is your dream. In your dream you can fly. You break the the sagebrush sea. The breath of heaven upon me.
promise you made to gravity. There are mountains. You arch your
back and you float high above those mountains. Range upon
range to the east and to the west, and between the ranges are
Epilogue
Below, the serpents are making more serpents. They invade the
broad dry valleys. Valleys awash in sagebrush and fawn-colored
yards of the boomtown, chasing the rodents taking shelter under
grass. The ranges are darker, with blankets of trees. Some of the
the new houses. No horses climb this high, but the butterflies per-
ranges are higher than trees will grow. Above treeline is naked
form perfect ascensions. The ravens are bullets against the blue
rock, tilted and spilling. You are not naked in your dream; you
sky just like the pronghorns are as distant a memory as the trucks.
wear clothes appropriate for flying. Silk, or maybe leather. Cotton,
Naked rock cannot burn, and the snow couldn’t extinguish the fire
if that’s all your dreams will provide. Something naturally grown.
if it could. And in a thousand years of rain, my friend, has a coy-
Think Amelia, not Clark.
ote followed the ravens up here to chase a feather in the wind?
The sky is heavy with cloud, with gaps torn You know where the answer is.
through to blue sky in places. Other places
are darker, bruised. Rain falls. You are so
high you cannot tell if the rain reaches the
ground. Mottled light is a calico pattern
upon the far valley floor. The rainclouds
join, one and then another, and the rain
from them intensifies. They form a curtain
across your dream world. Fifty miles, a hun-
dred. A curtain of rain a hundred miles
across the mountains and valleys. You can
smell it, but in your dream it does not fall on
you. Does not follow you. The rain reaches
the earth now, heavy and sweeping. The
curtain is rippled and fluted and if auroras
were made of raindrops instead of naked
atoms your dream curtain would be the
northern lights conveyed across a hemi-
sphere this summer afternoon lit glowing
and shaded both.
Chris Schiller
You find a voice you could only have in a
dream, deep and resonant. The tapestry of
storms hums, and you sing with it. Some-
thing like gospel. What angels might sing. Deep Canyon
8 The Survivor Summer 2007

9. A Horse Fable Tariq ibn Ziyad, one of the greatest horsemen in Moorish military
F I C T I O N F E AT U R E
history, first saw Los Trillizos in Mecca during his hadj. In order
to finance his invasion of Spain he wagered “everything but his
By Stan Huncilman, Berkeley, CA mother” in a horse race with the Caliph of Baghdad to be allowed
to use the Caliph’s herd of Los Trizillos for his conquest.
M
ay of this year, I with six other Desert Survivors climbed
Division Peak in Nevada’s Calico Hills. Wild horses were Tariq ibn Ziyad made good use of his innovative cavalry. Some
very much in abundance, much to the group’s enjoyment. soldiers were reported to have fashioned cots that spanned the
In time I began to notice that though most of the horses were in three horses and slept while the horses continued with the advanc-
herds of 8 to 12, there were 7 herds that numbered only three. ing forces. The two un-ridden Los Trizillos instinctively formed a
This struck me as unusual. My inquiries at a local ranch came to phalanx in battle making it nearly impossible for the armor-encum-
naught, ditto at the opal mine. Only by chance, when I happened bered Spanish to win–they would have to face two foes simultane-
to mention it at a bar, did the barmaid comment “Oh, you sound ously.
like that crazy Englishman who wandered through here a few years
With the eventual banishment of the Moors from Spain Los Trizil-
ago.”
los fell into decline. The Spanish cavalry remained committed to a
I got enough information from her to eventually speak to one of heavily armored knight. Los Trizillos are hot bloods, and as such,
the world’s experts on rare horse breeds. Sir Edmund de Vere of are physically unable to function as a heavy knight’s horse. The
the Royal Equestrian Britannia had in fact been the “crazy English- Spanish preferred the warmblooded breeds which were more dis-
man” wandering around the desert. He was elated at the news of posed to the steady plod of knightly transport; also one can not
my sightings. He was not entirely surprised with the reappearance discount the Spanish hatred of all things Moorish in the neglect of
of Los Trizillos as bands, apart from the other wild horse herds.” the Los Trizillos.
“Many years ago, there was one band of three, the legacy of Tariq Los Trizillos began to disappear. It was only because a few wild
ibn Ziyad,” he said. “But human indifference has been a friend to bands survived in Spain’s remote Extremadura that a new genera-
Los Trizillos. It has allowed them to roam in wilderness areas. tion of adventurers was able to recognize their unique qualities.
And now, the breed is returning.” The Conquistadors put purpose before pride and acknowledged
the legendary abilities of the horses. The Conquistadors were not
“How wonderful. Seven bands! You don’t say.” He sighed. “I had knights. They were poor opportunists with minimal social status.
a chap contact me who was in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco These small, tough horses could survive a journey across the sea.
recently doing location work for the cinema. He was lucky enough They could live on minimal forage. These horses were survivors,
to take some photographs of a couple of bands that might well be not heraldic icons.
Los Trizillos and sent them to me.”
History repeated itself in the New World. Los Trizillos carried
“These are most exciting times for the horse aficionado,” he con- their horsemen to conquest and were neglected afterwards. Those
cluded. Then he thanked the Members of Desert Survivors and that followed the Conquistadors, the ranchers and padres, pre-
other groups that had done so much for wilderness protection. ferred either larger horses that were better at head butting cattle, or
the simple burro, long conditioned to the itinerant evangelism of
When I asked if he planned to return to Nevada, he confessed that the frugal padres.
the very idea of such “vast empty lands” was a bit hard for him to
consider at his age. Northern European settlers also saw little value in Los Trizillos.
Miners preferred burros, homesteaders preferred horses that could
I followed up on the name Tariq ibn Ziyad after talking with Sir pull a wagon or plow. It is odd that the cowboy never took to Los
Edmund. These horses are descendants of Tariq ibn Ziyad’s Trizillos, as they were aware of them. The ballad “Just one Sad-
Moorish cavalry, whose use of the Los Trillizos, as they came to be dle” refers to the breed. The most likely reason: the now wild
known in Spain, enabled the rapid conquest of the Iberian Penin- bands of Los Trizillos ranged in remote mountain areas and were
sula in 711 CE. Each member of this elite Moorish cavalry rode extremely difficult to round up. However, probably the best rea-
Un Trillizo, a group of one stallion and two mares or fillies. son was economics. Cowboys were poor. Few could afford to
feed and care for more than one horse. Cowboys also had the
Los Trillizos were first encountered by the Arabs during their Quarter Horse, which is about as close as one can get to one
incursions into the steppes of Northern Iran. The indigenous Trizillo. So it seems that:
peoples there, primarily shepherds, had little interest in the horses’
unique banding instincts. The historian al Waqidiin, in his book Nature in her wresting ways
“Kitab al Tarikh wa al Maghazi” (“Book of History and Cam- does oft have her specials ways,
paigns”) makes what many scholars believe to be the first Arab ref- by which that once withered
erence to the breed. He refers to a cavalryman al-Zuhri winning can come anew.
an early horse race that was reputed to last over 28 hours by his perchance the soul doth seed the clay.
use of 3 horses from the land of Hecatompylus. Al Waqidiin does
not mention if al Zuhri was disqualified for his innovative tactic. -Rnias
The Survivor Summer 2007 9

10. Castle Peaks
TRIP REPORTS
Carcamp
April 5-7, 2007, Mohave National Preserve, CA
By Steve Tabor
T
his Easter visit to the Mojave National Pre-
serve was a hot and dry one. Ten of us spent
Steve Tabor
three days in a place where Survivors had
encountered a foot of snow on the same date in
1999. Daytime temperatures were in the mid-80s F,
but strong breezes kept us cool and refreshed much View of the New York Mountains from second night’s camp
of the time. We saw few wildflower blooms in this dry spring sea-
years of good moisture, ended about ten years later when drought
son, but the profusion of native grasses was a joy to behold. The
made dry farming impossible.
Castle Peaks Wilderness was recovering from a century of cattle
grazing. Only five years without cattle had worked wonders on the Soon we were in Willow Wash itself. We hiked east and stopped
ecosystem. to rest in the open wash. It was 84 ºF at 10:40 a.m., unusually hot
for this time of year. I remembered the year before when we were
We met on Interstate-15 at Nipton Road, then drove on Ivanpah
snowed on at 3:00 p.m. one afternoon in country just to the south.
Road to a jeep trail just short of the Boomerang Mine on the west
I also remembered 2000, another hot dry year when the tempera-
side of the Castle Peaks volcanic complex. The Peaks are rhyolite
ture reached 90 ºF on April 28. I had to cancel a fund-raising trip
volcanic necks and erosional lava remnants perched above a 1.7
in the Mesquite Wilderness as a result.
billion-year-old array of metamorphic rocks, schist and gneiss.
Our Good Friday hike would be up Willow Wash, through the Though it was hot and dry, we were impressed by the array of
metamorphics to the ridgecrest in the volcanics. If we could get Mojavean vegetation near the rest stop. I did a transect. Cactus
to Dove Spring on the other side of the ridge, all to the good, but and succulents in evidence were barrel cactus, Mojave yucca, Span-
I would settle for the top and a good view. ish bayonet (Yucca baccata), buckhorn cholla and beavertail cactus.
Shrubs were purple sage, mallow, Ephedra, cheesebush, rabbit-
We started hiking soon after we got to an old homestead showing
brush, creosote bush, catclaw acacia, desert willow, Prunus Ander-
on the map. We hiked over a few hills, at first following an old
sonii (with tent caterpillars!), Lycium, spiny Menodora, Krameria, a
railroad grade whose tracks had long ago been taken up. The rail-
Haplopappus (cuneatus?), Mojave aster, matchweed, and California
road dated from a time early in the 20th century when the U.S.
buckwheat. Forbs were Eriophyllum, desert marigold, Phacelia,
Homestead Act encouraged farmers to clear land and lay out
pincushion flower, paintbrush, and some kind of burweed. Not
farms in Lanfair Valley to the south. That effort, supported by
many of the forbs were blooming and the ground was dry.
pre-war socialistic designs by the Federal Government and a few
We went farther up the wash to an old
water trough near Willow Spring where
we ate lunch. High clouds dimmed the
light, keeping the temperature in the
80s. The trough was surrounded by
squawbush and desert willow. Juniper
trees grew nearby, here at 4500', and
joshua trees covered the hillsides.
The trough’s pole fence was intact, indi-
cating that it was a protected wildlife
water source. The little bit of water was
sweet and clear, though bright green
algae lay on the surface. After lunch we
went farther upstream where we found
the actual spring. It had been dug out
and a spring box had been installed.
www.nps.gov/
Water was about four feet down in a
concrete tube, well-covered and shaded
by huge mesquites. Wheel tracks led up
the wash almost to the trough, illegally
Northeastern portion of Mojave National Preserve map
10 The Survivor Summer 2007

11. inside the Wilderness boundary, running over
TRIP REPORTS
numerous plants and seemingly making no
attempt to avoid them. There were no tracks
beyond.
Upstream we took the left fork in the wash, now
going north toward the pass above Dove Spring.
The bottom became rocky and some of our less-
experienced hikers began to have problems. We
were now in volcanic rock, the mass that com-
prised most of the Castles. Pancake cactus
Steve Tabor
appeared, then more Yucca baccata, grizzly bear
cactus and Mojave mound. Bladdersage grew in
the gulch bottom. Native grasses were incredible,
and quite a surprise in this country, which had Good grass growth, cholla, catclaw and joshua trees on the south slope of
the Castle Peaks
historically been subjected to heavy grazing by cattle
and sheep. I remembered this place as a lounging area for cattle with troughs
and feeding stations. In 1996 it had been paved over with pulver-
We rested at a point where we had to negotiate a dryfall, then ized and fragrant brown cow shit. The cow shit had now mostly
pushed for the top. We reached it at 3:00 p.m. The pass was nar- blown away but ten years later, the ground was largely barren.
row amidst blocky cliffs at 5093'. We had a poor view into Nevada Nothing grew except joshua trees and a few large shrubs and
to the northeast. Most of what we could see was more rocky hills minute weeds. Relentless emissions from a cow herd makes for a
and volcanic cliffs like those around us. We looked down toward toxic environment, even after all this time. The place had been
where Dove Spring should be but could not immediately locate it. free of cattle for at least five years but its condition had hardly
We debated dropping down to look for it but reached no conclu- changed at all.
sion. Finally I consigned Steve Lawrence and Eddie Sudol, both
of whom exhibited boundless energy, to go down and look for it. We set off on our longest hike of the trip precisely at 9:10 a.m..
They were unsuccessful. This day was sunnier and hotter. I led us north on easy ground
through excellent vegetation. We soon found an old cow trail and
We returned the way we came, arriving at the cars at 7:01 p.m. I used it to our advantage. It felt good to cruise on a trail for a
had taken people up too early out of Willow Wash and we were change. There’s something about it; you can look ahead at the
forced to go up hill and down dale, but we managed. Radwan Kir- scenery without always having to watch the ground, which you
wan and I drank cold beers on the veranda of an old stucco cabin usually have to do in rocky or well-vegetated country.
as we watched the sunset. I tried to imagine what the owner’s life
had been like, living this close to the old mine, and perhaps work- This walk was also a joy because we were in cactus and shrub
ing in it. I doubt that the old man did much hiking. country that was coming back to desert grassland. Five years with-
out cows had made for luxuriant grass growth. Big swaths of gal-
After sunset a Park Ranger came by and told us we were camped leta grew two feet high and six feet across. Individual needlegrass
illegally. The Mojave Preserve has a rule against camping near old bolts grew wide across the landscape. Some of the area resembled
buildings because some visitors have a habit of burning them a turf of grama grass with grass clumps engulfing the space
down. I said we would not build a fire that night. He
allowed us to stay, partly because we were Desert Sur-
vivors and he knew of our reputation. He said his ter-
ritory ranged from the Preserve all the way to the
Kingston Range, about 40 miles north. Seems like an
impossible job. I think we could use some of the
National Guard now in Iraq to police the area; they’d
make short work of off-roaders, illegal grazers and
people who just burn down cabins for the hell of it.
The next morning we drove south over a low pass to
the old settlement of Barnwell, then on a graded road
northeast that eventually goes to the huge Castle Mine
in the mountains to the south. Where the Castle Mine
Road swings south, we kept going straight on a dirt
road, really the old railroad grade to Searchlight in
Nevada. We were stopped less than a mile later by a
Steve Tabor
massive washout. We back-tracked and settled for a
campsite at an old cattle watering place offering large
joshua trees and abundant parking.
Galleta grass, junipers and one of the Castle Peaks near the range crest
The Survivor Summer 2007 11

12. between volcanic knobs. Farther down we ended
TRIP REPORTS
up in rocky country, a pediment on the crystalline
Precambrians, with lava knobs all around, a story-
book landscape. We passed a rock dam in the
granite that had been constructed to hold water,
for sheep or for wildlife we could not tell. We
rested nearby.
Taylor Spring was just east over a low pass, but a
half-mile detour to examine it would put us that
much farther from the cars and it was already 3:30
Steve Tabor
p.m. Instead, we continued downstream, then on
an animal trail down to Coats Spring, which
proved to be dry. A lot of Baccharis grew in the
Isolated lava pinnacle east of the crest, resting on Precambrian granite damp ground there, but we found no water, only
an old tank, ranch junk, rusty pipes and pieces of
between them. The low-growing club cholla also formed a turf; I barbed wire. It was a disappointment.
hadn’t even noticed it ten years before, though we were hiking over
much the same ground. What an Easter surprise this was, to see We continued downstream then up over a hill with a view east to
desert grass resurrected after eighty years of purgatory dished out Hart Peak and southeast to the Castle Mine. Down below was a
by the hungry mouths of cattle and sheep! flat covered with creosote and laced with jeep trails. The topo
map said there was a game guzzler there. That would be our next
After two miles of bliss we reached a low pass and rested with a objective. We dropped down off the hill and headed over to the
long view out over Lanfair Valley. We the took a left and headed guzzler. It was a typical water catchment for birds, a gently-sloping
along the ridge top toward the Castle Peaks. Grama grass formed concrete pad, triangular in shape, with a low berm all the way
a mat on much of the ridge, and Yucca baccata was sending up around. An open drain at the downslope apex of the triangle fed
flower stalks, not yet fully opened. The views to the hazy south rainwater down into an underground cistern made of fiberglass.
kept getting better. Near the high point we spooked two deer; one The cistern, shaded from the sun, was full of clear sweet water.
went east, the other west. It was 87 ºF, but we were blessed with a The pool below was thirty inches deep. Only one person other
strong breeze that cooled us down. Coming up top was a stroke than me would drink it. We suffered no ill effects. There was no
of genius on this hot day. date, and no maintenance had been done. Many of these catch-
ments were put in in the 1950s. Its fence, designed to protect the
We ran out of ridge and dropped down into a gulch alongside
water from burros and cattle, was intact.
where we could lounge under a spreading juniper to eat lunch. We
then proceeded northwest in the rocky gulch with views of the Topo maps in the area showed several of these catchments. I
Castle Peaks just ahead. The gulch opened up to a wide wash on wanted to check out at least one, for I will be dependent on them
easy ground amidst juniper trees, chollas and yuccas at an elevation if I ever trek through the area. A DS backpack trip here would
of 5100', a kind of shangri-la with great campsites and lava pinna- certainly benefit from the water. I photographed the site and took
cles all around. I made note of this; it would be a great backpack notes about its condition and location.
camp on a longer trip. Even in winter the tent sites would be
inviting, a joy. This would also be a destination of mine if I do In the remaining hours we hiked southwest to the cars on the old
another Coast-to-Divide trek to match the ones I did in the 1980s, railroad grade. The guzzler was barely three miles from the Nevada
a major stop-off on the way from Cima to Searchlight
to the east.
My original plan was to continue north then west in a
loop, but coming this close to the crest we just had to
go up to the Castle Peaks themselves. We left our day-
packs and one of the hikers under a juniper, then
hiked north. We topped out just southwest of the
highest point, 5828' (1776.7m). We had a better view
this time of the country to the north. A grove of
junipers lay just below. Bitterbrush and goldenbush
were blooming. We spotted a falcon in the air and a
mountain ball cactus, another rarity, on the ground.
Eddie and Radwan did some bouldering in the rocks.
Steve Tabor
Then we dropped down to continue the hike east.
The hike in our wash was at first on beautiful coarse
sand with catclaw and other plants growing healthy The Castle Peaks at the crest. Dove Point (5829') is the high
point on the right.
12 The Survivor Summer 2007

13. border. The cars were about three and three-quarter
TRIP REPORTS
miles away to the southwest. Most of the return was a
rushed plod on the hard road, which wreaked havoc
on my thigh muscles, though a great joshua woods all
around helped inspire me. We got back at 8:10 p.m,
eleven hours and twelve miles after starting.
This night we had a good campfire. Coyotes called
both evening and morning. The happy chatter of a
cactus wren, known in this country only in yucca terri-
tory, made for a joyful noise as we packed to leave.
Steve Tabor
For the last day’s hike we drove to Keystone Canyon in
the New York Mountains. The forested New Yorks
had made an impressive sight from our last camp. We Cactus, junipers and the crest of the New York Mountains
were soon in the midst of them. An old jeep trail led into the
range. We followed it to the Wilderness boundary at 5410', where the more common single-leaf species, the kind of pinyon found in
the desert turned toward woods and chaparral. This would be a California and Utah. The edulis also grows separately, but only at
different world, a real mountain rising above the desert floor, low elevations around the base of the range, a hundred miles from
where Survivors had only deigned to go a couple of times before. its nearest pure stands near Peach Springs, Arizona.
Parts of the New Yorks show a true Southern California mountain The Mahonia and Pinus edulis can only have come across the
ecosystem. Chaparral plants grow here in abundance: shrubs like desert from the east, a migration that probably happened during a
scrub oak, silktassal bush, wax myrtle, buckbrush, lemonade berry warmer and wetter time, possibly during the Altithermal Period of
and manzanita. Above are live oak trees (encina), pinyon, juniper, several thousand years ago. That only would have happened if an
serviceberry, and other plants of the mid-level mountains. High Arizona-style monsoon with summer rains dominated the Califor-
limestone cliffs make for impressive ramparts toward the crest. nia Desert. As yet this phenomenon has been little-studied, but it
On north-facing sides are a few white fir, well-hidden from the could be that global warming did bring greater species diversity to
sun, below cliffs that catch and hold snow in the winter. We saw this part of the state, a phenomenon knocked down by the cold
all but the fir on our five-hour hike, plus other plants that seemed dry conditions of the present. The long ridge of the New Yorks
out of place in the desert. is elongated northwest to southeast, an ideal configuration for
catching monsoon rain coming up from the southeast.
It was long thought that this odd plant regime was left over from
the Ice Age. Certainly the white fir, a snow plant wherever it is We hiked up the deteriorated jeep trail to Keystone Spring at an
found, would seem to corroborate this theory. But the range has elevation of 5870'. At the spring we were surrounded by dense
other anomalies. For example, Mahonia, a hard-leafed shrub with woods and chaparral. Large pancake cactus and yuccas punctuated
big yellow flowers, is known chiefly from the Colorado Plateau the brush and trees. It was a surreal experience after our walks of
region of Utah and Arizona. It is common just across the Arizona the past two days. A small pool of water was accessible amongst
border between the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. And the reeds and dead grasses of the small meadow at the spring.
in Carruthers Canyon on the range’s south side, the twin-leafed This too was good water, in this case a life source for chickadees,
variety of the pinyon, Pinus edulis, can be found hybridizing with scrub jays and band-tailed pigeons instead of coyotes and passing
coveys of doves and quail.
After a short lunch break at the spring we went back
the way we came. It was an educational hike, giving
us a renewed perspective on the desert. This Easter
had been a rejuvenation for sure.
The other hikers were soon on their way back to the
Bay Area, to Seattle, and to far eastern Nevada. I
drove south into Lanfair, then down to Interstate 40
to continue explorations in Arizona, also featured in
this issue. The intensity of these Easter hikes so
wore me down that I stopped to sleep by the side of
the road to recharge my batteries. Within an hour I
was driving fast toward Kingman and beyond, as if
to see just where those Mahonia and Pinus edulis had
Steve Tabor
come from. This Mojave trip was a good one, and
an inspiration. I want many more, as do most or all
Desert Survivor tripsters.
At the bird guzzler on Day Two; hiker at the left is sampling the water
The Survivor Summer 2007 13

14. Footloose In Western Arizona:
TRIP REPORTS
The Arrastra Mountain Wilderness
April, 2007 of well-leafed catclaw and palo verde trees, brilliant bright green as
far as the eye could see. I was swamped with remembrance of my
By Steve Tabor early years exploring in the 1970s, which always included spring-
time in the saguaro. “Sweet life”, I called it! The greenery and
A
fter I led my Castle Mountains trip in the Mojave National chattering birds were always a joy after a winter in Idaho and Utah.
Preserve for Desert Survivors, I drove to Western Arizona
for six days of backpacking in the Arrastra Mountains I packed up and drove down the highway toward the Santa Maria
Wilderness. I knew little about this Wilderness until I began River. Much to my surprise, the beautiful two-lane road through
researching routes across the West for more year-long trekking. I saguaros was being converted into a four-lane freeway. A ten-mile
sent away for information, got the maps, and was blown away. I stretch had been horrendously dug up and blasted out of solid
liked its possibilities for a week away from the drudgery of work rock. Large saguaro cactus, protected by law in Arizona, had been
life. replanted in the median strip on bare ground, mineral soil with no
structure. They were propped up at weird angles with three-way
For a California desert lover, this wilderness has several attractive guy wires staged to hold them vertically as if in a tripod. It’s
attributes. It’s got a real Sonoran Desert upland ecosystem, it’s doubtful that any of them will survive. What a joke! I later
only two hours across the border, it’s got a real desert river, it’s got learned that this road was being reconstructed as part of the
the big saguaro cactus, it’s got bighorn and wild pigs, it’s got plenty NAFTA Superhighway to service the large international airport
of springs, and it’s rough and remote country far from the tourist already approved for the desert west of Las Vegas at Primm. One
trade. It also has a higher-level ecosystem of chaparral and juniper of the great desert roads was being sacrificed for the purpose of
on the ridgecrest. international relations and cheap junk from Mexico and China.
From the Mojave, I drove east to Kingman to get resupplied, then The realignment of the road had closed off my intended trailhead.
southeast along that notorious old desert highway, U.S. Route 93. I All access was now blocked by a continuous barbed wire fence. I
found a place to camp by my car that Sunday night and awoke the couldn’t stop anywhere so I had to keep going all the way to the
next morning to the chatter of thrashers and cactus wrens. My river, the only place to get off. The river would have to be my start
camp at 2400' didn’t have any large cactus, but it was in the midst point. I drove off to the east and back under the bridge, then
found a parking place in
mesquite trees on the river
bank. I packed up food and
gear for a week and headed
downstream, my hopes high
for a storybook journey.
The river was a beauty! A thin
stream of water meandered
lazily back and forth across a
wide bed of coarse sand.
Huge cottonwood trees lined
both banks. Like all Arizona
rivers, this one is prone to
periodic monster floods
derived from pulses of winter
moisture from Hawaii and
summer typhoons from Baja
California. The remains of
big trees lay across the bed
here and there, and swash
BLM Kingman Field Office
marks could be seen on the
terraces above. The Salt, the
Gila, the Blue, the Colorado,
the Little Colorado, the Virgin,
the Escalante, the Green, the
San Juan, the San Rafael, all
the desert rivers I’ve hiked
Eastern portion of Arrastra Mountain Wilderness
14 The Survivor Summer 2007