Monuments

Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument

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The Pacific Crest Trail strolls by Hyatt Lake above, not far from Ashland Oregon, where Northern Californians come up to watch Shakespeare. Honestly the drive up overlooking a deep beautiful valley was far more striking than the pretty lake, but I couldn’t get a decent photograph. The Cascade, Klamath & Siskiyou mountain ranges meet here, and the meadow in the valley is known as Hyatt Prairie. Besides larger animals, the area is well known for bird and butterfly watching, with hundreds of species.

I finally understand the naming conventions of the mountains up here. The Pacific Coast Mountain System includes all the coastal mountains from California up into Alaska. Within that, the Cascades are the young volcanic mountains that run through northern California up to Canada, including Mt Lassen, Mt Shasta, Crater Lake, Mt Rainier, and other stratovolcanoes up to the North Cascades. Within that, the Klamath Mountains are an older range formed by tectonic uplift in northern California and southern Oregon that includes the important Rogue, Smith, Klamath, and Trinity River watersheds, plus the headwaters of the Sacramento River around Shasta Lake. Within that, the Siskiyou Mountains are the stretch that connects the coastal mountains of northern California and Oregon between the Klamath and Rogue Rivers.

This mountainous Bureau of Land Management national monument has fascinating geology, great rivers, and diverse wildlife. The weird mix of soils from ancient seabeds to volcanic debris presents challenges to the plants that have adapted here. Two examples are the cobra lily, a cowled pitcher plant, and the serpentine jewelflower which takes on a purplish tinge here. I recommend reading some of the free Cascade-Siskiyou guides on animals, butterflies, geology and plants before going hiking.

There’s something magical about the smell of the forests up here in Oregon, with the occasional colorful butterfly scooting past, and folks taking their kids fishing while camping by the lake. In town, I tried morel mushrooms and a chocolate porter at the Caldera Brewery, and it was the best meal I’ve had since leaving San Francisco. Folks up here seem to understand the good life.

Sáttítla National Monument

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While trying to find a plowed road through the highlands northeast of Mount Shasta in northern California, I asked a local what he knew about this Biden monument, but he hadn’t heard of the park we were both in. He referred to the area as the Medicine Lake ridge, and he suggested that nearby Glass Mountain was also worth visiting. Medicine Lake above is named for the large low profile or ‘shield’ volcano it sits below. The high point is almost 8,000 feet, but the whole area is high enough to have snow drifts blocking roads in May.

Sáttítla means ‘Obsidian’ in the local native language, and Glass Mountain is loaded with the black volcanic glass. To be clear, this is the Glass Mountain in Modoc National Forest near Lava Beds, not the 11,000+ foot Glass Mountain in the Inyo National Forest near Yosemite. The road and hiking are rough in this US Forest Service monument, and it’s illegal to gather obsidian. Fortunately the active volcano hasn’t erupted in 1000 years or so. But geologically, this is still a fascinating area.

The many volcanoes in Northern California, like Lassen and Shasta, are created by action deep below the surface. Until I got lost up here, I never knew that when one of the tectonic subduction plates slides under the continent, it can slice off a top surface layer, leaving contrasting features. Besides sharp peaks like Black Butte aside 101, there are faults that cause water falls like Middle Falls near McCloud below on its way to Shasta Lake.

Fort Ord National Monument

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The military fort near Monterey California closed in 1994, in 2009 part of the dunes became a state park, and in 2012 President Obama made the rest a national monument. The 15k acre site is currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management with just a few bits of unexploded ordinance in one section, but the rest of the large coastal park on rolling hills is open for hiking, biking and horseback riding. It’s a lovely spot where locals walk their dogs and get some exercise in the fresh air. Much of the site is behind gates that block cars from the roads, but there’s parking in neighboring communities like East Garrison from where folks bike in.

Fort Ord was perhaps best known for being an equestrian military base, supporting the 76th field artillery during WWI and early WWII, complete with an equine hospital. Horse soldiers or cavalry, have a long history predating the USA, although with modern drone warfare even heavy armored ‘cavalry’ like tanks must adapt or become obsolete. Here, I was most interested in the Comanche Horse memorial, and the closest trailhead to that is Jerry Smith. Comanche was the last and most famous parade horse on base, and its rider’s grandfather was a horse soldier during the Native American wars. The ‘original’ Comanche was a survivor of Little Big Horn, and the Comanche buried on a hill in Fort Ord is named for that veteran horse’s bravery.

Sand to Snow National Monument

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As the name suggests, this California preserve includes diverse ecosystems from the Colorado and Mojave Deserts to San Gorgonio Mountain. The passes have long been used by Native Americans, and the monument sits just north of the Morongo Reservation. So the area protects both diverse species and cultural heritage.

Jointly managed by the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, this land connects Joshua Tree with the San Bernardino National Forest and helps close the gap with the Santa Rosa & San Jacinto National Monument. While I-10 cuts between the two monuments, it’s not difficult to imagine a wildlife corridor being built over or under I-10 here someday, similar to the new 101 wildlife crossing near Santa Monica. There are existing I-10 underpasses in Arizona and New Mexico with plans for more.

I was curious about the nearby town on I-10 called Whitewater. Turns out the Whitewater River runs through the monument and picks up white silt in the sandy canyon. So, there’s no whitewater rafting on the river, although recent flash flooding closed a couple trails. The headwaters and upper reach is designated a wild & scenic river, then it turns into a recreational river in the wilderness, then flows through the monument and ends up in the Salton Sea.

While the national monument is fairly new, much of the land has been protected by environmental groups who negotiated donations to protect the area forever. The cabin above is a ranger station in a pretty campground in the canyon. It’s nice to know that there are such lovely places just off the interstate.

Carrizo Plain National Monument

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This month I’m posting my spring visits to national monuments and recreation areas in California, slowly working my way north.

Soda Lake above dries out each summer, leaving alkaline deposits that look like baking soda. The plain is best known for occasional super blooms in April attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors. But the roads are poor, so some folks get stuck in the soft mud in this remote area of coastal California ($1,200 bucks to retrieve your vehicle). The Bureau of Land Management runs a seasonal visitor center from December through May, with exhibits and very helpful staff who can tell you if the petroglyph area is open or not. If you plan to see the wildflowers, definitely call ahead to get the latest info on both the blooms and the roads.

I came early this year after a nice dry stretch while the lake was full and the land was still green and drove all over the place without seeing another person. I saw several golden eagles and watched a small flock of curlew land beside me to peck around with their long thin curved beaks. Geology students often come out to drive along the Dragon’s Back and take photos where Wallace Creek is sharply diverted by the San Andreas Fault, which runs between the seasonal lake and the Temblor Range in the photo above left.

Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument

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Palm Canyon is part of Indian Canyons, managed by the Agua Caliente Band of Coahuila Indians near Palm Springs, California. Despite some recent fire damage, the trail is still quite beautiful especially in the morning. Palm Canyon Creek is a Wild and Scenic River further upstream, although the upper trail was closed when I visited. The canyon is definitely worth paying for parking and visiting the fine trading post too, although even in winter, the area is quite hot by midday.

Some years ago, I took my family up on the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which has a good view of the north part of this Bureau of Land Management monument. But this trip I enjoyed hiking into the canyon to see the largest oasis grove of shaggy California fan palms. It’s a magical spot with birds zipping between the trees, butterflies and even a coyote seeking water.

Mojave Trails from Amboy to Zzyzx

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Mojave Trails National Monument lies south of Mojave National Preserve and includes a section of 100 year old Route 66 in southern California. But the broader East Mojave Heritage Trails extend through both areas and far beyond, north to the Kingston Range near the Nevada border, east to the Dead Mountains Wilderness near Needles, and south to Sheephole Valley, Old Woman and Turtle Mountains wildernesses. Many of the trails follow the old Spanish trails and Native American routes through passes to water sources. Until this trip, I didn’t realize that California has more desert lands than Arizona, that there were so many huge wilderness conservation lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, or just how diverse the landscapes are. Even without a four wheel drive off road vehicle, you can see Kelso Dunes, Soda Lake, and hike to lava tubes.

The monument has a stretch of ten whistle stop towns named alphabetically starting with Amboy, known for its volcanic crater above. The 250’ high crater can be hiked, but I just wandered around the viewing area nearby. Most of these towns have since returned to dust, but Roy’s Cafe is still open in Amboy, thanks to the son of a chicken chain owner who bought the town decades ago. I enjoy visiting ghost towns and dusty old cafes in the middle of nowhere, and California’s Route 66 has several photogenic spots. I’ll write about my favorite one next time.

If you’ve ever driven I-15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, you may have wondered about the exit for Zzyzx. Zzyzx was created as a health treatment by a radio conman in the 1940s on the shore of Soda Lake in the Mojave Desert. He developed an oasis resort and sold his salty cure-all by mail nationwide, until he ran into some legal trouble in the 1970s. Now most of the area is within the Mojave National Preserve, and a local college uses the buildings, but it’s still a beautiful spot not to be missed.

Chuckwalla National Monument

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In Southern California’s Chuckwalla Mountains—named after the chunky chuckwalla lizard—you can pull off I-10 and drive up into a BLM campground in the oasis above. Although there was a fire recently, half of the palms in the oasis are still okay. Honestly, my brief hike was a bit disappointing, with no sign of the lizard. Since it’s obviously hot in the desert, staying at a campground overnight can be a good way to hike early morning when it’s cooler.

Despite all those TV commercials suggesting that you need some big gas-guzzler to drive into the desert, I made it in my electric car. Desert unpaved roads are inconsistent depending on recent weather. But since it’s usually dry, the roads are usually fine. So I ignored the sign saying 4 wheel drive only, and I had no trouble in my low clearance sedan over the 6 mile road, which alternately is sandy, hard, flat, rocky and bumpy. A flash flood could wash out a road, so you do need to watch the weather especially if camping.

In my next post I’ll talk more about different types of national monuments and recreation areas, but this one extends the Joshua Tree ecosystem south and southeast, connecting over 600,000 acres of remote mountainous wilderness between the Sonoran and Mojave deserts.

Giant Sequoia National Monument

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The US Forest Service manages this national monument inside the Sequoia National Forest in California. I took the photo on the popular Trail of 100 Giants in the south part of the monument, and you can see some of the fire damage from many huge carbon-pollution driven wildfires. Outside the monument, the devastation is far worse, and I drove through over 30 miles of fatally burned trees to get to the protected Giant Sequoia grove above.

Despite all the fossil fuel and timber industry attempts to avoid talking about the actual cause of the unprecedented new age of fire, it’s very clear that the climate surrounding these groves has changed dramatically due to man. The snow is on the ground for a much shorter period of time, the air and soil are drier, the temperature is higher and there’s even more wind and lightning. These trees evolved for cold, high altitude winters with lots of runoff all year long from snowmelt. On a hot day, a mature Giant Sequoia needs to consume 500 to 800 gallons of water. Today, the creek is tiny, the soil is very dry and the climate is much hotter than it was before the oil industry began. Forest fires, once limited to small areas in cold wet forests, now burn unprecedented huge areas, hotter than ever before, for a longer fire season than ever before. Make no mistake, the primary threat to these trees is our carbon pollution.

The few remaining multi-thousand year old Giant Sequoia are surrounded by giant stumps, where loggers once cut them down to make shingles and pencils, seen at places like Stump Meadows in the north part of the monument. Environmentalists began saving the groves, creating Sequoia National Park in 1890 and expanding the area over the years to protect more groves. Clinton made this grove a national monument in 2000. Now the forest service must treat the groves as special gardens, regularly removing other trees, spraying fire retardant in the area, wrapping famous trees with fire resistant tarps, and even using sprinklers and helicopters to spray thousands of gallons of water per day to protect specific trees from imminent fires.

I first visited the Trail of 100 Giants with my family many years ago, when we appreciated the stroller-friendly hiking trail. Years later, my grown kids wanted to stop here again, and I took the photo below on August 14, 2020. I remember saying how terribly dry everything was. A few days later, I was driving them north on I-5, and I watched the incredible lightning storm that sparked the SQF Complex fire that burned 171,000 acres around here, killing around 10,000 Giant Sequoias. I remember saying that it was the most lightning I had ever seen in my life. The next year there was the 98,000 acre Windy Fire, which killed 1,000 Giant Sequoias, and also the 88,000 acre KNP Complex Fire, which killed 2,000 Giant Sequoias. And the fires continue to threaten the last remaining groves, while we continue burning fossil fuel unnecessarily.

Death Valley Lows: Tragedy, Madness & Our National Parks

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On Valentine’s Day in 1884, both the wife and mother of a young Teddy Roosevelt died of illnesses, leaving him with a two day old daughter. The young Harvard graduate and successful author resigned from the NY Assembly, and he went out west to mourn in the wilderness. His experiences would bring him through battle with his rough riders in Cuba to the White House, where he repaid his debt to nature by protecting 230 million acres of public land. Presidents Lincoln and Grant—no strangers to suffering—had already protected Yosemite and Yellowstone respectively, and in 1903 President Roosevelt camped in each park with Muir and Burroughs respectively, expanding Yosemite and changing from hunter to wildlife observer in Yellowstone. As parks or monuments Teddy signed into law Crater Lake, Grand Canyon, Lassen Volcanic, Mesa Verde, Olympic, Petrified Forest, Pinnacles and Wind Cave, plus Chaco, Devils Tower, El Morro, Gila Cliff Dwellings, Jewel Cave, Montezuma Castle, Muir Woods, Natural Bridges, Tonto, and Tumacacori.

But my hero Teddy Roosevelt is not the man I write about today. The secret behind the first NPS Director, Stephen Mather, was hidden from view until 1987 when his faithful assistant and successor revealed near the end of his own life that Mather was suicidally bipolar. A contemporary and kindred spirit of Muir and Roosevelt, Mather climbed Mt Rainier in 1905, explored Kings Canyon and Sequoia and helped found Save the Redwoods. Upset over the inconsistent and weak protection in the parks he visited, Mather lobbied Washington and got a job as Assistant Secretary of the Interior. Using his own funds, he organized an expedition and invited the head of the Appropriations Committee and the press, including the National Geographic Society editor. Mather’s enthusiasm was both manic—jumping into waterfall pools—and inspiring. As a direct result, President Wilson created the National Park Service, and Mather became its first leader.

Despite his months-long ‘Death Valley lows’ Mather was responsible for many of the decisions that converted protected public lands into the National Park experiences that we enjoy today. He pushed back the loggers, miners and ranchers who were extracting private wealth from our public lands. He lobbied to create many park units, including Indiana Dunes (postponed due to the urgency of WWI). He had iconic lodges built, like Old Faithful Inn above, and he limited development in many spectacular parks to just one dramatically scenic road. These exuberant and thrilling experiences in nature were his ‘Going to the Sun highs’, and he devoted all his energy to perfecting them. Mather was a staunch environmental defender, a visionary parks evangelist, and a brilliant marketer who wanted to share the joy of these wonderful places with everyone.

Humans have long sought solace in nature, so preserving havens in national parks is essential for humanity. People like Stephen Mather, who suffered from debilitating bouts of deep depression, desperately need nature both to recover from sadness and to be inspired into joyful action. This human bond with natural beauty and affinity with wildlife is what drove Teddy Roosevelt to rebound from his tragedies and Stephen Mather to overcome his mental illness. And as President and NPS architect, both worked tirelessly to protect our public lands for future generations.

Mather is well remembered in many NPS sites, from Mather District in Yosemite, Mather Gorge at Great Falls, Mather Parkway at Rainier, Mather Point in Grand Canyon and Mount Mather in Denali. His friends created bronze Mather plaques that can be found at over 50 park units across the country. Despite our current crazy and dangerous warming of our atmosphere, the plaques thank Mather with the following quote.

“He laid the foundation of the National Park Service, defining and establishing the policies under which its areas shall be developed and conserved unimpaired for future generations. There will never come an end to the good that he has done.”

1929 House Speech by Michigan Congressman Louis Cramton