California Desert District
The California Desert District in southern California is probably not a place many people give much thought, beyond Joshua Tree National Park. Joshua Tree National Park is incredible, and one of my favorite national parks, but the rest of the desert district has some really interesting gems tucked away in the sand and rock.
I spend almost a year (minus the summer season) working in the California Desert District (CDD) as an intern for the Student Conservation Association. We worked on a variety of projects in 29 different wilderness areas. We removed Tamarisk (or tried too), marked (and sometimes rehabilitated) where illegal OHV traffic was travelling into wilderness, surveyed Golden Eagle populations, and one time we picked up a whole lot of garbage off an abandoned property that was being transferred to a land preserve.
It was many nights camped out under the desert sky - sometimes in half-tents with no floor, sometimes just on a tarp, and eventually in a fully enclosed tent that I gifted myself. It was a lot of bumpy drives down some pretty rough roads. We got to see the desert bloom, and smell the desert rain (which we did not appreciate at the time). It’s a weird and beautiful place.
I didn’t necessarily love maps my entire life - that’s not why I now work in this field. I love going places though, and maps get me places. Now as much as they get me places, maps help me remember places. Which is kind of what AA Topo is all about - I want everyone to have another way to remember a special place.
Now, here’s an overwhelming number of low-resolution digital photos from 2010! Thanks for reading.
