Join with members of the Mojave National Preserve Conservancy and the National Park Service to remove another section of abandoned, barbed-wire fence from the Mojave National Preserve.  We will meet in the Kelso Depot parking lot at 9 a.m. and work through the afternoon.  A Sunday morning project is possible with sufficient interest.  Bring leather work gloves, water, sun screen, a hat, and lunch.  Layers of clothing are best as temperatures can be unpredictable.  Tools will be provided.  The group campground at Hole-In-The-Wall (with water and vault toilets) is reserved for Friday and Saturday nights.  Sturdy tents with strong stakes are advisable in case of high winds.  Directions are available at the Mojave Preserve’s website..  Contact Sid Silliman at gssilliman@csupomona.edu regarding safety precautions for the weekend and to RSVP.

• Free camping all weekend at the group campground!
• Free night sky program with highly skilled astronomers!
• High-powered Telescopes on site for public use!
• Snacks and adult beverages provided!
• Bring a friend and experience the Preserve’s dark and starry night skies by night, wildlife and wildflower blooms by day!
• Learn about the Preserve and the Conservancy!

Where: Mojave National Preserve’s Black Canyon Group Campsite
When: Saturday, September 24, 2011 beginning at 6:00pm
What to Bring: Camping gear, layered clothing, food to share. Dinner is potluck—bring your favorite dish to share with the group. Everyone is responsible for their own breakfast.
RSVP with David Lamfrom at dlamfrom@npca.org or (760) 219-4916.]]> 2011-09-14T22:07:35+00:00 http://mojavepreserve.org/index.php/site/mnpc_sponsors_field_trips_to_zzyzx_desert_studies_center/ {summary} Education When Mojave National Preserve rangers visit classrooms in Barstow and other desert towns, they are often reminded that few area students have ever been to a national park… not even those in their own backyard, like Mojave National Preserve. Mojave rangers want to change that, by hosting local students on field trips. Dormitory facilities Zzyzx Desert Studies Center make overnight trips possible. Last June, rangers partnered with school teacher Cheryl Marino from Barstow and field tested our first overnight field trip to Zzyzx.

Mrs. Marino manages Cameron Elementary’s program for Gifted and Talented students, and it was this group of third- and fourth-graders that participated.

An overnight field trip requires a lot of support. Staff and volunteers from National Parks Conservation Association, Barstow College, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Desert Discovery Center came along as well, providing instructors, aides, and assistance with food preparation.

Students learned about and practiced Chemehuevi crafts such as rope making, seed roasting, and weaving blankets from rabbit skin. Desert Studies Center manager Rob Fulton pulled out microscopes, and students examined butterflies, stink bugs and other insects up-close. The second day, everyone boarded the bus to Cima Dome where students hiked Teutonia Peak Trail.

The highlight of the adventure was the nighttime scorpion hunt. Armed with black lights, students hiked in the sandy areas west of Zzyzx. Scorpions have a phosphorescence that causes them to glow like jewels under a black light, so they are easy and fun to find.

Field trips cost money for food, buses, and overnight accommodations. This year, the Mojave National Preserve Conservancy graciously agreed to fund a field trip. Other grants from Western National Parks Association are providing us with enough funding to complete three field trips this spring. Thank you for your support!

– Linda Slater

Seeing the Depot today, with its comfortable and stylish Mission Revival interior, it’s hard to believe it was almost torn down. The building was only spared demolition after preservation activists got together to work to save it.

The Union Pacific Railroad built the Depot in the 1920s. Ore shipments from the nearby Vulcan Mine and routine service on “helper engines” that pushed trains up the long grade to Cima kept the Depot busy, especially during World War II. The Vulcan Mine closed in 1947, however, and during the 1950s diesel locomotives were developed that needed no help getting to Cima. Union Pacific discontinued passenger service and the station agency at Kelso in 1964, and for two decades the building served only as a lunch counter. In 1983, fearing the unused depot would be “a target for vandalism, unauthorized entrance, and a legal liability,” UP Division Superintendent G.R. Jenson proposed the Depot be demolished.

In response, a group of environmental and historic preservation activists organized the Kelso Depot Fund, which succeeded in preventing demolition. The costs of restoration turned out to be more than the private group could afford. They turned to local politicians and the federal government for assistance. In 1992, the BLM – which owned the surrounding land as part of the East Mojave National Scenic Area – took title to the building. With the passage of the California Desert Protection Act of 1994, title passed to the National Park Service as part of the Mojave National Preserve.

Restored as a visitor center in 2005, with stunning exhibits detailing the Preserve’s natural and cultural history, the Depot now welcomes thousands of visitors to the Preserve each year. With the re-opening of the Depot’s historic lunch counter – the “Beanery” – the Depot is once again a welcome rest stop for the tired, hungry Mojave traveler.

The Kelso Depot Visitor Center is open daily (except Christmas Day), 9–5.

– Chris Clarke

You leave your vehicle at the trailhead on the west side of Cima Road in the Sunrise Rock area, eleven miles south of the Cima Rd. exit on Interstate 15, or about six miles north of the Cima Store, if you’re approaching from the south. The well-marked trail weaves through an open forest of Joshua trees interspersed with occasional Utah junipers, the latter a sure sign that we’re up above 5,000 feet. Broad outcrops of Cima Dome’s bedrock quartz monzonite speckle the landscape.

As you walk, spend a little time watching your feet. Depending on the time of day, tiny side-blotched lizards may choose exactly the last possible moment to dart across the trail in front of you. They’re far too quick for you to worry about stepping on them, so relax and enjoy their daredevil antics.

Other small animals you may see in this stretch of trail are night lizards, the smallest lizard in North America, whose preferred habitat is beneath fallen Joshua tree limbs, and night snakes, which prey on the night lizards. Despite their names, neither reptile is nocturnal. Night snakes are “rear-fangers” – they’re venomous, but that venom is delivered through fangs in the rear of the snake’s mouth, reducing the snake’s danger to humans to about nil.

Other snakes aren’t as risk-free: there are rattlesnakes here, including the notorious Mojave green, which is more venomous and less shy than other rattlers. If you see a rattler don’t panic; merely admire the animal from a respectful distance.

Birders will find black-chinned and sage sparrows, piñon jays and loggerhead shrikes, Scott’s orioles in summer, ladderbacked woodpeckers and flickers, and three species of thrasher: the Crissal, LeConte’s and Bendire’s. Golden eagles are seen frequently here, as are, of course, the ever-present common raven.

Botanical wildlife along the trail includes the Joshua trees’ cousin banana yucca, shrubs such as blackbrush and fiendishly spiny Menodora, and cacti – most prominently a few species of cholla and prickly pear, but also including a half dozen kinds of mound and small column cacti.

Half a mile from the trailhead, the trail crosses an old dirt road. The continuing trail is prominently signed on the other side. Juniper becomes somewhat more common as the trail climbs slowly to the Teutonia Mine about a mile from Cima Road. The trail weaves among a few old open pits – if you examine them, do so without entering them – and crosses another old dirt road just before it begins to climb Teutonia Peak.

The trail angles up in loose switchbacks as it climbs the wall of a broad amphitheater, providing increasingly fine views of the landscape to the northeast: Kessler Peak, Striped and Clark mountains, and the Dome’s vast expanse of Joshua tree forest between. At length, after a few steps that test your knees’ flexibility, you arrive at the trail’s summit – though not the actual summit of Teutonia Peak. To reach Teutonia’s triple summits, you’ll need some technical climbing experience. But even with the true summits still forty feet above, the top of the Teutonia Peak trail is well worth reaching all by itself.

– Chris Clarke

The California Desert Protection Act of 2010, SB 2921, would add the 29,221-acre Castle Mountains area to the Mojave National Preserve, including old-growth creosote, Joshua tree forest, piñon and juniper, and a native desert grassland recognized as a “unique plant assemblage” in 1980.

The area has significant Native American and settler-era history, including an obsidian source that provided material found throughout the Mojave, the historic town of Hart, and both the Hart and Viceroy mines. But most of what the area has, in abundance, is space. There’s room in the Proposed Castle Mountains Addition for wide-ranging species such as the pronghorn that once lived here – a candidate for reintroduction.

This land is being eyed by renewable energy developers, with several projects proposed for the area. The land deserves better. The MNPC gladly endorses the Castle Mountains Addition provisions of SB 2921.

– Chris Clarke

These contrasting viewpoints of sickness and health are reflected in current scientific knowledge of Heloderma suspectum as well. The Gila monster produces a neurotoxic venom in its modified salivary glands as powerful as that of a coral snake, although North America’s largest lizard lacks the muscles to inject this venom. Instead, the Gila monster must conduct venom to its victim by chewing. Contrary to desert tall tales, there are no confirmed mortalities from Gila monster bite.

A protein called exendin-4 in Gila monster saliva has recently led to a breakthrough treatment for type 2 diabetes. The synthetic lizard protein remains effective much longer than a related protein human stomachs secrete, helping diabetics keep their blood sugar levels under control.

Native to Arizona, Nevada, and northern Mexico, Heloderma suspectum’s presence in California has sometimes been in doubt. In 1956, Mojave naturalist Edmund Jaeger declared that there were no Gila monsters in California because the Colorado River formed a natural barrier to the species.

However, recent discoveries and a United States Geological Survey (USGS) study have proved beyond a doubt that the Gila monster roams California. The Mojave National Preserve contains some of the best habitat in California for the elusive lizard.

A 2007 California Academy of Sciences article by Drs. Jeffrey E. Lovich and Kent R. Beaman of USGS made the case for 26 credible Gila monster sightings in California since 1857. Seven of those sightings took place within the boundaries of Mojave National Preserve, including the areas of Piute Spring, Clark Mountain, and the Providence Mountains.

In May 2009, a group of Cuesta College students and faculty members on field study in Mojave National Preserve observed a Gila monster in the Providence Mountains.

April and May are the most likely months to spot Heloderma suspectum cinctum (our subspecies, the banded Gila monster) in its native California habitat. The Gila monster is a stout-bodied lizard with a black body, with orange or pink blotches, bars and bands extending onto its blunt tail.

Heloderma suspectum feeds infrequently, but when the lizard does sit down to dinner, it may consume up to one-third of its body mass. Gila monsters have an extremely acute sense of smell – the animal’s forked tongue is its extended nose, and by flicking it periodically, the Gila monster collects olfactory information in order to locate food or a mate.

If you come across a Gila monster, please observe it from a safe distance. If you are lucky enough to see a Gila monster in the Preserve, please note your location, take a photo, and share it with a park ranger. Information about these animals is valuable to scientists and to Preserve managers as they attempt to maintain the rare and elusive California population of Gila monsters.

– Mike Cipra