Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Oasis or Mirage?

We explored more of the Mojave Desert this summer.  In particular, we went to Mojave National Preserve and Joshua Tree National Park.  We stayed in Needles and Twentynine Palms respectively.  My wife commented that one of the big differences between to the two places was trains--Mojave NP had them and Joshua Tree NP didn't.  Many of the early National Parks were created at the urging of the railroads to give passenger train riders a destination.

The Twentynine Palms stay was especially interesting because of 29 Palms Inn.  This is an eclectic array of structures occupying the western third of the Oasis of Mara, a classic California fan palm oasis.  Here's a screenshot from Google Maps--

Click this link if you'd like to open Google Maps and see the image in context.

Notice the line of vegetation that marks the Pinto Mountain Fault.  The grinding at the fault boundary produces an impermeable clay layer.  Underground water infiltrating from the higher land to the south comes to surface resulting in an oasis, although these days human or natural hydrologic changes have caused the flow to diminish to the point that there's no longer surface water without some pumping.  Some claim this place is the source of the name of the town of Twentynine Palms.  During the railroad expansion in the American West, Southern Pacific Railroad was granted ownership of the oasis, as well as considerable other property along its route.  SP sold the land to J.P. Roberts and his partners.  They built the Gold Park Hotel, a collection of cabins east of the oasis.  After a few years, Roberts decided he liked the wetter west end of the oasis better and had the cabins dragged there with a pickup truck.  The new location became the 29 Palms Hotel, later renamed 29 Palms Inn.  Roberts sold the inn to Harry Johansing, whose descendants have run the place ever since.  They're on the 5th generation.  In 1950, they donated the eastern 2/3 of the oasis to the National Park Service to become the Headquarters and Visitor's Center of Joshua Tree National Park.


Joshua Tree and Mojave have a surprising number of visitors-- almost 1.4 million and over 500,000 respectively in 2012 (Stats here...).  I was struck by how little lodging either place had in the parks or nearby compared to Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Yosemite, or even Death Valley, all places where we've stayed in nice lodging in the park itself.  In that regard, they're more like Tucson's Saguaro NP, but Saguaro is so close to town.  It's common for people to ride their bike to the park, or take a very short drive and hike or run on the roads and trails there.

Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone NP, built by Northern Pacific Railroad

My sense is that Joshua Tree NP and Mojave NP were established for somewhat different reasons than the other parks I mentioned above.  Neither place was a destination that a railroad, or other commercial enterprise like Pacific Borax in the case of Death Valley, could use to generate revenue.  Joshua Tree was an interesting high desert area close enough to the LA Basin for be accessible for day trips once the petroleum age led to mass production of personal transportation--cars and trucks.  People were taking plants and making messes, much to the consternation of conservation-minded folks like Pasadena socialite Minerva Hoyt.  In the 1920s and 30s she become a staunch advocate of a vast desert park east of Palm Springs encompassing what became Joshua Tree National Monument in 1936.  In Mojave's center is Kelso Depot, a working railroad town until the petroleum age led to diesel locomotives in place of coal-fired steam engines.  The depot was a water stop and staging area for "helper engines" for trains ascending the Cima Grade east of Kelso.  The depot's functions faded away and it finally closed in 1985.  Union Pacific Railroad almost demolished the depot, but the history of the place, the region and its interesting geological and biological features caught the attention of the conservation and history crowd.  The California Desert Protection Act of 1994 made Mojave a National Preserve.  Kelso Depot was sold to the Park Service for $1.  The CDPA also kicked Joshua Tree and Death Valley up a rung from National Monuments to National Parks.

A mural depicting Minerva Hoyt at Joshua Tree Visitor's Center

As best I can tell, the 29 Palms Inn is the closest approximation in either Joshua Tree or Mojave to a historic park-specific lodging.  It occupies the eastern third of the Oasis of Mara.  Some of the accommodations are the original cabins dragged from the east end of the oasis.  The place has a pond, a palm grove, its own garden, its own boat, its own geologic fault, and considerable character.  Our cabins were on the south side of the fault.  I wondered what would happen if it slipped while we were there.  Here's a satellite view of the Inn.


The central hotel part of the original inn burned down in 1965.  The chimney remains.


I read the boat was built on the coast and imported.  It's unclear if you can stay in the boat.

The light's a bit dim, but here's the garden, which was extensive and well kept.

We stayed in this room one of the nights we were there--

What's going to happen to theses places as we slide down the back of the petroleum curve?  As I mentioned in another post, the Energy Watch Group says conventional oil production peaked last year.  Oil, hence also gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum-derived fuels, will only get more expensive.  Personal transportation will get more and more expensive.  Trains may see a resurgence because they're more energy efficient than cars or trucks, or airplanes for that matter.

It seems likely that Joshua Tree gets the bulk of its visitors, mostly in the cooler months, from the LA Basin.  Kelso Depot in the heart of Mojave is not quite 90 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada; probably popular when it's cool.  All national parks will see many fewer visitors, but these two would appear to be long day trip destinations.  Not so good when gas is over $5/gal.  If passenger service resumes through Kelso, you could imagine people reaching Mojave that way, but why would someone build facilities again and what would people do once there?

29 Palms Inn is almost self-sustaining.  They had to sink a 14 foot well when the water level in the oasis dropped, but I could imagine an array of solar panels powering pumps during the day, filling water tanks.  That would sustain the gardens and grounds.  The few who could afford personal transportation might see the Inn as an interesting adventurous destination.

I didn't try to talk about all the other aspects of the history the original native peoples and of mining and ranching we learned about at Joshua Tree and Mojave.  I did learn members of the Mojave tribe used to run the route that's now the Mojave Road across the preserve.  Go explore the respective Park Service websites and visit those places while transportation is semi-affordable.  The sun is setting fast.









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