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Two months to the day after a spate of vandalism promoted officials to close the popular Barker Dam area in Joshua Tree National Park, a new rash of graffiti has prompted the closing of yet another popular day use area, this time at Rattlesnake Canyon near the Indian Cove campground.
There are a lot of epic road trips possible in the California Desert, but only one connects three National Parks -- and a proposed National Monument -- via more than 200 miles of often-deserted two-lane highway. The most direct route between Joshua Tree and Death Valley National Parks offers solitude, wilderness, a glimpse of desert history, and some of the widest wide-open spaces you'll ever see.
[Update, 5:45 p.m.: The circumstances surrounding this incident have come to light. According to Lt. Brian Fitch of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, the two hikers tried to climb to second waterfall and decided against it mid-climb. As they made their way down, they both lost their footing and fell.]
A hiker has died and another was injured at Eaton Canyon this morning, according to public safety officials. A 911 call around 11:30 a.m. indicated two people had fallen approximately 200 feet. Upon arrival, first responders reportedly found a 17-year-old girl who died from head injuries. The other hiker was airlifted to the hospital in unknown condition, according to Inspector Quvondo Johnson of the L.A. County Fire Department.
We crossed our fingers a few weeks back, and we got our wish: At least in the Eastern Mojave, this is one of the best bloom years for Joshua trees in living memory. For the last three weeks, most Joshua trees in the stretch of desert near Joshua Tree National Park have been putting out an historic level of bloom. That's likely to continue for a couple more weeks, making up for an otherwise uninspiring wildflower season through most of the desert.
It's not often that Bear Gulch Caves are completely open, but on Friday a tweet from Pinnacles National Park announced just that. The caves, which are of the talus variety, are home to protected Townsend's big-eared bats, and thus are partially or fully closed throughout the year. The National Park Service keeps a schedule on a webpage, but it does not appear to be correctly updated as of publish. As with many outdoors locations, calling the visitor center beforehand helps ensure finding the most accurate information.
The complete opening of the caves is through the end of the month, but open or not, the area around the caves is worth the hike, according to local experts. "This is a great hike for all ages and most hiking abilities, and it highlights some of the more interesting areas of the park," writes Casey Schreiner at Modern Hiker of his short and easy 1.5 mile hike in Bear Gulch. The writers at Weekend Sherpa recommended a longer 5.5 mile "Grand Central Circuit": "The first section [of the cave] is a deep, narrow gorge suitable for most explorers. True spelunkers can continue into the upper half of the cave where crouching and negotiating tight squeezes is part of the fun."
A week into sequestration, National Parks Director Jon Jarvis has released another memo to all National Park Service employees (read the previous memo). It's a 30,000 foot view type of message: 900 jobs, or 6 percent of permanent staff positions, will remain vacant; some facilities will close completely when they breakdown; millions of dollars spent on ridding areas of invasive species could be wasted as those plants creep back into park boundaries.
Nothing here is necessarily new -- although a hint about March 27, the so-called government shutdown, is dropped -- but it's posted below in full for the sake of public viewing. To understand what sequestration means for National Park units in California, read this earlier story.
The news for grandiose blooms of wildflowers this spring has not been looking great so far. The poppy fields in Antelope Valley remain brown. It's sluggish at Carrizo Plain. And so on and on. But at Wind Wolves Preserve in Kern County, a different story is developing.
Fiddleneck, Wild Hyacinth (blue dicks), Monolopia, Red Maids, Blue-eyed Gilia, purple Phacelia, and Bloodroots, along with some Grape soda lupine and poppies, are starting to bloom nicely, The Wildlands Conservancy, the private nonprofit that owns Wind Wolves, announced today.
It looks like sequestration, across-the-board cuts to federal spending, will hit the country Friday. For the National Park Service, that means taking five percent, or $134 million, from its budget. While that doesn't seem like a big number to some, the cut comes mid-year (October 1 is the federal government's fiscal year), meaning it may actually feel like a 10 percent cut as most parks head into their busy summer season.
Should the sequester happen, each of Park Service's 398 units were tasked with developing budget cut plans, something NPS Director Jon Jarvis in a memo this week described as "a grim reality of how we will have to reduce the level of direct services we provide to the American people in parks and communities across the country."
Of course, the sequestration deadline is happening the very week the Park Service released its annual economic impact study. The peer-reviewed report, put together by Michigan State University, found that visitors generated $30.1 billion in economic activity and supported 252,000 jobs nationwide in 2011. More than one-third of that spending -- $13 billion -- went into communities within 60 miles of a park, the report found. In California, home to more national parks than any other state, the numbers crunch down to this: 35 million visitors, $1.4 billion spent, and 21,500 jobs.
How sequestration affects this year's economic impact is yet to be seen, but as SoCal Wanderer discovered in discussions with over 10 of the biggest parks in the state, it's likely there will be some. What follows is a detailing of each of those parks' planning in the case of the budget cut. Take note, however: Even if the sequester does occur, the following may change because solutions can be fluid.
If the sequester takes effect Friday -- and all signs seem to point to that -- the National Park Service, like most all federal agencies, will face severe cuts. With such major change comes words from leadership. Over the weekend, Secretary Ken Salazar, who oversees the Department of the Interior (where National Parks are housed), sent out his memo priming staff for what is likely to come.
How will sequestration affect each of the National Parks in California? Learn here.
Then on Tuesday, it was National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis' turn, no easy task for a 37-year veteran of the agency. KCET's SoCal Wanderer has obtained his memo and presents it in full below.
In the months leading up to the landing of the Mars Curiosity Rover last August, news often carried a certain earthling angle: "Death Valley used as stand-in for Martian landscape," read a Christian Science Monitor headline; "NASA scientist William Dietrich compares patterns created by river fans found in California's Death Valley to similar fans found on Mars," explained a PBS Newshour blog post; "The Dumont Dunes near Death Valley are a popular playground for off-road vehicle fans," noted our very own Chris Clarke when he visited Scarecrow, Curiosity's twin.
California Foraging: San Gabrielino
