1 - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

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BLAt Campgrounds ' • - • BILL JENNINGS •->*
To meet the crush of recreationists to enjoy the great outdoors, the BLM has provided a great number of public campgrounds. Depicted here in photos are those bordering the Sierras in the Owens Valley. The text deals mostly with those campgrounds in the Mojave and Colorado Deserts. INCLE SAM'S newest desert landlord is the all-purpose Bureau of Land I Management, charged with a nearly impossible task, the regulation of competing public uses of some 12 million acres of Southern California desert. BLM is new at this landlord businessonly in the context of serving the general public. Since its birth in 1948 as the child of and successsor to the old Grazing Service and the General Land Office, BLM has been concerned with mining, livestock leases, homesteads and general administration of the vast Public Domain, but its direct service to the recreation public has been a recent addition to its manifold duties. In 1964 Congress enacted the Classification and Multiple Use Act. Out of that umbrella legislation, the fallout included the California Desert Program, funded beginning in 1972. The CDP directly spawned a series of studies lumped together as the Interim Critical Management Plan, the ICMP for short. The only short thing about this program is its abbreviated title, in which the words "Interim" and "Critical" are the keys, depending on your point of view. "Critical" has described the reaction of conservationist and off-roader alike and "Interim" has been the hallmark of the bureau's defense. The bureau has jumped into the desert with both feet, or rather all four wheels, although it's not clear to many whether those wheels are "all-wheel-drive." Since 1972, when the bureau received a congressional mandate to manage Nature's Back 40 from Eureka and Saline Valley south to the Mexican border at Jacumba, the Yuha Desert and the Al- Opposite page: Corn Springs, a popular area for desert campers. Desert/ December 1976 37 godones Sand Dunes, its specialists have struggled to present a Desert Plan that keeps the conservationists and the off-roaders at least mollified, if not ecstatic. How well the Plan will work cannot be attested. It's too early and the interim is too much with us. Campgrounds for the off-roaders as well as the drivers of 20,000-pound motor homes have been established in the Owens Valley, the Mojave midregion, near Barstow, in the Colorado Desert and along the escarpment over-looking Anza Borrego Desert State Park. A uniformed ranger force is slowly building and the first field ranger station Above: Symmes Creek Campground [55 camping units] near Independence, is located at the base of Kearsarge Pass. The Pass was named after the Northern ship that sunk the Southern warship, Alabama, during the waning days of the Civil War. Below: Chimney Peak Campground [36 camping units] is located above the 6,000 foot elevation mark and affords the visitor to national resource lands a comfortable campsite beneath the pines of the Sierras. has been established near Glamis. The symbol of the Desert Plan to date is the new Barstow Way Station, a combination of information center, rest stop and informal museum, just off Interstate 15 near the southwest approach to the desert city. A second way station is in the preliminary planning stage for the
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Page 4 and 5: BACK ISSUES AT ALOW PRIC 1969—11
Page 6 and 7: Send orders to Box 1318, Palm Deser
Page 8 and 9: COOK BOOKS For the outdoor enthusia
Page 10 and 11: ANZA-BORREGOS CALCITE CANYON by DAV
Page 12 and 13: * 12 Abandoned equipment lies rusti
Page 14 and 15: J HANDY BOOK ORDER FORM NAME" I ADD
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Page 38 and 39: : ' ' - : • • Tuttle Creek Camp
Page 40 and 41: 40 FOSSILS If you love to collect f
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Page 44 and 45: BOOKS-MAGAZINES GEMS PROSPECTING JE
Page 46 and 47: I TREASURE HUNTERS PROSPECTORS Meta
Page 48: It's Home, Watercolor, 24"x16" Lyle

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