Blog Desert Man

In 1956, I started work as the zoning enforcement officer for the San Bernardino
County Planning Department. I spent a lot of time driving highways and back
roads on the Mojave Desert to and from the office.
Interesting stuff out there -- abandoned builds, mines and other structures that
defied understanding. Our city library had a few books on the subject -- I believe
one was a New Deal program for unemployed authors. I visited some of the places
mentioned including: Red Mountain on Highway 395 and Calico before it became
Walter Knott’s tourist ghost town.
The Old Spanish Trail cut right through my desert. One weekend I drove my VW
Bug up Spanish Canyon located in the Alvord Mountains. The old trail came this
way from Bitter Springs to the Mojave River. I walked up to the Boy Scout cairn
marking the spot were mule drawn wagons dropped down into the canyon, their
wheels cutting an interesting channel in the bank that marked an important piece of
history. I was lucky that I got to see it before knobby-tire-desert-motorcycles tore it
up. Those were the days.
Years later a typed manuscript by Dix Van Dyke came to my attention and resulted
in it being eventually published by the San Bernardino County Museum (Spring
Quarterly 1991). In it Mr. Van Dyke described his trips to each of the camps and
watering places on the trail from the county line to the Mojave River. I was assisted
in preparing the piece by Jennifer Reynolds of the museum’s Publications
Committee. Dix Van Dyke lived on the desert most of his life and served as Justice
of the Peace for the desert region of San Bernardino County.
After leaving the county, trips to the desert and visits to points of interest became
limited to an occasional winter weekend.
In 1962, I was working for a private consulting firm when out of the blue a fellow
worker showed me an article in Desert Magazine. He knew I was interested in the
desert and wanted me to go with him to check out a site mentioned in that issue. So
eventually we headed south to the Palm Springs area and a visit to the home of
Desert Magazine. That’s when I first met the editor Jack Pepper. He took us for a
ride in his dune buggy over a course that demonstrated the fun of challenging
different kinds of terrain; hills, sand, and rocky pebbly like stuff. I decided then
that I would own a dune buggy (I preferred to call it a sand cruiser) before the next
winter season. I would visit with Jack Pepper many times in the future.
I also subscribed to Desert Magazine, perused back issues available at the library
and came up with a list of places that needed my attention as soon as I could locate a
sand cruiser. Well, I didn’t find one that I could afford until a couple of years later.
So I continued to cruise the back roads in my VW.
It had a bright red fiberglass body, with tractor tires on the rear wheels,
underpowered Volks Wagon 40 horsepower engine and a Porsche low-tuned tail
pipe that had a really nice rumble on acceleration. It was street legal but you
wouldn’t drive it on a freeway. So, I hung a light panel (tail lights) from the roll bar
and we towed it behind our family car. For the next seven winters we explored
deserts from the Mexican Border to Death Valley. I say “we”, sometimes with my
brother-in-law sometimes with the family and sometimes by myself. We also
explored historic sites in southern Utah.
The map making insanity all started when I asked Jack Pepper if he had a
recreation map of the desert and he said no but he sure would like to have one to
sell. Well after that I thought, hell, all I need is a good base map to start with and,
you know what? I found one. A friend of mine had spliced together USGS
(1:250,000) maps covering all of southern California. He gave me a print and I
carved out that portion of the Mojave Desert that would become an Overview of the
Mojave Desert.
At that point, the map had taken shape in my mind and on paper. It would feature
ghost towns, mining camps, historic trails, ghost towns, petroglyphs (big mistake),
scenic areas and areas to explore.
I showed Jack Pepper a rough sketch of my thinking. He liked it and may have
given me some suggestions. I don’t remember it all. But he liked the scale and my
approach and offered to become an outlet for it when finished and published. That
was encouraging. If he hadn’t shown the interest that he did the project would have
ended then and there – I sometimes wished that it had.
We named our company Desert Enterprises. The business would give us a tax
deduction for the office building that I would construct, for the cruiser and for all
the costs of preparing and printing.
The next step involved more research to find additional places to put on the map. I
decided the best sources would be back issues of Desert Magazine and Touring
Topics, an early AAA publication. By this time, my library had grown and
including USGS 15’ topographical maps of those parts of the desert that covered
public lands open to recreation.
Map making requires the preparation of overlays - - one for each color. Our map
had only two colors green and desert brown. Brown for the base and green for
places to visit -- historic trails, points of interest and large areas to be explored such
as parks and monuments. All text and names had to be tapped on both overlays. If
you didn’t look too close the final product was quite impressive mainly because of
its size 21 x 36 inches. The issued date was 1970
Jack was happy and ordered quite a few to start the ball rolling. He wrote a nice
article about me and the map and on at least one issue printed a picture of the map
on the back cover. It was probably that issue or one like it that got me in trouble
with a conservationist a few years later.
I had also started preparing a companion map of the Colorado Desert which Jack
had encouraged me to do. I sometimes wondered if old Jack Pepper was playing me.
No, I don’t think so. The map followed the same format as the Mojave except that I
added a blue run because of the Salton Sea. It was a prettier map because of the
added color. The Colorado Desert Overview was issued the following year 1971.
The next year 1972, I was hired by the Bureau of Land Management to work on
preparation of a land use plan for the California Desert. Wow. An opportunity of
a life time; one I couldn’t pass up.
In the BLM office, I soon became by default the desert historian. Dennis Casebier, a
real historian, came in to see what was going on and offered his support to me.
Dennis, in my estimation, was and is the dean of desert historians. We became
friends and visited many sites together especially in the East Mojave.
I realized that my involvement with Desert Magazine and my map making escapade
might not bode well with some conservation groups. So, I dumped all of my
Colorado and Mojave maps on the doorstep of Desert Magazine and made a clean
break with the map selling business. I also told my boss Neil Pfulb about the
business and I think I told the State Director Russ Penny about it but I’m not sure.
I would try some other money losing ventures in the future.

Neil Pfulb was the director of the California Desert Plan program and I was his
assistant. We were both members of the Sierra Club. I dropped my membership
figuring that Neil could support the conservationist message while I, having interest
in desert recreation, would favor those interests.. As it worked out, we had little
influence on the final California Desert Plan. A blue ribbon advisory committee
established by the Secretary of the Interior kept their collective noses in the process
for the full four years. Their unanimous vote for a final draft with only one
abstention got signed by the Secretary of the Interior and became The California
Desert Conservation Area Plan 1980 -- a plan that has received numerous
amendments but remains in effect to this day, I think. The most apt comment on
the plan appeared in the Los Angeles Times editorial page. It stated in part, “It
must be a good plan because no one likes it.…”
I kept quiet about my map business - - didn’t mention this phase of my life to
anyone not the BLM folks and certainly not members of the public. A young
petroglyph photographer found the article in Desert Magazine and complained
about me to Neil. Well, he had me worried. It was a come-to-Jesus moment. I
don’t know what Neil told him but nothing came of it. On the recreation side, I
noticed that some members of the 4-wheeling community treated me with a kind of
reverence that I couldn’t understand – maybe Jack told them to back off. What a
life. I had also started a new business venture selling reproductions of historic maps
of the west.
Incidentally, I also published a recreation map Desert Magazine Map of Southern
Utah in 1979. I had an agreement with Desert Magazine to use their cover logo.
My luck, the State of Utah came out with a series of recreation maps the same year
with a price that I couldn’t match. So my map business ended.

My employment with BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT lasted for 28 years. I retired in 2000. For the next three
years I continued as a volunteer for the bureau, inspecting range improvements: fence lines,
watering sites, cattle guards and the like filling out forms, taking photographs and
using GPS to record coordinates for mapping.
I bought a 4-wheel Nissan pickup and continued looking for new places in the desert
that I hadn’t seen. Then in 2007, I started blogging my stories about desert places
that I felt the public should visit. I called my website “Desert Explorer” and I
became Dusty Road. A few of the early postings had a small of icon of old Dusty
perched on a split rail fence with pick and shovel holding a “Welcome” sign.
The text include some background, some history and a bit of whimsy plus a few
photos. Like Dusty Road, I’m just a simple story teller with no political message or
attempt to make any money. In my introduction to each posting, “I promise the
reader that I will never let the facts interfere with a good yarn”. In other words
don’t look for footnotes or references.
The internet opened a way for me to stay active. I take trips to places visited many
times and take photographs for my postings and continue to do some research for each story. I’ll just keep going like this I guess.

Wes Chambers