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The Desert Trail in California

Steve Tabor

At its May 22, 1999 meeting in Klamath Falls Oregon, the Desert Trail Association Board of Directors endorsed a 656-mile route for the Desert Trail in California. This endorsement marks a new era for the Association in its effort to establish a Desert Trail Corridor across our western deserts from Mexico to Canada. The "Desert Trail" is not a trail in the sense of the Pacific Crest Trail. It is a hiking corridor marked on maps and defined by compass bearings.

The hiker walks or climbs a loosely- defined route within this corridor, following the map and using the compass and visible landmarks to stay on course. In this way, the hiker can maintain a sense of adventure, yet even an unseasoned visitor may witness the desert's beauty, using the minimal directions provided. The desert remains untrammeled and untrashed for future hikers. A Desert Trail route in California was developed in the 1970s and 80s by DT-California Section President, D.W. Tomer (also known as "Ol' Creosote" or "O.C."). I streamlined O.C.'s basic trend, located easily-defined trailheads achievable with a passenger car, and chopped my new route into segments that could be hiked in 2, 3 or 4 days with a minimum water carry. I also routed it toward important features in the new National Parks and Wilderness Areas established by the 1994 California Desert Protection Act. I made sure that all sorts of environments would be encountered: canyons, badlands, barrancas, palm oases, earthquake faults, bare rock mountains, open plains, sand dunes, rocky alluvial fans, pinyon-juniper woods, basalt mesas, volcanic escarpments, joshua tree woodlands, lava flows, cinder cones, a river canyon, bedrock gorges, salt flats, boggy swamps, limestone cliffs and desert springs. The huge variety of the California Desert is amazing!

I am a trip leader for, and currently President of, the desert conservation group, Desert Survivors. Desert Survivors has 800 members and leads fifty backpacking and car-camping trips to the desert each year. Routes of the individual Desert Trail segments have been tested in group hikes on regularly scheduled Desert Survivors trips. "Ordinary people", members of the general hiking public, tested the routes in a two-, three-, or four-day format, pitting their bodies against the terrain, finding out just how confusing the route-finding can be, taking compass readings and witnessing outstanding features. I took abundant photographs (72-108 per trip), wrote down all the plant and animal sightings and tracks, recorded temperature readings and possible hazards, and traced the route carefully on topographic maps. The result was the route endorsed by the DTA. While I was doing the routes from Mexico to Greenwater Valley, George Huxtable of the DT-California Section and the Death Valley Hikers Association (DVHA) was doing similar work in Death Valley National Park. George had taken responsibility for hiking, mapping and recording features on the eight segments mapped from Greenwater Valley to the Nevada border. George and the DVHA completed the Death Valley routes in the Spring of 1999.

The route extends 656 miles in California from Mexico to the Nevada border. It is divided into 26 segments ("A to Z"!). Lengths of the segments range from 13 miles to 38 miles. They are intended to be hiked in two to four days, depending on steepness and season of travel. Water sources are mentioned in the guidebooks, but the routes have been designed so hikers need not rely on native water at all. Hikers should be able to backpack these routes carrying two, or at most three, gallons of water, all of the water they will need. Seasons of travel are fall, winter or spring.

In late 1999, I began work on comprehensive guidebooks that describe each segment in detail. These guidebooks explain the route, give compass readings and call attention to important features of the landscape: the geology, vegetation zones, animal sightings, weather patterns, prehistory and history. Each guidebook has copies of USGS topographic maps to aid hikers in finding their way. Each is organized around a region: Anza-Borrego (four segments), the Colorado Desert (two segments), Joshua Tree National Park (two segments), the South Mojave (two segments), the Mojave National Preserve (five segments), and the North Mojave (three segments). The last eight segments in Death Valley are in one guidebook written by George Huxtable. As of this writing, the first four of the guidebooks have been completed and are available for sale. They are being written to aid the hiker, not only in route-finding, but also in understanding the country he or she is traveling through. We want to contribute to the broader goal of developing an appreciation for the desert as a special and valuable place. Users of the Desert Trail Corridor will be encouraged to go beyond the simple "trail as treadmill" focus of the Continental Divide Trail or Pacific Crest and really get to know the country. Using these guidebooks, leaders can teach those they are guiding about the desert. Hikers going on their own can teach themselves. I'm excited by the California route we have developed and detailed, and am grateful that the Desert Trail Association Board of Directors has agreed that it is a good one. I look forward to getting the guidebooks "out there" to the public. Reconnaissance of the route in Nevada has recently been completed and the route has been endorsed by the Association. Guidebooks on Nevada route segments will be published in 2002. Work is still proceeding in Oregon on a route going north to Canada. A real Desert Trail Corridor is now within our reach!

For guidebooks south of Death Valley, & for info about Desert Survivors: Desert Trail Association - California:

Steve Tabor, Route Consultant
1244 Sherman Street Apt. C
Alameda, CA 94501-3938
(510) 769-1706
StevTabor@AOL.com

To order the Death Valley guidebook and for info about Death Valley hiking:

Death Valley Hikers Association
George Huxtable, President
1673 Toyon Court
San Mateo, CA 94403
(415) 396-7144 (d)
DV2Hiker@AOL.com

Desert Trail Association
P.O. Box 34
Madras, OR 97741
www.madras.net/dta.html
dta@madras.net