Latest / NaturallyScott / E78 Jane Rodgers – Joshua Tree: Protecting a Desert in a Changing World 🌵🏜️

Transcript

E78 Jane Rodgers – Joshua Tree: Protecting a Desert in a Changing World 🌵🏜️ · NaturallyScott

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to Naturally Scott.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Scott Harris.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is my podcast, Naturally Scott.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's not really my podcast, it's kind of everybody's podcast, the guests, the producers, and most important, I guess, the viewers.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I get to be the host, which is my thrill.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: And today, we are having join us Jane Rogers.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Jane is superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park, a park that I frequented when I lived in Southern California and was a scout leader.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: We used to do camping trips out there and have a blast.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Jane, welcome to the show.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Scott.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's great to be here.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: I am really excited about this.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: I have a handful of questions, and then, you know, I'm curious about what stories you might want to share.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: I know you've had a long association with the park.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the things that struck me in doing just a little bit of background on this is that the number of visitors that you have has almost doubled in the past decade.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, certainly that's primarily due to your brilliant stewardship.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: But are is there anything else that has helped take the uh I think the visitorship has roughly gone from a million and a half to three million in the last decade or so?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: And um, what's even more impressive about that, there was the the rate of doubling, which actually happened in a shorter period, uh three-year period, between 15 and 18 is really one.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um the the numbers just exponential and just doubled here.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: So um, like any good Mark Ranger, we all have hypotheses and speculations about why that happened.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I still hear from members of local communities or business owners or longtime visitors, and especially people that still call the park a monument, uh, their theories and uh ideas about why that happened.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: I would say, you know, as a young ranger, when I started working here in the 90s, um, the desert region broadly um had a great air of mystique, and it also came with some trepidation.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think um people coming to the area had to be pretty intentional about it, had to have some information, you know, from a friend of a friend, where to stay, what to do, all that kind of good stuff.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: And in hindsight, I think what happened during this period of doubling is if you look at have taken a deeper dive beyond the initial speculation, people kind of say, oh, well, it's social media, you know, it's kind of the big broad brush people blame for the popularity of the park.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd say it's not as simple as that, um, but it's maybe even simpler in some ways.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: That um right around 2010, I remember my 89-year-old mother was one of the first people in my life that got an iPhone, a smartphone.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought at the time, um, wow, you know, like having a computer in your pocket that's an encyclopedia, that's a weather station, that's a um restaurant review, that's a map, that's a phone of friend, all of that.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think that's really the popularity of the park coincided with this ramping up of simple and basic access to information that could take down some barriers for people that were interested in coming to the desert, but maybe holding back because they didn't know where the gas stations were.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't know where they stay.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: They thought it was hot all the time.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: They thought there was a rattlesnake behind every bush getting to bite them.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think from there, that lowering of some of those barriers or fears or long-term trick planning snowballed into this extreme, you know, rapid rate of increase in popularity through just the sharing of photos.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know, a lot of that social media plot forms really weren't that popular until until even after our doubling was well underway.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: But it's so it was so easy at the time to simply send somebody a picture in the absence of a social media plot from and inspire people to come out.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's uh that's my theory.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good theory.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's as good as any.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: What um how is the park doing as far as absorbing three million visitors?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: Is is that uh we have yeah, that's a great question.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, parks ebb and flow with popularity or episodic events like you know, specific anniversaries or things that are happening, increased crowds.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um and we have to be responsive to that.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: And for the park uh here, I would say Joshua Tree has definitely gone through a period of pretty pretty big drawing pains.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's really hard to respond in real time to going from one and a half to three million people with his staff and even volunteers and partnerships we'd have.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it didn't happen overnight.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Our readiness and our ability to provide, you know, kind of the quality of this experience that we want to provide here, protect the resources and protect the park.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's taken us some years to uh kind of make our adjustments.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd say in 2026, we have come a really long way to one stop.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: So congratulations.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now there's a lot more to do, but there we are.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: What's the breakdown between day visitors and and and campers?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: So um Joshua Tree National Park has nine campgrounds, like 500 sites.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: So on any given night, especially in the busy season, every one of those sites will be occupied.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: And if you've got say two to ten, you know, not ten, but two to six people per site, um, you could imagine what our overnight residents are numbering on any given night.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so relative to our day use, our day use is is tremendously high compared to our overnight use.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because we have five hundred campsites sounds like a lot, but it's not uh they're super popular, they're reserved well ahead of time.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh, you know, although we have a lot of overnight campers here, most of our visitors are day resers.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, do I understand you mentioned desert?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Do I understand that it's uh uh it's actually two deserts, the Mojave and the Colorado?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that was a great marketing tool from uh the individual who created whose work ended up creating the national monument.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: Minerva Hoy was really inspired by the diversity, the biodiversity of our desert region.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: And you get that level of diversity when you have kind of the coming together of two different ecosystems.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: So you're doubling your your biodiversity and your unique plant and camel life just by the proximity of these two very different areas.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a lot of parks, a lot of national parks that can brought, you know, make cross uh environmental boundaries ecosystems, but it is pretty unique and interesting beer to have two deserts representing both the Mojave and the Colorado Desert.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: And the Colorado Desert is somewhat more akin to the Summarine Desert uh on the other side of Colorado.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's fantastic.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me about the park's namesake, the Joshua Trees.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I understand they can live 150 plus years and grow to 40 feet.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us about Joshua trees.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Joshua trees are really cool plants.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: They are um really unique in so many ways, you know, starting with their name, um, the fact that they're called a tree.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Some people assume they're a cactus, which of course they are not.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but they are a monocot.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: They're more akin to uh, if you look at their trunk, what you might find inside of a palm tree.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so they have uh they're not uh a tree in the sense they have tree rings.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: You could count their age by looking at their growth rings.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: They don't do that as uh uh uh given that they're monocots and uh they're more akin to um, you know, like I was mentioning, a palm tree.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um so they're unique in that way, but they have a trunk, so they do look like a tree.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: We call them trees and they have branches.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um what's cool at Joshua Tree is our trees are specifically western Joshua trees, and so they exhibit a much more tree life.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um they are really cool.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: They only have one pollinator.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the Yucca moth is the only pollinator known to pollinate our awesome Joshua trees.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so it's a really important relationship between this moth and the tree, and they just can't survive without the jelly.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of a cool thing.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so tell me about some of the other wildlife that we might expect to see uh on a visit.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the wildlife in a desert demands your patience and uh and a little bit of knowledge and curiosity.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: If you know you're not gonna be, you're not gonna come here and experience a Yellowstone where you're gonna drive around your car and have something maybe, you know, you don't expect to be on a safari drive where you're gonna see wildlife from your window.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: You really have to get out of your car, hit the trail, and be ready to look at things from very, very small uh to medium size.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're lucky, something that's maybe a little bit bigger.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: So on a larger scale, of course, we have bighorn sheep, desert big horn sheep specific to the park.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: We've got about five populations in higher elevations.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: They coexist with mountain lions.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we have a thriving mountain lion population uh that goes in and out of the park.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: Also, our sheep, of course, go in and out of the park.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: They're wildlife, there's no boundaries, they're using wildlife corridors to move around.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we have wheel deer that are also fairly large in size.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: People don't even think about deer being in the desert, but we do have them.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then you get into some of our more modest to smaller-sized predators, um, like bobcats.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: We also have badgers, which I love that there's badgers in the desert.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: You need these giant walking pieces of carpet wood legs stirring across the road.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Pretty cool to see.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: I've never I've only seen one in my my time here, but um, all the way down to smaller scale, and you know, especially when you're out in the early morning or the evenings, you need to open your eyes to things like bats, rodents that are out, um, gangaroom rats.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we have, I think, 17 species of bats in the park, which is really incredible biodiversity here.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Over 250 species of birds.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: If you're a bird aficionado, this is a great place to come in the fall or the spring and look at these different winter migrations that are happening within and about.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: On a personal level, what tell me the difference?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: I believe your previous gig was uh in science and research, science and resource stewardship before you took over the superintendent position.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, what what is the difference in those two things?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: How does your focus change?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: It changes, uh it changes a lot uh in some ways, uh, but in other ways I'm still uh practicing and doing my craft, as you might say.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I started my career out as a biologist.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um and in the national park system, uh, everybody starts, you know, as your entry-level job, you're going to be in one of many different disciplines, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: And as you move up in the organization, who typically are within your same, your same kind of organization specialty area.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: And ideally, by the time you might graduate or be at a level where you might be interested in taking on a leadership role, like a post superintendent, uh, at that point, you really would have to have worked across those disciplines at least to stump some extent before taking the helm and leading uh groups of uh experts and subject matter experts, the specialists that are working in fields that be made, you're going to be less remote.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: So um I would argue biologists make great park superintendents in national parks that have uh significant natural resources.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: It gives you a good uh um point of reference and really good experience about managing those areas and understanding what's important and some of the strategies and tactics for that.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um and if you, you know, if I worked at Gettysburg, I I know I would benefit greatly if I had a better background uh in either archaeology, with cultural history, cultural landscapes.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: So Okay.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: As a young biologist, what were you studying?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: What what were the areas that you enjoyed?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: I um came out of the Peace Board in the early 90s with uh just starting to explore the field of restoration ecology and looking at opportunities to uh restore the landscape, restore natural environments that had been disturbed for one reason or another.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so when I came into the park service, it was a good fit for me to go into ecosystem conservation, ecosystem stewardship.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: And in a sense, uh you're kind of trying to work yourself out of a job, which may sound strange, but if the landscape is highly functioning, if the landscape is healthy, if natural processes are doing what they're supposed to be doing, um, you're kind of in the background monitor.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: If things are not functioning properly, that's when we start asking ourselves, is there some action we need to be taking to correct that course?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, in my case, a lot of times, um things like non-native plants that are highly invasive, that alter fire regimes, that completely change ecosystems, those are things that we have to step in and see if we can uh course correct and improve those uh the ecosystem trajectory.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's kind of this balance of taking action, um, ensuring we know what we're doing, ensuring we know what the goals are and the trajectory for that particular place or system, and cautiously making those changes and monitoring uh in the long term for that ecosystem now.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: So talking specifically then about Joshua Tree along the spectrum from completely chaotic to everything is absolutely perfect and in balance.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Where where is Joshua Tree in there?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so this park is uh beautifully designed, in my opinion, in the sense that there's five different mountain ranges.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: It comprises a number of watersheds, uh, and the area itself is really really lends itself to conservation and preservation, um uh, including wilderness values.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um but things that are happening outside the boundaries or outside, you know, I suppose you could say our our control um have been uh non-native plant invasion.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: We have severely altered fire regimes here and high elevation from brass-driven fires, neon native grass-driven fires.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: So we're seeing fires more frequently, that are bigger, that are uh burning into areas that are not fire adapted.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's one of the biggest threats to Joshua Trees um ultimately, you know, is fire.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: Alongside that, uh, the park, uh we have good information indicating the park is getting hotter and drier.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: We've seen this play out with the desert tortoise, which has a number of stressors on it.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: We have a great, some really great desert tortoise habitat, but we've gone from about 30 animals per square kilometer to uh just over three, and that's fairly at the level needed for successful reproduction to continue those populations.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we have uh ecosystems and certain species that are really in the balance right now, that uh we have major concerns over how we're gonna keep desert tortoises alive and thriving in the park.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: How are we gonna keep Joshua trees uh reproducing and thriving into the future?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: It would be a tragedy to lose the namesake of this national park.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, on those two issues, I mean, you're talking about a 90% reduction in desert tortoises.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Is that all climate change related?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is it is it too hot for desert tortoises?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great question.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um when you look at uh severe changes or trends in a species of survivorship or abundance, now you really need to look at what's happening, what's causing it.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: And teasing out those factors can be uh challenging.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: And you need a lot of time and some data and really some smart people looking looking at the issue.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we're fortunate to have about a 30-year data set uh monitoring our tortoise.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it is a combination of uh multitude of factors, uh, one being disease.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: So there is a respiratory disease that's transmitted uh within tortoise populations that's negatively impacted their numbers.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh pretty significant way that's happening on a range-wide scale.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, changes in their available uh forage, you know, if we're seeing trends towards non-native plants, you know, gases that they don't eat.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they're looking to eat their wildflowers and those, you know, annual plants that come up in winter or the spring.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: And if that food is changing, that's changing their ability to get the nutrients, the food they need to reproduce.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's in addition to hotter, hotter and drier conditions.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that's impacting the actual yucca plants as well.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean the Joshua trees as well.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: Joshua trees, um, when I originally started studying them and working with them in the 90s, uh my main focus had been on the non-native grass fire cycle and what we could do to break that, um, protect Joshua trees.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: And now what we're seeing is uh the heating, uh, the hotter temperatures and reduced precipitation uh is also impacting their ability to successfully reproduce.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: So, what does that really look like uh when you're on the landscape when we have um one of those special years when Joshua trees flower and we go out to collect uh seeds from the trees?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: If you go to areas where the trees are a little living in lower elevation, lower, drier, hotter areas, we're finding that uh those seeds have a much lower probability of being violent.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: So we've been out collecting those, and there actually aren't any seeds even in the fruit.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: They just didn't have enough resources to mature, um, versus some of the higher elevation areas where those trees may persist.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: We have high elevation habitat here.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's called a refugia, it's sort of like where a species might take refuge in hotter, drier times when their suitable habitat is shrinking.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's where we're focusing our efforts right now is understanding and knowing where that suitable habitat might be left in the future and how we can guess.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: I imagine that's one of the huge challenges you're facing then.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'm gonna guess as a scientist, as a biologist, the fact that there's not a tremendous amount you can do to control that must be remarkably frustrating.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I assume even as a superintendent, climate control is out of your uh out of your out of your bivouac there a little bit.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: We, you know, the Park Service has a long history and responsibility for um understanding our natural environment, understanding parks, understanding uh these amazing landscapes.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and part of that is our responsibility to share that, share what we're learning, um, and to find ways to make a difference.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, in the face of adversity or in the face of a challenge, you know, where can we make some positive changes?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: So that's how we're approaching the challenges which.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Is what can we do to best protect the last remaining suitable habitat in the park?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: How can we be really aggressive fighting fire in these areas, preventing fires?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: How can we preserve the the genetics of these populations by collecting their seed and preserving it?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Growing new plants, maybe planting these out in old fire stars?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe so.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Being a good scientist, being a good steward is also about being really creative, being a good problem solver, and not giving up and trying things.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Are you coordinating with other national park sites?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Or or do you guys stand alone as unique in the challenges that you're facing?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you know, land managers, anybody managing land, public or private land across the country is grappling with um environmental challenges.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's not necessarily a new thing.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: There was always, you know, in my career been change and challenges.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um but it's really important to not work in a silo.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, parks aren't islands, and it's really important to talk to your neighbors, your gateway communities, find out what other folks are challenged with, maybe learning from others, what other folks are doing, other managers are doing, other landowners are doing.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I would say it's very collaborative.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: There may be some issues really specific to Joshua Tree, but there's also a lot of broad application uh lessons that are that we can share with each other in the region.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: All right, and I wanted to back up for just a minute.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is probably a little bit before your time, but my research showed that there was a there was a time uh before it was a national park.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: The Joshua Tree had saber-toothed cats and mammoths and direwolves and giant ground sloths.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is is that is that accurate?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Did those animals exist there at one point in history?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um while Joshua Tree National Park is unless isn't really renowned as a uh you know fossil-rich area, well famous for having fossils.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um we do this land that some of the some of the areas in the park do have fossils are from the suppliestine era that you're mentioning.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: We have the good fortune uh of working with the Western Science Center located in Hemman, California.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's a repository for on fossil collection.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: And they have been really great to put on exhibit some of the specimens that have come from the art for the public to dossi.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's very cool.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now and and speaking of historical, and this would be a little more recent, um, I understand there are 300 plus abandoned mines inside of the park and maybe 700 plus mine openings, although I I believe those are closed to the public now.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um but do the are the are what was the mining that took place in inside the area?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: What were they mining for?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's um uh you know, we're in the state of California, so we have a long uh uh historic uh period of um of mining, obviously the gold rush, uh and you know what gets precipitated out of that.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say that mining was a little bit of a late coming to this area.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: So um the boom and bust, you know, all the activity around gold mining that was happening maybe in Northern California, um areas north of here, um, folks were not coming to this area until somewhat later, nor the turn of the century, late 1800s, and more really into about early 1900s, in search of gold, just like anybody, seeking their fortune, hoping to make the you know, make a claim and strike it rich.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh however, as anybody who's visited the park could imagine a life of a miner who was really nearly barred um and very uncertain.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: And while many prospectors and miners came out here with great hopes and dreams, most of those really didn't panic.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: No bad intended.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: But uh if it was intended, it was pretty good.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, gold was obviously the big uh would have been a big draw, but silver and copper uh were were also things that uh some some folks were able to to make a little bit of money off of it, but nothing really went super big out here.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Have have all them have all the openings been closed up?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Are they restricted to the public?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: Mine shafts and adits are all closed to the it is far too hazardous to be going into anything uh in the part.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, these are really old, these timbers are feeling, all these openings are very uh fragmented and uh very risky.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: So it uh if anybody going into any opening um is gonna get a ticket from all the rangers.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you that right now.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's just dangerous.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's dangerous.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why we have them closed.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: And uh but the closures are uh what we focused on over the last 30 years is a program called our Abandoned Mine Lands Program.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: And uh over the decades, we've had some amazing staff who've worked diligently to put up either VAT gates, what we call back gates on mine openings.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: So if there's bats that have occupied these mining shafts and addits, we want to make sure those bats can continue to thrive and reproduce and take advantage of that space.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so we put gates in there that the bats are able to fly in and out of if humans can't in.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's been a great um, we've got some great tools in our toolbox to both make uh the landscape safer for people enjoying the area that can still see some of the openings, they can still hike out to some of the old mines and safely check out and enjoy that man city with them like back in the day.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but they can do that safely and also accommodate a wildlife that may even zoom up.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: So when you said Batcave, I was thinking Batman and Robin and thinking, well, now I always thought they were from Gotham, but maybe they're from Joshua Tree.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll see.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me something that you would like the audience to know about Joshua Tree that you're figuring most of us don't know.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, um, you know, people are learning so much about Joshua Tree.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm pretty impressed with the level of of knowledge and understanding people have with Listeria now.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's such a great curiosity about the desert um in the last ten years.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: And um what has um you know, I think again, it's just uh the desert has become um I don't know, kind of like this this rediscovered space of renewal, um personal challenge, open space, uh, and especially in recent years, the ability to view our night skies and really enjoy uh those opportunities to see the Milky Way.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we were we're a few hours from 25 million people, and most of those people cannot see the Milky Way from the urban areas where they lived.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: And the desert, whether it's Joshua Tree National Park or Kansas Rago, the Mojave Preserve, or BLM lands around here, they all present these amazing opportunities to get away from the light pollution and open up your eyes to the skies at night.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's very cool.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: I had not thought of that, so thank you.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: So this will be it won't be because I'll think of another one.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I believe at this moment, this is my final question to you.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a single day.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm driving down from the LA area, visiting family and friends in Orange County, and I'm gonna go spend a day at Joshua Tree.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: What's that day look like?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: You are gonna be uh likely, more than likely, driving out on I-10, heading east and making your way towards Palm Springs.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: And you'll start uh once you press over the pass with the famous windmills, you're gonna be dipping your toes immediately into a very dry desert environment, you know, immersing yourself into this landscape over our side of the universe.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: And uh eventually you'll make a quick left turn, you'll head up the grade on Highway 62, and I'll take you through uh the Morongo Canyon there, which is a narrow slot canyon.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's where you're gonna have your first chances of seeing good on sheep.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that's adjacent to the Santa Snow National Monument and adjacent BLM lands there.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's a really beautiful canyon to be driving up.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: And you'll find yourself uh popping out up in the Morongo Basin where we have our gateway communities that sit on the edge of the entrances to Joshua Tree National Park.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: From there, most people will come in, take a right turn in Joshua Tree, the town, the village of Joshua Tree, and take a quick turn and head up into the park to your west entrance.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's our about half of our visitors come through that entrance station.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: You will be welcomed by park rangers there as you drive through our brand new uh entrance station there, which is specifically designed in a mid-century modern architectural style, which is compatible with the original architecture of the park, which was predominantly designed in the 1950s.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: So from there you'll be at a higher elevation, you'll be feeling a little bit cooler.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you'll enjoy those uh open landscapes, you're gonna drive right in and immediately uh lose self-service.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: And hopefully you are prepared.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: You do not want to come through that west entrance gate.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: You don't want to drive into the park without all the provisions you need for your enjoyable afternoon.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's water, telling a friend where you're going, telling somebody your plans, and downloading our app that works offline without cell service.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna give you information and maps of every trail, uh, every uh location that you might be interested in visiting.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: So before you show up, be prepared.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: Make sure you do that while you have cell service, make sure you get your provisions and come on into the park.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: And uh most people are gonna drive from the west entrance and pop out in 29 palms.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that 35-mile drive through the park is gonna give you a chance to pull over at a number of different locations, maybe stretch your legs to a short hike, maybe drive out to Keys View, take a look down below uh bird's eye view of Palm Springs and Cochebo Valley, uh, and then double back and come through the park, driving through our most famous rock formations, all the granitic boulders that we have, through the forests of Joshua trees, and then start to drop down in elevation as you approach 29 palms into that more drier side of Dexter.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: So a great day.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think so.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you very much.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm throwing my email up here on the screen.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's Scott at naturaliscott.com.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got follow-up questions or thoughts or ideas based on my conversation with Jane, please send them to me.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: I always love to answer them.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Jane, we do this.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh almost everybody now watches the show rather than uh simply listening, which is why I asked you for those photos so that we could include them in the show.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but if you're watching on YouTube, do me a favor and hit subscribe.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: It takes you about three seconds, and every time you do, they push this um podcast out to more people, and more people can learn about something spectacular like Joshua Tree National Park.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Drop a comment or hit like if you want.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um and Jane, I close up my shows encouraging the audience to get outside.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell you whether that's the front porch or the backyard or a local park or a national park.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Get out there.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: And when you do, in your case in particular, be prepared, you know, and be responsible, stay safe, and stay curious.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Jane, I want to thank you for your time today.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: You were so generous in doing this, and I loved hearing your perspective on the park.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a park I've spent a lot of time in over the years.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: My son's 42 now, but when he was in Boy Scouts, we did a few camping trips out there, a little rock climbing, had a great time, some great visits, um, and some nice camping trips utilizing some of your 500 spots.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and it was terrific, and I really do appreciate it.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for being here, Jane.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Scott.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: You bet.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Scott Harris.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is Naturally Scott.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you listening in.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you come back next week as well.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: Let me know if you've got any questions.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: One final time.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Jane, thanks so much for being a part of this.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Scott.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'll see you in the park.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: I will look forward to that.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to Naturally Scott with Scott Harris.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally Scott is hosted by Scott Harris, produced by Justin Harris, directed and edited by Frank Stierra.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Follow us on our YouTube channel at Naturally Scott and Instagram at naturally Scott Harris.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: If this conversation resonated with you, please follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally Scott thanks you for viewing and listening to this podcast.