Feature Article

The Desert Cahuilla Project
A Loss to Conservation?

East of the current Anza-Borrego Desert State Park boundary and north of Highway S-22 lies the traditional home and hunting grounds of a hardy band of Native Americans, the Desert Cahuilla. It is a land of scenic canyons, buttes and
terraces – a land rich in geologic wonders, Pleistocene fossils, and ancient village sites and artifacts. It’s the habitat of endangered plants and animals. Visitors have described the landscape as “haunting” and “unlike anything in the Park.”
In May of 2006, the Anza-Borrego Foundation was presented with an extraordinary opportunity. Joining a coalition of conservation organizations, we could help purchase 4,000 critical acres in the area – which are “checkerboarded” with land already owned by the State of California.
Eventually, this foothold could include as many as 15,000 acres of new and largely pristine parkland. Over twenty-three square miles!
Time was of the essence, for The Trust for Public Land held an option on the 4,000 acres in question, and that option was due to expire on July 8th. The Foundation’s share of this Desert Cahuilla Project was set at $300,000. We had funds we could draw on for this. Even so, we were short approximately $100,000.
We alerted our members and friends, and initiated a crash thirty-day fundraising campaign. The results were heartening. Nearly $110,000 from over 230 donors – breaking all previous ABF fundraising records. We thank you for your unprecedented generosity!
But then, early July 6, we learned that a key participant in another organization’s fundraising plan could not deliver on his commitment, and the Desert Cahuilla Project – as a conservation-oriented, protected reserve – would be well over a million dollars short of success.
Even so, a deal might still have been cobbled together if it wasn’t for an additional hurdle. With the State pleading budgetary restrictions, we were informed that the conservation coalition would have to commit to long-range
funds to manage and patrol the area. And this, sadly, was beyond the coalition’s reach.
We’re, naturally, terribly disappointed by this. But there’s no faulting us for not rising to the occasion. It’s our mission.
The fate, then, of the Desert Cahuilla Project?
Barring unforeseen developments, the Off-Highway Vehicle Division of California State Parks (distinct from the division responsible for Anza-Borrego Desert State Park) has the resources to purchase the 4,000 acres, and underwrite
the development of at least a portion of the property as a “green sticker” recreation area open to a variety of all-terrain vehicles. And at this juncture, we could distance ourselves from the Desert Cahuilla Project. Walk away from it.
But we won’t.
Rather, we will actively hold out for the best – if compromised – use of the land and its resources.
So you, our readers, might better understand what is at stake and still can be done, this Desert Update features four articles – with four different perspectives – on the area. “Lost and Found in the Land of the Cahuillas” offers an historic look;
“A Pristine Desert Wilderness” explores the area’s natural and archaeological resources; “An Ancestral Land” provides an insight into the lore and feelings of today’s Cahuillas. And finally, “What Do We Do Now?” projects what may lieahead for this remarkable landscape.

A First Encounter:
LOST AND FOUND IN THE
LAND OF THE CAHUILLAS
By Nicholas Clapp, Trustee

Late on a November afternoon in 1853, a party of U.S. Topographic Engineers clambered up a “point of rocks” (today’s Travertine Point) and surveyed an awesome landscape – the Desert Cahuilla area.
Dispatched by Jefferson Davis, then America’s Secretary of War, the Engineers were scouting railroad routes to the Pacific coast. Somewhere off to the south, Carrizo Wash and its Emigrant Road was a candidate. Reaching the wash, they now saw, would be a challenge. The intervening territory was uncharted. Worse yet, they’d earlier in the day parlayed with a band of Cahuillas, and “None of the Indians could be induced to go with us; they were afraid to venture, saying there was neither grass nor water.” So wrote William Blake, the expedition’s twentyseven year old inexperienced, yet enthusiastic geologist. The next forty hours would provide the most daunting – and rewarding – of his career.
To begin with, young Blake theorized – correctly so – that the land beyond was rich in sediments deposited by the Colorado River, and accordingly named it the Colorado Desert. It also appeared that an inland sea had once stretched off to the horizon; the imprint of its shoreline was visible on nearby outcrops and mountains. He called the sea Lake Cahuilla. Both names are with us today.
William Blake not only saw geologic history written on this land, but was one of the first to be attracted – not repelled – by what lay before him: “From these rocks I obtained a fine view of the Great Desert, stretching off in a wide,
apparently limitless plan. Blue, purple, and red were delicately blended one with the other, and produced a most beautiful effect, impossible to describe.” At Blake’s request, artist Charles Koppel recorded the scene. The resulting lithograph
is interesting that it not only delineates ancient Lake Cahuilla’s shoreline – but shows the expedition veering off in quite the wrong direction.
They believed that, within hours, they’d be on Carrizo’s Emigrant Road, when in fact it was nearly forty miles further south. The sun set and continuing on by moonlight, the Topographic Engineers were disappointed not to find the Emigrant Road around the next hill, or the next, or the next. Moreover, what appeared to be a smooth planwasriven by unexpected, deep washes. The going washardonmen and animals, but for Blake the geologist, exciting. His diary recounts reefs of fossil shells and an abundance of oddly shapedsandstone concretions, which he likened to “various fruits and vegetables, fancy pastries, and confectionary ” (suggesting that a diet of jerked meat and stale biscuits may have been wearing thin).
Come dawn, Blake sketched a nearby landmark – a cliff he noted to be topped by a patch of coral. It’s in the heart of the Desert Cahuilla area, between Grave and Coral, two extraordinarily scenic washes. (On the “Seventeen Palms Quadrangle” topo map, it’s marked “Dusty.”) Surely now, Carrizo Wash had to be at hand, and past this cliff the Engineers made a fateful decision – and strayed even further off-course, heading due west in hopes of soon intercepting the Emigrant Road. Blake couldn’t quite bring himself to admit this; instead, he records a “circuitous” route a good ten miles longer than indicated on his report’s map. And so the party ventured well into what is now Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The evidence is a lithograph of today’s “ Truck haven Rocks ” north of highway S-22 (between highway mile markers and 35 and 36). The identification is confirmed by the contour of the ridge line in the background, the same now as then.
There are Indians in the scene. Did a chance meeting w i t h a Cahuilla hunting party set Blake and his companions straight?
Though there is no way to know, it was at this point in their misdirected journey that the party retraced their steps for several miles, and glumly resumed a southward course. They’d lost the better part of a day. The sunset .
Blake wrote : “We travelled steadily along, all night , but found no signs of the Emigrant Road. Every hour became precious, for the mules were nearly exhausted;
many had given out; and it became evident that the wagons must soon beabandoned, in order to press forward for water.” Then at four in the morning, there was the sudden cry of “water, water!” The news “was caught by the train and ran back from mouth to mouth like wildfire.” This prompted “one long shout and yell of delight and three cheers and a cry from the mules.” They’d made it to the marsh of San Sebastian! The next day they would
find and follow the Emigrant Road. They’d survived – and were the first known non-Native Americans to experience the Desert
Cahuilla area. It is a land whose sweep and wonder are little changed today, a century and a half later.

The Desert Cahuilla Area
A PRISTINE DESERT WILDERNESS
By Paul Johnson, Naturalist

My assignment was to find a sign that said “3000 ACRES FOR SALE.” Dave Van Cleve (Colorado Desert District Superintendent at the time) had seen it east of the microwave tower on the north side of S22. It took me a while to find it because it was lying flat on the ground, a few yards north of the highway. Someone had cut it down. I wrote down the phone number.
Some time later my boss, Jim Dice (Senior Resource Ecologist, Colorado Desert District), asked me to do a survey of the property. I was to take photographs and look for rare plants, archaeological sites, fossils, rare animals, and anything else of special interest. I took the photos, collected the information, and prepared a slide show. I also fell totally in love with this magnificent piece of desert.
The Desert Cahuilla area occupies more than 16 square miles of land located north of S22, between the park’s east boundary and Highway 86. To get a broad view of the property, drive about a mile east of the microwave tower on S22. Take one of the numerous dirt roads that run north from the highway a few
hundred yards to the edge of the mesa and look north. The Desert Cahuilla property stretches for four miles straight ahead of you, and occupies the transition zone between the rocky foothills of the Santa Rosa Mountains (on your left) and the soft sediments of the Borrego Badlands where they extend north of S22.
There are six major washes that drain this property from west to east. I began my investigation in Palm Wash, the southern-most of the six, which begins just inside the park near the Calcite Mine. The wash flows through pastel-colored hills and the landscape is stark and bare. While the vegetation is sparse here, I did find a small population of a rare plant – Salton milkvetch – and a few struggling palm trees, thus the name Palm Wash. I also found a succession of off-road vehicle tracks
crossing hills and ridges. Off roaders have used this area for years. The land is not signed in any way, and there is no agency or law-enforcement presence.
As you travel north across the property, the rounded hills typical of Palm Wash are gradually replaced by steeper, more rocky terrain, and the amount of off-road activity diminishes. The second wash I visited was Big Wash, the fourth one going north from S22. At its east end, Big Wash is nearly a half-mile across, then narrows gradually as you drive upstream. It was in this wash that I discovered one of the treasures of the property – sandstone concretions like none I had ever seen. I found not just a few concretions here and there, but entire hillsides covered with colorful, highly eroded sandstone shapes. Gully after gully would be choked with these odd, contorted, sandstone forms, some as big as a Saint Bernard.
The third wash I explored was Verbena Wash, the northernmost in the project. It is also perhaps the most pristine. Orcutt’s aster, a rare species, occurs intermittently for several miles along its banks. As in Big Wash, there are impressive displays of concretions here, along with some fine old Palo Verde trees. When the road ended in a mass of boulders, about three miles west of Highway 86, I parked and went for a two hour
hike. According to my GPS readings, I crossed a few hundred yards inside Anza-Borrego’s east boundary. I also entered a pristine desert wilderness unlike any I have ever seen. There was no sign of human presence for the entire two
hours ! On the return hike , t h e views down the wash towards the Salton Sea were breathtaking. Along the eastern portion of the Desert Cahuilla project there are many fish traps, built by Native Americans during the time when Lake Cahuilla occupied the Salton Basin. I also observed Indian trails crossing many of the mesas, and in a few places there were cleared circles and other signs of Native American habitation. Here and there I also found petrified wood and the shells of freshwater clams and other gastropods that once thrived in ancient Lake Cahuilla.
While Palm and Coral Washes in the south end of the project can be (carefully) driven in a high-clearance vehicle, the four northern washes – Grave, Big, Gravel and Verbena – are four-wheel-drive, high-clearance only. The roads are poorly defined and get more rocky and difficult the farther west you go. Exploring the Desert Cahuilla Project is challenging. You need either a four-wheel-drive vehicle or lots of time, water, and sturdy hiking boots. The rewards are outstanding. There are places few people have ever seen, and views that can bring tears to your eyes.
Visiting the area, you’ll discover first-hand that two words apply: “spectacular” and “unique.”

ANCESTRAL LANDS
The Vision of the Desert Cahuilla

Lyrical bird songs recount Desert Cahuilla tribal
history – “far more accurately than any written history,”
according to William Contreras, cultural affairs director
of the Torres-Martinez band.
These orally-transmitted songs harken to the time of
the earliest Desert Cahuilla, and tell of a great migration
in search of a land promised by their creator Mukat.
Remarkably, the journey’s landmarks are recognizable
as features of today’s mountain and desert landscape.
Ultimately, the Desert Cahuilla’s trek was to lead
them right back to where they had started. “Our ancestors made a great circle, to find everything they’d hoped for, everything they’d dreamed of, everything they could ever need, right here.”
A great forest, the songs say, once lined the shore
of a great sea. Here, the Cahuilla fished and utilized
the plants and trees for sustenance and medicines. It was a beautiful land, so blessed that the mocking bird – te’ma-wet, “big mouth” in Desert Cahuilla – would cease its song twice a day that it might admire the rising and setting of tamet, the sun. Cultural Preservationist , William Contreras has found clear evidence of this golden age. In the Desert Cahuilla
area, there are fire rings containing petrified wood, and
an abundance o f village sites which bear witness to the
ancestors of the Desert Cahuill a . Nearby, hundreds of stone
walled fish traps follow the shoreline of an ancient Lake
Cahuilla, (then reaching from the Gulf of California to Palm Springs).
“I was lucky as a kid,” says Contreras, “to have been able to touch and talk to some of the Elders of my Elders. And in their living memory, they recalled badgers and antelope populating the land, and groves of mesquite and cottonwood trees stretching as far as the eye could see.”
In the last century, the land has changed, but the Cahuilla respect and reverence for it has not. It is celebrated and remembered in their bird songs, with new ones created and added every year. “ They start with Creation, the very beginning o f my people’s existence, and have no ending…” “ All I can do is the best I can to protect and preserve what we have in order to ensure the future existence of my people. It is important that we educate our youth and that I pass down what was given to me. I do not claim to know everything. I am merely a pebble compared to the great stones which are my Elders. They are the true keepers of knowledge and teachings of our culture.” A people – and a land – endure.

The Desert Cahuilla Project
WHAT DO WE DO NOW?
By Linda Carson, Executive Director

With the collapse of the conservation purchase of the Desert Cahuilla property, the stage is now set for California State Parks to acquire the property from TheTrust for Public Land. Initially, the project is subject to a two-stage vote by the Public Works Board: a July 14th vote to “select” the site, and an August 10th vote to
authorize the final purchase of the property.
What is unresolved, at least at this early stage, is how
the property will be classified. It could be incorporated
into Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, or it could be
added to Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation area. Or the area could be split, with a key question as to where a dividing line would be drawn. This critical issue will be the focus of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) process. Its review will determine the classification most consistent with the land’s
sensitive resources and its recreational potential.
As this Desert Update goes to press, the Foundation has yet to receive information from State Parks as to how they would like to classify the property or what the interim management plan will be pending conclusion of the CEQA process.
After all is said and done, the final authority to classify the land will rest with the State Park and Recreation Commission.
The Anza-Borrego Foundation and Institute will remain ever vigilant as the CEQA process now unfolds.
We have conveyed to California State Parks our desire to engage in a management planning process that is inclusive, that adheres strictly to established policies and procedures, and that fosters an atmosphere of mutual trust. To that end, we have asked California State Parks to close the property to all public uses until the CEQA process has culminated in a plan that protects the natural and cultural resources of an extraordinary
landscape.

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