Jack Thompson

By the time Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow, and Castle Mountains National Monuments were proposed, impassioned citizens had been struggling for decades to protect the integrity of the California desert. Major victories for conservation were won when the California Desert Protection Act of 1994 was signed into law, establishing Joshua Tree and Death Valley National Parks, Mojave National Preserve and 69 federally designated wilderness areas.

Despite this landmark protection for the California desert, many of these protected public landscapes remained threatened by hundreds of thousands of acres of private inholdings, a legacy of lands gifted to railroad companies by the U.S. government to encourage the great western expansion of the 1800's.  These private inholdings stretch clear across the Mojave and into the heart of the San Gorgonio Wilderness.  

In the late 90's these railroad inholdings went up for sale and the integrity of millions of acres of public lands hung in the balance.

At the heart of Sand to Snow National Monument is Mount San Gorognio, the tallest mountain in Southern California.  Although protected as federal wilderness, for many years a vast patchwork of private land inholdings lays across the landscape.  Not only can these lands be developed at any time, private owners held key access points to the wilderness adjacent to the Coachella Valley and effectively kept the public out of their public lands.

This condition persists for nearly 70 years and during this time the wilderness falls into a long period of neglect and lawlessness. 

With the fabric of the California desert hanging in the balance, environmentalists organize.  The Wildlands Conservancy helps to raise $45 million to purchase 560,000 acres of threatened lands, 200,000 of them spread across public wilderness areas, Mojave National Preserve, and Joshua Tree National Park.  They then donated these lands back to the public interest in what is considered to be the largest nonprofit land gift to the American people in U.S. history.  

Despite these major victories for the protection of our public lands, it would soon be very nearly undone.  Energy companies looking to cheaply develop renewable energy were offered these public conservation lands by the federal government for leases that were as low as one dollar per acre per year.  Suddenly millions of acres of pristine public lands were on the table for development. 

Throughout the San Bernardino Mountains and Mojave Desert, The Wildlands Conservancy sets to the the task of returning public access to public wilderness and preventing private developments from fracturing some of the most biologically diverse lands in North America.  They begin to fundraise with the vision of creating a series of nonprofit wilderness preserves, open to the public, free of charge. They name the project Sand to Snow.  

In 2006, an opportunity to solve access issues on the south east side of the San Gorgonio Wilderness presented itself.  A commercial fish hatchery in Whitewater Canyon that for decades had restricted access to the wilderness on its norther border went up for sale.  Located only 20-minutes away from Palm Springs, and half a mile from the world famous Pacific Crest Trail and the San Gorgonio Wilderness, the hatchery site is an ideal location for public access. 

The Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy and Friends of the Desert Mountains purchased the hatchery and donated it to The Wildlands Conservancy.  After two years of renovations, Whitewater Preserve is established and public access returns for the first time in nearly 70 years.  

The Wildlands Conservancy begins to advocate for the creation of Sand to Snow and Mojave Trails National Monuments as a mechanism to permanently protect public access to over one million acres of pristine public lands.

Venturing deeper into the proposed Sand to Snow National Monument, nonprofit rangers being to foster a relationship with the land that includes partnerships with federal land managers, volunteers, and local environmental advocates.  

Whitewater Preserve rangers fill the gap in federal management and become the de facto stewards of the land.  In 2008, they run headlong into drug traffickers operating a marijuana grow that for many years had gone unnoticed by authorities.  

Whitewater Preserve rangers pinpoint the grow for federal agents.  It lies only a few miles form the famed Pacific Crest Trail.  

Preserve ranges work shoulder to shoulder with law enforcement rangers to remove the grow, which is estimated to contain over 50,000 plants.  It is only one of 500 that will be discovered in California that year.

Conservationists continue to advocate for a desert protection bill, and Senator Dianne Feinstein introduces the California Desert Protection Act of 2010.  

Local conservationists fundraise and purchase a 40,000 acre cattle allotment that when in use, could make the the snowmelt Whitewater River run black with pollution.  Once purchased, it is immediately retired.  

With a nonprofit portal into the San Gorgonio Wilderness established, the public returns to their land.  Coachella Valley residents enjoy year round access, free of charge.  The Wildlands Conservancy also begins to run education programs out of its desert preserves for local schools and soon becomes the Coachella Valley's leader in providing free outdoor education programs.  

These lava buttes lie just outside of Pioneertown, a stone’s throw from the wildly popular music venue Pappy and Harriet's and Joshua Tree National Park.  Covered with thousands of Native American petroglyphs, they were designated by the Bureau of Land Management as "general use public lands."  This designation allowed them to be opened up to foreign energy companies for large scale energy projects.  From thousands of miles away it, they appeared to be ideal locations for wind farms and our representatives in the BLM started up the paperwork.  

Local conservationists were quick to organize and begin to vocally advocate for the protection of these rare and sacred sites. They studied the land, cataloging its rare resources and wrote a proposal to designate the buttes as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern.

The citizen nominated Area of Critical Environmental Concern proposal for the public lands encompassing Flat Top Mesa and Black Lava Butte is diligently carried to federal land managers and lawmakers and is eventually included in the proposed Sand to Snow National Monument.  

On the shoulder of the Marble Mountains in the Trilobite Wilderness inside Mojave Trails National Monument.  Named for the fossilized  creates that can be found here, trilobites are around 500 million years old and were among the first creatures on earth to evolve eyes.

Sand to Snow National Monument protects one of the most biologically diverse mountain ranges in North America.  

Sand to Snow, Mojave Trails, and Castle Mountains National Monuments represent some of America’s most treasured public landscapes, emblematic of the truly wild spaces lying just beyond Southern California’s urban cores. 

Linking these monuments is the common story of ordinary but motivated citizens struggling to bring awareness to the conditions threatening lands that every American is part owner of.

Pictured here is the Whitewater River flowing into the Coachella Valley, with Mount San Jacinto on the horizon.  Its epic north face is the steepest precipice in the lower 48 states.