As Layne and I walked along the dirt paths of Joshua Tree, he showed me how an ATV tire tread that veered just a few inches off a path can break the crust of the desert, starting a slow but inevitable process of erosion. Increased traffic perpetually threatens the delicate balance here. In 2018, Joshua Tree saw 2.9 million visitors, a 3 percent increase over the previous year, while Death Valley had 1.7 million visitors in 2018, up from 1.3 million in 2017. Every year, millions of pilgrims make the trek to these deserts. And there’s perhaps no place on earth more like this than the national parks of Southern California.Ĭut off from development by both climate and protected status, Joshua Tree and Death Valley serve as counterpoints to the nearby metropolises of Los Angeles and Las Vegas-the eerie sense of endless isolation belies the closeness of these cities. “The most remote wildernesses that are still relatively close to where the action is-that’s going to be it,” Layne says. You need that exchange of ideas, of fresh blood going into and coming out of the wilds. ![]() It’s not just the isolation of the desert, though the proximity to civilization is also key. “Any place that is remote because it has not been hospitable to the cultivation of the land is going to have the potential,” says Layne, for some kind of wonder, mysticism or cult weirdness. As the sun sets against the yuccas, we talk about why the desert seems to always attract hermits, artists and strange visionaries. ![]() On a late spring evening, I am walking through Joshua Tree National Park with Ken Layne, founder and editor of the Desert Oracle-a publication and radio broadcast devoted to the landscape Layne loves-to talk about the ghosts and visionaries who inhabit the Southern California desert.
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