Thursday, October 28, 2010
As the "snowbirds" return to the Mesquite, NV area for the fall/winter, so does their path of destruction...
After enjoying a nice, fairly unvisited Gold Butte during the last few months, (just as the weather starts to get nice) the usual motley crew of snowbirds descends upon Gold Butte and Mesquite, NV like a flock of vultures on a fresh kill. Needless to say, I have some more "Wall of Shame" Photos of the fresh damage that is starting to pop up. Could that just be a coincidence? I highly doubt it. I also have some other good photos and information, related to Gold Butte and the Mojave Desert. These things, as well as a new post, should be up this weekend. Stay tuned....
Monday, February 1, 2010
More Corrections.......
In this post I will tackle the the post "Ride 16: Kurt's Grotto and Petroglyphs". It's a whopper of a tale!
A)"The trailhead that they are making is 500 FEET UP IN THE AIR OVER A CLIFF! The trail now will be completely OFF LIMITS to most seniors! And to top it off, just when do they intend to make said trail? Even lame-brains would think to have the "stairs" or "switchbacks" or whatever they intend (it's a secret) in place before they blocked off the entire area!"
So, let me get this straight, you use to drive your OHV up and down a "Cliff" that is 500 FEET IN THE AIR! You are amazing! No wonder the area closed to motor vehicles is torn to pieces. That trail could be started right now, if you and your buddy's run out there with some jackhammers and chisels, and carve a nice stair case in that solid rock! That would make a nice volunteer project. "Volunteer" being the key word there. If most of the work being done out there is not up to your standards, why not be proactive, and lend your "expertise" next volunteer event?
B)"First Rock is still the same - the only area where a sign is the sole limitation and the walk is only a few feet. It is well taken care of, despite being the most accessible."
Excuse me, but is "First Rock" the one with the giant wall of graffiti and restored eroded hill climb to nowhere? Or the rock outcrop with the road driving almost straight through an agave roasting pit? Yeah right! Taken care of by whom? How many times did that area get "restored", only to be destroyed the next day? I think people just got bored destroying the same place over and over, so they're moving on down the road.
C)I will skip the whole repeat of the Falling Man Trail rantings. I have already commented on that issue.
D)"They've brought in mounds of Beaver Tail cacti and planted them in silly, pristine straight rows! They've brought in thousands of dollars worth of barrel cacti and planted them often too deep, not facing the correct direction, in trail bottoms with poor drainage! [I'm running out of exclamation points!]"
Thousands of dollars of cacti, huh? I thought they salvaged those for free from the Coyote Springs Development mess. And now you're a Botanist, as well. You never cease to amaze me! Desert ecosystems take a very, very long time to recover IF people leave them undisturbed. Maybe...these plants were not intended to survive, but merely keep the area from being disturbed over and over? Maybe give it some time to heal on it's own? Provide seed catchments? Just a thought......
E)Oh, and I put the BLM's link at the bottom of my page. But, I would have thought someone as "genius" as you could figure out how to use the Yellow Pages or Google it. Sheesh!
A)"The trailhead that they are making is 500 FEET UP IN THE AIR OVER A CLIFF! The trail now will be completely OFF LIMITS to most seniors! And to top it off, just when do they intend to make said trail? Even lame-brains would think to have the "stairs" or "switchbacks" or whatever they intend (it's a secret) in place before they blocked off the entire area!"
So, let me get this straight, you use to drive your OHV up and down a "Cliff" that is 500 FEET IN THE AIR! You are amazing! No wonder the area closed to motor vehicles is torn to pieces. That trail could be started right now, if you and your buddy's run out there with some jackhammers and chisels, and carve a nice stair case in that solid rock! That would make a nice volunteer project. "Volunteer" being the key word there. If most of the work being done out there is not up to your standards, why not be proactive, and lend your "expertise" next volunteer event?
B)"First Rock is still the same - the only area where a sign is the sole limitation and the walk is only a few feet. It is well taken care of, despite being the most accessible."
Excuse me, but is "First Rock" the one with the giant wall of graffiti and restored eroded hill climb to nowhere? Or the rock outcrop with the road driving almost straight through an agave roasting pit? Yeah right! Taken care of by whom? How many times did that area get "restored", only to be destroyed the next day? I think people just got bored destroying the same place over and over, so they're moving on down the road.
C)I will skip the whole repeat of the Falling Man Trail rantings. I have already commented on that issue.
D)"They've brought in mounds of Beaver Tail cacti and planted them in silly, pristine straight rows! They've brought in thousands of dollars worth of barrel cacti and planted them often too deep, not facing the correct direction, in trail bottoms with poor drainage! [I'm running out of exclamation points!]"
Thousands of dollars of cacti, huh? I thought they salvaged those for free from the Coyote Springs Development mess. And now you're a Botanist, as well. You never cease to amaze me! Desert ecosystems take a very, very long time to recover IF people leave them undisturbed. Maybe...these plants were not intended to survive, but merely keep the area from being disturbed over and over? Maybe give it some time to heal on it's own? Provide seed catchments? Just a thought......
E)Oh, and I put the BLM's link at the bottom of my page. But, I would have thought someone as "genius" as you could figure out how to use the Yellow Pages or Google it. Sheesh!
New Corrections for The Last Post Re: Gold Butte
"Offroading Home" is continuing to not allow corrections to his ignorant postings regarding Gold Butte and the restoration efforts going on there. In this post I will go through and make the same corrections, so that the truth is out there for people to see that "Dr J" has absolutely no idea what he is talking about. Maybe that is why he will not post my corrections to his many,many errors.
I will begin with the last post entitled "Ride 17:"Fire" and "Man" Petroglyphs:
A)"Charley and I had heard several (somewhat conflicting) rumors about possible damage at the site – from "someone had chalked them" to "someone had shot them" to "someone had graffiti-ed them." None of which, fortunately, is true.
As you realize from riding the past week, the weather has changed and become quite a bit more humid than usual (for the desert). This has generated a substantial amount of alkaline lechate coming out of the rock – giving the appearance of "chalking." It's been doing it for hundreds of years and will continue for many more. It's how erosion works.
Except for the lechate, the glyphs are identical to the photos I took over three years ago when I first met them (I compared the actual photos)."
Completely false: While the process of leaching of the sandstone occurs, I also have photographic evidence(which will not be posted, due to graphic nature) of a Giant Penis drawn directly on top of the glyphs in Mud Wash. The white smudge is the remnants of an attempt to restore the petroglyphs. Not "Lechate". Furthermore, when the vandals climbed up to draw the penis, they broke a section of petroglyphs off the panel and into the wash. Which, I am sure has been recovered for safe keeping.
B)"This post marks a significant change in my attitude (and policy) about publishing exact GEO coordinates of petroglyphs. Until now, I've only published coordinates for sites, routes, trailheads and petroglyphs which were blatantly obvious from the trail.
Now, with the needlessly heavy handed actions of the BLM in the draconian closures, not only is my feeble "protection by omission" unnecessary it would be completely ill-spirited to require people to hike that distance (if they are able) and not know exactly where to look to find them."
How irresponsible can you be? Let's just post the exact pinpoint location of every petroglyph, so that people don't have to explore or have any sense of adventure, plus now any vandal can easily find their way to each glyph. What a steward of cultural heritage you are(insert sarcasm)!
Next!
I will begin with the last post entitled "Ride 17:"Fire" and "Man" Petroglyphs:
A)"Charley and I had heard several (somewhat conflicting) rumors about possible damage at the site – from "someone had chalked them" to "someone had shot them" to "someone had graffiti-ed them." None of which, fortunately, is true.
As you realize from riding the past week, the weather has changed and become quite a bit more humid than usual (for the desert). This has generated a substantial amount of alkaline lechate coming out of the rock – giving the appearance of "chalking." It's been doing it for hundreds of years and will continue for many more. It's how erosion works.
Except for the lechate, the glyphs are identical to the photos I took over three years ago when I first met them (I compared the actual photos)."
Completely false: While the process of leaching of the sandstone occurs, I also have photographic evidence(which will not be posted, due to graphic nature) of a Giant Penis drawn directly on top of the glyphs in Mud Wash. The white smudge is the remnants of an attempt to restore the petroglyphs. Not "Lechate". Furthermore, when the vandals climbed up to draw the penis, they broke a section of petroglyphs off the panel and into the wash. Which, I am sure has been recovered for safe keeping.
B)"This post marks a significant change in my attitude (and policy) about publishing exact GEO coordinates of petroglyphs. Until now, I've only published coordinates for sites, routes, trailheads and petroglyphs which were blatantly obvious from the trail.
Now, with the needlessly heavy handed actions of the BLM in the draconian closures, not only is my feeble "protection by omission" unnecessary it would be completely ill-spirited to require people to hike that distance (if they are able) and not know exactly where to look to find them."
How irresponsible can you be? Let's just post the exact pinpoint location of every petroglyph, so that people don't have to explore or have any sense of adventure, plus now any vandal can easily find their way to each glyph. What a steward of cultural heritage you are(insert sarcasm)!
Next!
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