Issue link: http://globelitetravelmarketing.uberflip.com/i/149733
Heritage & Culture At least a dozen Native American tribes, from the Cahuilla to the Yokuts, called the North American desert their home before white adventurers moved west from the plains. They found ingenious means of survival, trapping the small desert animals and making the most of water run-off when the scant rains fell. The first pioneer wagons entered Death Valley in late December of 1849, looking for a new route to California gold. When the Gold Rush died out, silver beckoned new fortune seekers; many of the desert's best-preserved ghost towns, like Calico, were thriving mines with hundreds of hopeful prospectors. Toward the turn of the century, though, the price of silver dropped, and borax became the mineral of choice. But even borax mining ended about ten years later, and the boom towns dried up in the desert wind. Despite its ghosts, the desert is still very much alive. For more than 160 years, this rough but complex California landscape has incubated uniquely hardscrabble earthlings—from Death Valley Scotty (the namesake of Scotty's Castle) to the eccentric residents who still live along the shrinking Salton Sea. Most tenacious of all are the venerable bristlecone pines: the oldest living creatures on the planet. A World of Its Own California is vast—with a greater area than Germany or Italy—and its southern 182 2013 travel guid e to c al i fo r n ia DRIVE TOUR BARSTOW ● FENNER ● AMBOY Though there are great off● road trips in and around all of AMBOY ● HISTORIC CRATER California's desert parks, the ROUTE 66 drive to AMBOY CRATER along legendary ROUTE 66 is both scenic and historic. Route 66 begins in SANTA MONICA and crosses CALIFORNIA'S MOJAVE DESERT, from BARSTOW to Needles. To get to this section of the road, take INTERSTATE 40 and exit at FENNER. Follow Historic Route 66 toward AMBOY through some very desolate and spectacular country. The ride is best early in the year, when the area around the ancient crater is carpeted with wildflowers. As always, drives though the desert can be unpredictable. Make sure you have plenty of water—for the car as well as for yourself! desert is larger than 10 of the other U.S. states. In many ways that desert is a land unto itself, a place almost unimaginably remote from the cafés of Melrose Avenue, the Big Sur cliffs or the redwood groves of Muir Woods. For the visitor, California's deserts offer the opportunity to experience the kind of travel one might seek in Morocco, Namibia or western China, but with a far more developed infrastructure (and much better amenities!). Though one might choose a base in Palm Springs, San Diego or even Las Vegas, the eternal spirit of the California Desert is found in its conservation areas. Death Valley and Joshua Tree are the premier national parks, and many visitors plan their entire visit around one of these magical, even spiritual, destinations. Death Valley alone offers enough spectacular hiking, 4WD routes, ghost towns and natural attractions to RICHARD FITZER; SARAH FIELDS PHOTOGRAPHY drives through Death Valley, Joshua Tree and Anza-Borrego, although the best way to experience those gems of the desert is on foot, during a wellprovisioned day hike. Despite its perilous reputation, the California desert is one of the Golden State's most welcoming and surprising destinations. It took the Death Valley 49ers two full months to navigate this once forbidding wilderness. You might decide to cross it in two days—but even that's long enough to separate myth from reality.