Travel to a desert wonderland

Mojave hosts several huge Joshua tree forests, named because the tree reminded Mormons of a praying prophet. Photo by Jerry Bunin

Amid the crown jewels of the national park system, the Mojave National Preserve is a little known gem.

There isn't even an entrance sign to the park off Interstate 40 east of Barstow even though that is one of main routes into the preserve.

A vast wonderland of massive sparkling sand dunes, weird volcanic formations, the world's largest Joshua tree forest and a dozen distinct mountain ranges, the preserve is one of the newest and largest parks in the system.

Only Death Valley and Yellowstone are larger than the 1.6-million acre preserve that just celebrated its fifth birthday.

National parks, including Mojave, combine stunning geology and equally dramatic human history. Most of Mojave's history is tied to settling the American West.

It is located in a sparsely populated and seemingly forbidding land known as "The Lonesome Triangle" -- bordered by highways 40, 15 and 95.

Like most desert parks, the preserve between Barstow and Needles is a wildly misunderstood land, dismissed as desolate and inhospitable to anyone who only drives by or through without stopping.

The mostly undeveloped preserve is high desert, still hot in the summer and a land of little rain. And the silence can be so complete that you can hear jets soaring too high to be seen with the naked eye.

In the heavily vegetated preserve, three great deserts meet - the Great Basin, Sonoran and Mojave - creating a mixture of plants that co-exist nowhere else.

Pinyon pine and juniper woodlands cover dramatic mountain ranges, peaking at 7,929 feet. Hillsides and valleys are green even in the late summer.

Endless blue skies stretch out during the days and showcase billions of stars at night. And blooming wildflowers and cactus turn the desert floor into a vibrant rainbow between April and May.

Desert plants are amazing proof of nature's incredible adaptability.

To survive in an arid climate, flora grow small leaves and waxy coating to reduce moisture loss, cacti store water in fleshy stems, and roots run deep or spread over wide areas to catch and use every drop of available moisture.

For thousands of years, Native Americans beginning with the prehistoric Anasazi traveled through the Mojave from the Colorado River to trade with the Chumash on the Central Coast.

Father Francisco Garces in 1776, fur trapper Jedediah Smith in 1826 and Western explorer John C. Fremont in the 1840s used the old Indian trail when European civilization first wandered through the Mojave.

The U.S. Army built Fort Piute, Camp Cady and Camp Rock Springs in the 1860s as part of a string of forts to protect miners, mail carriers and wagon trains along the path and named it the Mojave Road.

The forts were abandoned within the decade as disease, war and forced displacement to reservation destroyed the Mojave and Chemehuevi tribes and ended the threat of Indian attack.

On four-wheel drive trails, preserve visitors can see the ruins of Fort Piute, occupied between November 1867 and May 1968 by the 9th Infantry and now the best preserved of the old fort system.

Today, the 140-mile Mojave Road is mostly used by four-wheel drive enthusiasts traveling the rugged terrain for a weekend outing.

Within land now in the preserve, silver was discovered in the Providence and New York Mountains in the early 1860s and gold was found in the 1890s.

Miners followed. Boom towns sprung up and disappeared when the mineral strike bottomed out.

Ranchers came to raise cattle to feed the miners, with some spreads keeping 10,000 heads over more than a million acres.

Another shot of spectacularly beautiful Lanfair Valley, a seemingly endless Joshua tree forest, the New York Mountains in the background and some cattle around the water hole. Photo by Jerry Bunin

(In typical old Western fashion, water wars soon broke out among the ranchers, including a few fatal shootouts. The ranchers continue operating today in the preserve, mostly in Lanfair Valley and across Cima Dome.Ed. Note: I added this paragraph after the story was printed.)

In 1980, Congress set aside 1.5 million acres of the eastern Mojave as the East Mojave National Scenic Area, first national scenic area, the same designation Mono Lake and the Columbia River Gorge have in the park system.

After much bitter fighting between the various competing interests, the preserve was created on Oct. 31, 1994, as part of the California Desert Preservation Act that also expanded Death Valley and Joshua Tree National monuments and turned both into national parks.

The preserve is home to 300 different species of animals, including the shy, rarely seen desert bighorn sheep, mule deer, coyotes and the endangered desert tortoise.

Most of the preserve is wilderness with only a few official hiking trails.

However, backpackers and hikers can camp anywhere at least one-half mile from a developed area, road or water source.

About 1,200 miles of paved or four-wheel drive roads run through the preserve, carrying travelers within walking distance of fascinating places to stop, park and explore.

More than 30 cinder cones cluster on the park's surface, examples of volcanic activity less than a 1,000 years ago. The Aiken Cinder Cone Mine Road travels right through a bright reddish cinder cone for a closer look.

A short drive reaches the Kelso Dunes, which rise 700 feet off the valley floor and are worth a vigorous two hour hike to the top.

The now-abandoned Kelso Depot could become the preserve's visitor center. Photo by Jerry Bunin

The Kelso Station, near the dunes, was built by the Union Pacific Railroad in 1924 by abundant springs used to service steam engines that helped pull trains up the steep Cima Dome grade.

The station was essential to the only train linking Salt Lake City and Los Angeles before a national highway system existed to carry commerce and travelers.

The depot, closed in 1985, is one of only two remaining train stations built in the Spanish architectural style. The National Park Service hopes to turn it into a visitors center.

The gradual sloping line running across the skyline is Cima Dome with Teutonia Peak in the middle. We shot this photo from our campsite at Mid-Hills. Photo by Jerry Bunin

The Cima Dome is one of the preserve's most dominant features. However, people can drive by or right over the dome and not realize it.

An almost perfectly rounded land form that rises 1,500 feet above the surrounding desert, the dome was formed by molten mass of rock that cooled and solidified over 75 miles of land.

The huge bump is cover by the world's largest stand of Joshua trees and Teutonia Peak, a 5,755 foot mountain with a four mile roundtrip hike to the top.

Whether you reach the top or just stop to walk through a cacti patch, the Mojave is worth getting to know.