Volunteer Life - In the Desert

Sunset Over Ash Meadows

This morning it occurred to me that the closest Starbucks, even the closest latte-serving coffee shop is more than 30-40 minutes away.  Less than a year ago, just to get to work, I passed 6 Dunkin Donuts, 4 Starbucks, 3 Au Bon Pains and countless local cafes.

Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, where we're volunteering is located along the Nevada / California border, 30-40 minutes from the closest town, and 31 miles from Death Valley National Park. The refuge is home to, and famous for, being the home of several endemic species including the Devil's Hole and Ash Meadows Pupfish. The Refuge tag line reads "Where the desert springs to life."  I prefer - "Come for the Pupfish, Stay for the Springs".  Sure the pupfish are cute, but there are 50 crystal clear warm springs here putting out a total of 11,000 gallons a minute, and they all are amazing! Some are

Crystal Spring

accessible by boardwalks, some are hidden away in the folds of the rolling desert hills. But again, all-in-all an amazing oasis in the middle of the Mohave desert.

Volunteer life, even without lattes, is pretty sweet. This morning I woke up, took a walk alongside a desert stream, and strolled 3 minutes to 'work' at the Ash Meadows Interpretive Center.  Yesterday I helped collect pupfish DNA samples next to a crystal clear, hot spring. 

Inquiring minds have asked for more details on exactly what it is we are doing, so here it is.  For the months of January and February (and if I can convince SD) some of March we will be living and volunteering at the Ash Meadows Wildlife Refuge in Southern Nevada.  Volunteering requires that we work three, eight hour days (Thursday, Friday and Saturday). During that time we are responsible for staffing the visitor center as well as keeping it clean.  Once a week we also empty trash, recycling and clean pit toilets at the boardwalks.  On slow days we can also get out on the refuge and help with habitat rehabilitation projects, maintenance or just do roving interpretation.

Longstreet Cabin and our New Bikes!

The four other days of the week we get to explore. There is a lot to see and do on the Refuge, and our new mountain bikes were the perfect addition to help us do that. There are miles of dirt roads through the rolling hills. Even on our first day here we took a quick ride up to the Longstreet Cabin and Spring. Less than 4 miles to the north of the trailer pad the spring and cabin have both been restored. The cabin being built more than a hundred years ago is one of the oldest structures in the Amargosa Valley. The Spring, like many others here. had been destroyed by over pumping and aggressive irrigation in the 60's and 70's.  With the establishment of the refuge in the 80's and the subsequent projects to bring back the springs and provide living habitat for the endemic Amargosa pupfish, Longstreet spring was restored in the second round of projects, about 10 years ago. Today it, along with Kings Pool, and Crystal Spring and the three gems of the refuge. Riding to Longstreet the first day was the perfect introduction to the Refuge.

In addition to exploring Ash Meadows, there is also many places within a two to three drive that we

Dates - really for harvest

also want to check out including  Death Valley, Red Rocks Canyon, and Desert National Wildlife Refuge. For our first trip we drove about 50 miles south to the China Date Ranch. While the name conjures images of cowboys rounding up four legged fruits, the 'ranch' is really a date plantation. Everything around here is a ranch, even the brothels are called ranches. The Date Ranch is located in a hidden valley of the Amargosa River. The river creates a lush habitat for dates and for all desert plants and animals. We took a brief walk along the riverside trail. It's still winter here and most everything is dormant but it was wonderful. The dates are really cool too, and some were still being harvested. The ranch shop had about 8 different date varieties all available for sampling. They were all good. Some would be better for cooking, and some were sweeter, juicier and excellent just as they were. We had planned to get lunch a little cafe in Shoshone, CA but the day we went was the day of the 1.3 billion dollar powerball and the parking lot (and the entire town) was packed with cars of people buying tickets. The line must have been 1/3 of a mile long. With stomachs still full of dates we headed home for a late lunch.

It's coyote time!

And where is home you ask?  We are living in our trailer on a trailer pad at the refuge. There is another couple here and occasionally government folks stay in the bunkhouse next door. The bunkhouse has a washer and dryer which we can use. There is a TV but no cable. There is also wifi, both in the bunk house and in our trailer. At night, heck even during the day it's quiet. Sometimes the coyotes get a little loud but SD enjoys their company.  I enjoy the quiet. The sunsets, sunrises, surrounding mountains and desert continually surprise us with their beauty.