Discover Top Posts Tagged with #clark mountain

Mojave National Preserve, California by John Morrow via Flickr https://flic.kr/p/rbuR6a

#mojave desert #ca #california #joshua tree #yucca #desert #high desert #Mojave National Preserve #joshua trees #clark mountain #desert scenery #scenery

Clark Mountain, Mojave National Preserve by Matthew Dillon via Flickr https://flic.kr/p/opndCc

#california #ca #Clark mountain #desert #mojave desert #mojave national preserve #yucca #joshua trees #creosote bush #mountains #scenery

CLARK MOUNTAIN DEVELOPMENT CO. – PIEDMONT CANYON, WAYNE COUNTY

The 1920s saw a surge in optimistic developers vying to attract the leisure class to vacation destinations in the Ozarks. Springfield’s own John T. Woodruff bought an unfinished health resort in Siloam Spring, near the North Fork River, where he built the impressive four-story Pinebrook Inn, a nine-hole golf course, dance pavilion and dug a swimming pool. (More on that story in our book James…

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#Clark Mountain #Col. Lon Sanders #McKenzie Creek #Piedmont Missouri #UFO Capital of Missouri #UFO Festival #Wayne County

A reporter's first-hand view of researchers in the field as part of the ongoing Grinnell Resurvey.

Excerpt:

A few hours had passed since we left a sandy trail winding up the north flank of Clark Mountain and trudged up a steep slope of broken rock, flowering cactuses and creosote bushes, pinyon pine, and juniper. By early afternoon the sky was getting dark as thunderclouds closed in.

It was late May, and I was tagging along with Lori Hargrove, an ecologist with the San Diego Natural History Museum and part of a team of researchers. They were retracing the steps of scientists who 79 years ago had surveyed birds, small mammals, and their habitats at Clark Mountain in southeast California.

Hargrove, who specializes in bird monitoring and ecological analyses, had wanted to scout a route to a forest of white fir trees hugging treacherous terrain near the 7,933-foot summit. Detailed field notes from scientists there in the late 1930s told of at least one researcher who had hiked up and over the summit, joining companions at their 6,100-foot campsite on the south side of the mountain. But we couldn’t see a way up, not that day.

The fir forest at Clark Mountain contains what biologists call a “sky island” – a habitat defined both by its high-altitude biodiversity and physical isolation from the expansive desert below (also see here and here). It’s also where birds and small mammals may help tell the story of climate change’s impact on California’s wildlife.

The work at Clark Mountain is part of the Grinnell Resurvey, a research project launched in 2003 to cover the same transects across California that U.C.-Berkeley zoologist Joseph Grinnell and his colleagues had surveyed a century ago.

Other things have been slow to change. At Clark Mountain, some of the biologists said they were surprised to find very few invasive species of grasses and other vegetation; the rugged high desert habitats of Clark Mountain were much the same as in Grinnell’s day. That was a bit surprising to hear. At our camp, modern civilization never seemed that far off; you could hear the drone of cars and trucks on Interstate 15, and all day long jetliners passed over Clark Mountain on their way toward Las Vegas 60 miles to the northeast.

Those who pay attention can see that Clark Mountain is brimming with wildlife, from bighorn sheep and black-tailed jackrabbits to kangaroo rats, pinyon and deer mice, and other small mammals. And everywhere you can hear the chirping of birds – Juniper Titmouse, Black-chinned Sparrow, Black-throated Sparrow, Rufous-crowned Sparrow, Gray Vireo, Wilson’s Warbler, Western Tanager, Warbling Vireo, Bushtits, Anna’s Hummingbirds, and many more.

#Mojave National Preserve #Clark Mountain #Grinnell Resurvey #deserts #desert ecology #climate change