After the Wildfire: Indian Trail Loop Pioneer Mts Preserve

One chilly morning in February, we set out to explore a new location - the Pioneertown Mountains Preserve. Located just under an hour's drive from Palm Springs, the Preserve sees far fewer tourists compared to Joshua Tree National Park. It's a hidden gem despite it being heavily impacted by the Sawtooth Complex fire in July 2006, which destroyed over 61,000 acres in this section of the Mojave Desert.

Information about The Pioneertown Mountains Preserve

Located in the Mojave Desert and eastern San Bernardino Mountains, the Pioneertown Mountains Preserve spans 25,500 acres and is owned by the Wildlands Conservancy. The Preserve contains year-round riparian ‘wildlife corridors’ that act as critical routes for animals to travel between their habitat in Joshua Tree National Park, San Bernardino National Forest, and the Big Horn BLM Wilderness.

Nature needs room to roam and these corridors are their highways system. Movement is essential to wildlife survival, whether it be the day-to-day movement of creatures seeking food, shelter, mates, dispersal of offspring to new home areas, or migration of wildlife to avoid seasonally unfavorable conditions. However, due to the increasing demand for urban and commercial development, humans have significantly encroached on wildlife habitats by disrupting their natural corridors with roads and buildings. Now more than ever, it is essential to support conservation initiatives led by organizations like The Wildlands Conservancy to safeguard these areas.

Information about the 2006 Sawtooth Complex Fire

The Sawtooth Complex fire was a group of wildfires in San Bernardino County that merged during the summer of 2006. The Sawtooth fire was started by a lightning strike on July 9, 2006 and over the course of the next ten days merged with two other wildfires (Waters and Ridges fires). The consolidated fires burned an area approximately twice the size of San Francisco. The Pioneertown Mountains Preserve suffered significant damage, with the fire destroying the majority of Joshua trees, pinyon pines, junipers, and other vegetation. It is estimated that around 90% of the land surrounding the Indian Loop Trail was affected by this fire.

Historically, catastrophic fires such as the Sawtooth Complex have been infrequent in Mojave Desert ecosystems with some estimates putting the 'fire return' interval at every few hundred years. In fact a 1963 publication stated, 'Fires have never been a factor of much importance in the Sonoran or Mojave Deserts.' But over the last two decades this trend is shifting . Fires are becoming a feature of the landscape, increasing in frequency and jeopardizing the recovery of native species, including Joshua trees.

After the wildfires from sixteen years ago much of the blackened soil and burned vegetation has been covered by new plant growth. But if you look closely, most of the our photos unintentionally capture the charred remnants of burned trees.

Hiking Indian Trail Loop and Chaparrosa Peak

• Hike Distance: 8.07 miles

• Elevation Gain: 1,310 feet

TrailsNH Hiking Difficulty Calculator: 145 Moderately Strenuous

Click here for a review of prominence and its role in mountain topography

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TrailsNH Hiking Difficulty Calculator

The TrailsNH Hiking Difficulty Calculator gives you a better sense of the challenge a hike may require. The goal for this calculator is to help you determine how doable a hike is for you. Is it too big of an effort? Although they acknowledge the full experience of a hike is impossible to estimate, you should always prepare for the unexpected.

For the hike today, we followed the AllTrails ‘Indian Trail Loop at Pipe’s Canyon’ route in a clockwise fashion. The initial portion of the hike was a 3-mile trek to a spur trail leading to Chaparrosa Peak. After enjoying the summit we made our way back to the main trail, continued through Pipe's Canyon, passed by the Olsen Ruins, and eventually returned to the starting point.

Hiking to Chaparrosa Peak

The hike began on the well-marked Chaparrosa Peak Trail. We were expecting cold morning temperatures, but hoped for a warmer afternoon. Fortunately, as hearty New Englanders, we were ready for the 40°F temperatures and windy conditions. It's not often that we hike in Southern California with multiple layers and gloves.

The trail started in a sandy drainage gap between two hills. The Preserve habitat is predominately desert chaparral in the transition zone between the lower elevation desert cacti scrub plant community and the higher elevation pinyon and juniper woodland. Beginning today's hike at an elevation of 4,300+ feet, we were in the sweet spot (3,500–4,500 feet) for sustainability of plants in this biome.

Desert chaparral is characterized by open space with less than 50% ground coverage. For thousands of years, this sparsity of plants kept wildfires in check due to the lack of a continuous fuel bed to carry flames and embers. As Cameron Barrows of the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of California, Riverside explains, '..if lightning struck a Joshua tree, it might burn that tree and a few feet around it, but there wasn't enough fuel on the ground to carry fire to the next plant.'

However over the past several decades deserts of the southwest have been invaded by non native grasses. These invasive grasses now occupy the previously empty spaces between desert shrubs and have created an uninterrupted fuel source for fires to spread from one plant to another. Wildfires, which used to be confined to the point of ignition, can now easily spread across hundreds or even thousands of acres. As Barrows points out, 'We are having fires in places that should never have fires because there shouldn't be sufficient fuel to carry fire from one plant to another. It's a desert, that fuel should not exist; yet it is there because of invasive grasses.' During our hike in February, there were few signs of these invasive grasses but that situation would likely change soon.

The presence of Parry's Nolina was hard to miss along the trail. These plants resemble a yucca with a rosette of narrow olive green leaves. In the spring, they grow a tall woody trunk-like flower stalk – up to 12 feet tall. Dense cream colored flower clusters appear on the stalk in May or June. Unlike agaves, Nolinas do not die after blooming. Eight and nine months ago this Nolina must have put on quite a show.

Manzanita is another member of the desert chaparral plant community. Manzanita is characterized by its long, twisted, and smooth maroon branches that contrast against its grey-green evergreen leaves. Despite the 2006 wildfire decimating this area, the presence of numerous young manzanita shrubs is not surprising. Manzanita produce abundant seeds and reach maturity early with plants as young 4 to 5 years old producing seeds. Dormant seeds are protected by a thick hard coating which enable them to persist in the 'soil seed bank' for decades and germinate readily after a fire.

Heading to Chaparrosa Peak we spotted this single, standing-dead pinyon pine that serves as a reminder of the wildfire.

Currently, a significant portion of the Preserve is process of succession, which is the natural recovery of vegetation after a disturbance such as fire. Ecologists and environmental managers have been fascinated by succession in arid areas for a long time because large fires are rare, leading to limited long-term data on recovery and succession after these large scale disturbances. Nevertheless, experts predict that the changing climate and the of increasing frequency of wildfire will favor the growth of scrub oak and smaller Joshua tree communities at the expense of juniper, pinyon pines, and the extensive Joshua tree groves that once covered these hillsides. It can hope these standing dead trees known as snags are not the last pinyon pines we'll see in the Preserve.

Joshua trees and numerous desert plants have not evolved to withstand fire since it was not part of their natural development. The U.S. Park Service estimates that fewer than 10% of Joshua Trees will survive a wildfire. Those Joshua trees that managed to survive the Sawtooth fire were further strained by years of severe drought. So we were encouraged to see these healthy young trees. Given that Joshua trees have the ability to sprout from their roots post-fire, it is probable these juveniles are replicas of the dead tree visible in the bottom right of this photo.

Joshua tree seedlings are particularly sensitive to drought; they simply lack the water storage capacity of the adult plants and are susceptible to dying under drought conditions. With their slow growth rates of 1-3 inches per year, the iconic Joshua tree landscape is not coming back during my lifetime. It could take more than a century to repopulate the Preserve due to hotter temperatures, longer droughts, and more frequent fires make regrowth even more difficult.

WARNING: Joshua trees are keystone plants of the Mojave Desert – they provide a critical source of food and shelter for many species. Lose the Joshua Trees and the moths that are the primary pollinators of these trees may go extinct. When the moths disappear then the ladder-backed woodpeckers that eat these moths may abandon the Mojave Desert. The 25 other bird species that nest in Joshua trees, the lizards that use the tree for cover, and the mammals that rely on these trees for food will join the exodus. Lose these trees and we lose biodiversity of the desert.

Not only did the hike provide a lesson on desert chaparral and fire ecology, but it also offered a fascinating glimpse into geology. As we progressed up canyon, the landscape started to resemble Joshua Tree National Park, with towering boulders and scattered rock piles. These granitic formations, which are more than 100 million years, were formed by cooling of magma pools deep within the Earth's crust, approximately 15 miles below the surface. As the granite lay beneath the Earth's surface, it fractured due to various factors such as pressure from above, movement of tectonic plates, and the presence of groundwater.

Horizontal and vertical cracks developed, leading to the formation of rectangular pieces. Groundwater infiltrated these cracks, transforming the rock into soft clay that was eventually washed away. This process resulted in stacks of granite pieces. As the topsoil eroded these granitic rocks emerged on the surface as the rock towers like those found here and in Joshua Tree National Park.

But make no mistake, the rock formations did not occur in the arid climate of today's Mojave Desert. Rather, they are relics from much earlier times when heavy rainfall, fast moving water, and lower temperatures where the norm in this area.

Here is a great miniature version of the rock stacks.

We continued climbing out of the canyon toward the Chaparrosa Peak spur trail.

Looking out from the canyon ridge, we could see the flat-topped lava buttes in the east. A visit to Amboy Crater in the future will offer an opportunity to discuss volcanic activity in the western Mojave Desert..

We hiked past hills littered with basalt, a reddish volcanic rock. Basalt is an extrusive igneous rock formed by the rapid cooling of basaltic lava exposed at or very near the surface.

The Pioneertown basalt fields have actually been the subject of quite a few studies. Several research projects indicate that this basalt is relatively young, with estimates placing its age at around 7-9 million years. These studies suggest the lava originated from a vent on Chaparrosa Peak.  Although the scoria/cinder cone has worn away over time, the basalt-covered peak may potentially be what remains of such a cone.

Basalt often contains vesicles or pockets which form when dissolved gases bubble out of the magma as it rises to the surface. The erupted lava then solidifies before the gases can escape leaving behind the pock-marked rock surface.

Finally, we arrived at the spur trail; only six-tenths of a mile to the summit of Chaparrosa Peak.

Chaparrosa Peak was located just beyond the hill left of center.

After a succession of small hills, the trail grew steeper as we made our way through basalt-covered slopes of the Peak.

Success!

It was windy and cold on the peak so we stayed just long enough time to take a selfie and ...

.... sign the summit register.

Hiking to Pipe's Canyon Loop

Before we knew it, we found ourselves back on the main trail ascending another canyon that eventually connected to the Pipe's Canyon Trail.

Here is another hint to the degree of vegetation loss during the 2006 wildfire. There were numerous small beavertail cactus growing along the Indian Loop trail and few if any mature cactus.

Anyone who knows Dave recognizes that he has an incredibly accurate internal clock that tells him when it's noon and time for lunch.

When we hike, it's all about the lunch location and less about the actual food. Our go-to lunch for most hikes is a peanut butter sandwich. They are easy to make, provide sufficient calories and protein, a steady source of energy, and best of all they aren't messy to eat even in scorching summer temperatures.

After lunch we continued for a mile then began a steady descent into Pipe's Canyon. Although it wasn't very steep, we moved slowly due to the loose sand and gravel conditions.

After half a mile and a descent of about 400 feet, we entered the Pipe's Canyon wash. The dense growth of desert scrub made it challenging to stay on trail at certain points.

The ground was blanketed with Desert Broom. These aggressive shrubs germinate quickly and are often the first plant to grow after a disturbance. Their presence indicates vegetation recovery is underway. Standing at heights exceeding 10 feet, Desert Broom also serves as a nurse plant by capturing moisture and preventing soil erosion until other shrubs and trees take root.

Desert Broom has almost leafless stems that remain green throughout the year. They typically bloom between September and February producing small, white flowers which grow from the end of the stems.

Continuing our walk down the canyon, we reached the edge of a desert riparian corridor. This habitat is characterized by dense groves of shrubs and small to medium-sized trees that grow adjacent to permanent streams or springs. Think of it as a green stripe in the middle of a brown desert, although in midwinter there wasn't much greenery on display.

It is said that the drier the surrounding desert, the more abrupt the transition is between the riparian zone and the open desert chaparral habitat. However, 'abrupt' in an understatement. Within minutes, our surroundings transformed from a canyon wash with plants to a landscape dominated by scrub oak, willow, and towering cottonwood trees that dwarfed Dave.

These Arroyo willows are large, sprawling, multi-trunked shrubs or small trees, usually less than 30 feet high. These plants thrive in riparian environments and require a steady supply of freshwater. They often form dense groves where there is a shallow water table or seep.

During the period from February to April, these plants produce dense, cylindrical clusters of tiny flowers known as catkins. At the base of each catkin is a small, dark flower bract that is covered with long, shaggy, whitish hairs. The male catkins, measuring 1-3 inches in length, are characterized by their yellow or greenish-yellow color due to the copious amounts of pollen present.

The importance of these scarce desert riparian corridors for wildlife populations cannot be overstated. These habitats support more bird species at greater densities than other desert habitats with the exception of palm oasis habitats. The abundant shrubbery and consistent water supply offer food, shelter, and water to sustain wildlife during their migrations between Joshua Tree National Park, San Bernardino National Forest, and the Big Horn BLM Wilderness.

Exploring the Olsen Ruins

After 6+ miles of hiking including a casual stroll through a 'forest' we reached the Olsen Ruins spur trail.

This stone home was built by John Olsen who lived and mined onyx in these mountains during the 1920. Tragically, in 1945, he was murdered by an Army deserter whom he had taken in.

Not bad for an over 100-year old structure.

One portion of the house was still relatively intact.

Heading Back to the Trailhead

After visiting the ruins we walked through one last section of the riparian corridor.

By the end of the hike, there was barely a trickle left of the stream.

It's important to understand that despite the shrub growth and the lush riparian zone, the original vegetation in the Preserve may never come back. These plants are a 'visual erasure' of the real damage to the biodiversity of the preserve. Just because it looks recovered doesn’t mean the land isn’t still damaged.

Every once in a while a hike just surprised the heck out of you and the Indian Loop and Chaparrosa Peak Trail did just that. What an amazing area to explore.