BLM Dispatch #2 - Conglomerate Mesa
If you’ve ever driven along the southern stretch of California’s famed Highway 395, you’ve likely found yourself craning west, staring at the formidable peaks of the Sierra Nevada — perhaps imagining the clear alpine lakes just beyond the ridgeline.
But for those who turn their gaze east, a different landscape unfolds: stark desert mountains marking the transition to the Great Basin. This is where I’ve been looking for the past five years — wandering the Inyo Mountains, where two mesas rise like shelves along the range.
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BLM Dispatch #1 - Centennial Flats
This inaugural dispatch comes from Centennial Flats, California - framed in neatly between the Eastern Sierra and Death Valley.
I have explored BLM lands in the Mojave Desert too many times to officially count, but I put the rough number somewhere around ninety days. I have walked almost two hundred miles along the washes and trails, climbed the mountains, and bounced along the lonely roads, far enough and long enough to feel a deep kinship with the juxtaposed beauty and wild unpredictability of the landscape.
But I had never walked the desert in the rain.
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Welcome to the Forgotten Lands Project
For the past five years, I’ve been exploring, documenting, and writing about California’s BLM landscapes for my forthcoming book, The Enduring Wild, which tells the unique story of these lands through a collection of essays, photography, and illustrated story maps.
But some stories deserve more space.
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