Outpost Mojave: Volunteering in the Desert

Journal entries by Edwige Moses. Photographs by Kurt Moses.

We are currently stationed in Death Valley Junction, a small ghost town located in the Mojave Desert of Southeastern California. The town has three full-time residents and two part-time resident volunteers (us). It is now managed by a non-profit corporation working to preserve and promote the legacy of the town’s most recent owner, Marta Beckett.

Marta Beckett (1924-2017) was a professional ballerina and painter from New York. In 1967, she and her husband traveled across the United States so Marta could perform her one-woman show. While camping in the Death Valley area they stopped into Death Valley Junction to repair a flat tire and never left.

Since that time, Marta transformed the old community hall into the now legendary Amargosa Opera House. It has become the main attraction with Marta’s murals adorning all four walls and ceiling. During the cooler months, the Opera House presents live performances. The town also has a part-time café and a hotel that is open year-round.

Our volunteer duties here are unlike any we perform in the National Parks. Besides photographing the weekly performances in the Opera House, we also act as hotel night managers, grounds security, graphic designer and consultants to the general manager. It taps into all of the skills and abilities we have acquired from our previous careers.

To describe our experience here as interesting would be an understatement. In the short three years volunteering at the Junction, we have been through too many adventures to list here. To give you an idea, the following are excerpts from our travel journal in no particular order.

NO TRESPASSING!

The general manager alerted us to people trespassing in an area of the property off-limits to hotel guests and visitors. We set out on foot and spotted the group off in the distance, scouting an area close to the old rail yard. As we got closer, they moved behind an area thick with shrubs and small trees. Unsure of their intentions we approached cautiously. We came around the shrubs, announced ourselves and asked that they drop any artifacts they may have collected and vacate the property immediately. Upon closer inspection we realized that we were dealing with a family of four: an elderly gentleman, a middle-aged woman and two teenagers.

The gentleman in his late eighties began to explain that he grew up at Death Valley Junction in the 1930s and was simply showing his daughter and grandchildren the area where he used to play as a child. He was holding a thick binder and showed us an original photo of him and his siblings playing on a teeter-totter. He then pointed to the actual wood post, still sticking out of the ground, which was the base for the teeter-totter.

Finding his story extraordinary, we encouraged the family to take their time exploring the area and asked them to stop by the cafe on their way out so we could introduce them to the general manager. On their way back, the general manager, met them in the lobby of the hotel. She expressed genuine interest in knowing more about the gentleman’s childhood stories at the Junction and had the family promise to come back the next day to have a breakfast at the cafe.

SNAKE SEASON!

We drove to Pahrump, a small community about 40 miles East of our location, to run errands for the general manager. We took a short cut on the way there and saw a large snake crossing the road; unfortunately he had been injured by another vehicle. On the way back to the Junction, we were on the lookout for more snakes.

Around 6 p.m. guests came to the hotel front desk to report a large snake in the parking lot. Not knowing what type of snake he would be dealing with, Kurt used a long pinching tool (garbage tongs) to hopefully relocate it. The snake was passive at first but became upset and hissed at Kurt for trying to move him away from the guests’ car. Kurt finally succeeded at moving the snake far enough away from the hotel so it wouldn’t bother anyone. He did manage to get a few photos. After a little bit of research, I discovered that it was actually a non-venomous Gopher Snake.

A little after 8p.m., one of the town’s residents knocked on our door to let us know that a group of people was trespassing near the empty adobe houses. Kurt went one direction and I went the other to search for them. I encountered a man behind the Opera House trying to climb through the gate to get back to the main road. I informed him that he was trespassing and then I noticed three more people running towards the gate. I reminded them that they were on private property; they apologized and drove away in a hurry.

LOST FRENCH HUSBAND

In the late afternoon a French woman checked-in at the front desk to report that her 68-year-old husband was on his bicycle, lost in the desert somewhere between Furnace Creek and Pahrump (a 70 mile distance). Apparently he had very little water with him, no warm clothing and was out of cellular range. We contacted the sheriff’s office and they staged a search and rescue operation from the hotel lobby.

Around 8 p.m. we received word that the husband had been located in Pahrump, tired but healthy. A sheriff deputy brought him back to Death Valley Junction to be reacquainted with his wife. Not only was the French gentleman embarrassed about the incident but the deputy also gave him a stern lecture about being ill-prepared for the harsh desert environment.

SCORPION!

Late morning, Kurt’s hard drive failed on his laptop. He began the lengthy, disheartening process of evaluating what could be salvaged and what might be lost forever.

Early afternoon, one of the housekeepers discovered a large scorpion in a guest’s room and brought it to us in a small bucket to photograph; as the weather warms up we are starting to see more of them. They manage to find their way into the buildings in spite of the hotel’s best efforts to keep them out. We released the scorpion in the courtyard and took some photos as he scurried away!

WILD HORSES

Death Valley Junction has an agreement with the Bureau of Land Management that allows them to put out hay and water for the wild horses that live in the area. Sometimes the Bureau of Land Management needs to relocate some of the horses and today was one of those times. The hotel staff successfully lured a specific horse into a small corral but he somehow got free from the enclosure and was back roaming the grounds. We asked the general manager if we could attempt to lure him back into the corral. She gave us permission to try, so we grabbed some carrots and headed out.

We saw the juvenile horse in the distance and slowly made our way towards him. For a wild horse he was not too alarmed by our presence, he seemed curious and followed us at a close pace as we led him back towards the corral. Kurt offered him a carrot but apparently it was his first encounter with the vegetable. He took a long whiff of it and snorted, seemingly unimpressed by Kurt’s offering. The horse still followed us as we walked into the corral. I crouched down, grabbed some hay and held it out for him. That seemed to do the trick as he started eating it. Kurt closed the gate and we successfully corralled a wild horse!

NIGHT PHOTOSHOOT

There is an area of Death Valley Junction that is especially enticing to photographers; unfortunately it is off-limits to the public because of the historic artifacts scattered about the area as well as the contaminated soil from the mining era but back in the 1930s the area was a fully functioning railroad yard. The two iconic water towers are still standing and the music group U2 used them as a backdrop for a photo shoot in the mid-eighties (the towers appear on the cover of their single “In God’s Country”).

With the permission of the general manager, Kurt and I camped near the base of the towers on our day off. We were hoping to get a night shot that would frame the towers in the Vistabule’s large window. Part way through the shoot we were surprised to see the moon rise beside the towers! It cast a bright light onto the whole scene, making it look otherworldly, Kurt jumped out of the teardrop to document the moment. A few minutes later we heard a pack of coyotes howling in the distance.

DE PLANE, DE PLANE

We are getting ready for one of the biggest events of the season at Death Valley Junction: the 52nd anniversary of Marta Becket’s first performance in the Opera House. The annual event draws more than a hundred guests (maximum capacity of the Opera House) from all over the country. This year, we were told that one of the featured performers would be flying in by airplane. Death Valley Junction has a dirt landing strip in the back of the hotel that was last used a few years ago. Kurt and I went to check the state of the airstrip to make sure it was suitable for landing; we tossed aside large rocks and chopped down a small bush located in the middle of the runway.

Not long after that, we heard the unmistakable sound of a small plane approaching. The pilot made a low pass to inspect the runway, turned around and made his final approach. It was one of the neatest small planes we have ever seen: a 1946 Cessna 140. Seeing it land in the middle of the desert just feet from us was exhilarating! We were joined by a small group of employees from the hotel to greet Tim (the horn player from the band Janet Klein and the Parlor Boys) and his wife Joylani.

THE BIG BRAWL

In the evening I worked at the front door of the Opera House to collect tickets and help guests. Kurt was assigned to photograph the event and fill-in wherever needed. An older man and his wife approached the door; the man was obviously intoxicated and combative. When I asked for his ticket, he yanked it back and insisted on keeping it. Kurt noticed the exchange and asked the wife if she would be able to keep her husband calm during the performance. She assured us that he would not be a problem.

Shortly after the performance started we heard loud outbursts coming from the inebriated man. He happened to be seated in the last row of the Opera House, near the entrance. We moved to the back of the Opera House to keep a closer eye on him. At one point, the man became so loud that he could be heard above the opera singer’s voices. Kurt motioned for the man to be quiet, his wife motioned back that she was trying her best. He began arguing with her so Kurt stepped in and told the man to either quiet down or leave the theater.

In a sudden burst, the man stood up, spewed some profanity at Kurt and moved quickly towards the door. Kurt opened the entrance for him to keep the disruption to a minimum. As the man exited, he changed his mind and attempted to reenter the theater. Kurt prevented him from doing so and the man took a wide swing with his fist and hit Kurt in the forehead. They wrestled to the ground away from the entrance and out of view as the entrance door swung closed.

I stepped out to assist Kurt and found him pinning the man to the ground. I grabbed my radio and instructed a staff member to call the sheriff. The general manager arrived at the scene and I explained the situation to her. Inside the Opera House, the opera singers continued performing as if nothing had happened.

Being in such a remote area, it took almost 25 minutes for the sheriff deputy to arrive. By this time, Kurt had moved the man to a bench along the wall several feet from the Opera House entrance to avoid blocking guests from leaving. As people walked by us, they seemingly had no idea what had transpired. Kurt declined to press charges against the man for the sake of the wife but the sheriff deputy banned him from setting foot on the property in the future.

I went to shut down the Opera House lights and lock the doors. Walking back to the hotel, I noticed some guests in need of help checking-in. I answered their questions and helped to get them situated. I returned to our room and Kurt and I wrote our reports about the evening.

To date, I have written over a thousand pages in my travel journal. Although some days are slower than others, each day is an adventure! We are in our seventh year of being nomadic volunteers and plan to be for the foreseeable future.