The Mojave

The quintessential American desert - the most visible, the most vulnerable, the most emblematic, and the most misunderstood - is the Mojave. Stretching from the outskirts of Los Angeles to the psychic fringes of Las Vegas, it contains such archetypal American spots as Death Valley, Edwards Air Force Base, Joshua Tree National Park, and the Panamint Mountains (where the forty-niners found silver and the Manson family prepared for Helter Skelter). From the twisted silhouette of the Joshua tree to the pencil-straight blacktop of Route 66, the Mojave is a place of contradictions: a region of…