WEBVTT 00:01.067 --> 00:05.538 To most people the stereotypical image of a 00:05.538 --> 00:10.538 desert usually includes lots of sand, though not 00:11.378 --> 00:14.180 necessarily pink, with tenacious critters and a 00:14.180 --> 00:18.885 few plants and little else. 00:18.885 --> 00:22.322 Today, that picture isn't complete without the addition 00:22.322 --> 00:26.226 of people and their toys. 00:30.730 --> 00:33.933 Funding for the Desert Speaks was provided by. 00:33.933 --> 00:37.704 Desert Program Partners. A group of concerned viewers 00:37.737 --> 00:40.740 making a financial commitment to the education about and 00:40.740 --> 00:43.743 preservation of our desert areas. 00:45.378 --> 00:50.378 ♪ music ♪ 01:15.775 --> 01:18.278 Before the advent of motor vehicles, mountains of sand 01:18.278 --> 01:20.914 were an impediment to travel and an invitation 01:20.914 --> 01:25.914 to death by dehydration. 01:26.519 --> 01:30.190 Now these huge piles of sand are a magnet 01:30.190 --> 01:34.160 for people who want to play. 01:34.160 --> 01:36.329 My friend, ecologist Yar Petryszyn, 01:36.329 --> 01:39.966 knows the dunes very well. 01:43.470 --> 01:47.907 The Algadones Dunes also called Imperial Sand Dunes 01:47.907 --> 01:51.578 on most maps, are the most popular in the United States. 01:51.578 --> 01:55.281 They're divided by federal regulation into two parts. 01:55.281 --> 01:58.017 The smaller wilderness side 01:58.017 --> 02:00.787 where humans venture only on foot. 02:00.820 --> 02:04.924 And, the immensely popular southern section where 02:04.924 --> 02:09.924 human presence is permanent and obvious. 02:10.063 --> 02:12.732 Twenty pounds right there. 02:12.732 --> 02:15.201 The tire spreads out and gets more surface 02:15.201 --> 02:20.201 and grabs... simple stuff but tire pressure. 02:20.340 --> 02:23.209 Last year we had about 1.4 million people 02:23.209 --> 02:26.279 come out to the dunes and visit them. 02:26.279 --> 02:28.181 Another segment of the people use it to go hiking, 02:28.214 --> 02:30.483 stuff like that. 02:30.483 --> 02:34.521 But mostly people are here for, to recreate with their toys. 02:34.521 --> 02:37.090 Big kick off season that was Halloween weekend 02:37.090 --> 02:42.090 where we see about, oh, 90 to 100 thousand people 02:42.295 --> 02:46.833 coming out and they come everywhere. 02:49.269 --> 02:50.970 A hundred, hundred-fifty thousand people, 02:50.970 --> 02:52.772 you need to run it like a city. 02:52.772 --> 02:54.908 So we bring in a hundred law enforcement. 02:54.908 --> 02:57.810 We bring in fire. We bring in EMS. 02:57.810 --> 03:00.613 We bring in over 80 EMS people. 03:00.613 --> 03:03.416 There he goes driving down that slope face. 03:03.416 --> 03:08.416 So those are the pirouettes and figure eights 03:08.688 --> 03:11.858 out there and they will last 03:11.891 --> 03:14.327 probably up to an hour and a half. 03:14.327 --> 03:15.995 Is that right? 03:15.995 --> 03:18.431 It depends on the wind and if it doesn't rain again. 03:18.431 --> 03:21.267 So, what you see right here 03:21.267 --> 03:23.670 might not be here in an hour or two. 03:23.670 --> 03:25.238 Yeah. 03:25.271 --> 03:27.607 Which is kind of, that's how resilient this place is. 03:27.607 --> 03:29.642 We get a lot of people out here in a kind of 03:29.642 --> 03:31.945 relatively small area. 03:31.945 --> 03:35.281 It's six miles wide, about 40 miles long. 03:35.281 --> 03:40.281 Most of the people traditionally stay 03:43.923 --> 03:46.593 in the low-lying areas. 03:46.593 --> 03:49.162 You'll have some people that will go way deep into the dunes. 03:49.162 --> 03:52.031 But there's a segment of the sand dunes where 03:52.031 --> 03:54.801 people go and congregate and recreate. 03:54.801 --> 03:58.037 Just like a lake. 03:58.037 --> 03:59.639 Right along here on the highway 03:59.639 --> 04:02.008 is where people kind of traverse. 04:02.008 --> 04:03.843 And you can see where it's kind of whooped out. 04:03.843 --> 04:05.612 It's called the sand highway. 04:05.612 --> 04:07.313 This is where they'll get from this point 04:07.313 --> 04:08.715 all the way to the other point. 04:08.715 --> 04:10.116 They stay really close to the highway. 04:10.116 --> 04:11.918 It's a safety thing I think that, 04:11.951 --> 04:13.553 "Hey, we're close to the highway. If I break down, 04:13.553 --> 04:15.622 there's a highway right there." 04:15.622 --> 04:16.889 Now the wind prevails then off sort of the 04:16.889 --> 04:18.558 Salton Sea out in there? 04:18.558 --> 04:20.727 That's where they bring in the sand. 04:20.727 --> 04:22.595 So later in the afternoon it always seems like it picks up, 04:22.595 --> 04:26.132 the wind will always pick up. 04:32.238 --> 04:33.740 It hasn't taken my hat away yet. 04:33.740 --> 04:35.041 Yeah. 04:35.041 --> 04:37.243 Let's all give it a challenge. 04:37.243 --> 04:41.080 Blow ye winter winds. 04:43.683 --> 04:46.286 And then the winds come from the west in the wintertime 04:46.286 --> 04:48.588 and then they come from the south, southeast 04:48.588 --> 04:51.057 in the summertime and that's how we get these ridges. 04:51.057 --> 04:53.660 You can see these ridges all the way along here. 04:53.660 --> 04:55.295 You get out in the middle there you think you're in 04:55.295 --> 04:57.297 the middle of the Sahara. 04:57.297 --> 04:59.098 There's no cars, no vehicles. 04:59.098 --> 05:01.768 People out there get what I call a little "w", 05:01.768 --> 05:04.103 a little wilderness experience. 05:04.103 --> 05:06.673 Wilderness with capital "W" is the traditional. 05:06.673 --> 05:09.075 So over here on the north side. 05:09.075 --> 05:10.910 On the north side, which is Highway 78. 05:10.910 --> 05:12.211 It's a physical boundary that shows 05:12.211 --> 05:14.147 where you can and can't go. 05:14.147 --> 05:16.382 Predominately the OHV users out there, they understand 05:16.382 --> 05:18.384 what goes on out there and they don't go there. 05:18.384 --> 05:21.688 We have very little people going in to it. 05:21.688 --> 05:23.389 Predominate use is on the south side, 05:23.389 --> 05:26.793 where we a lot of people, high visitation. 05:26.793 --> 05:29.896 When the 49ers were coming across here, they came out of 05:29.896 --> 05:34.567 the Colorado and they saw this 40-mile-long stretch of dunes, 05:34.567 --> 05:36.002 that must have kind of broken their hearts. 05:36.035 --> 05:36.936 I think so. 05:36.936 --> 05:38.638 This is sand. 05:38.638 --> 05:43.638 A sand storm out here will get on the highway. 05:50.416 --> 05:53.386 You'll get 12 inches of sand, build right up, and 05:53.419 --> 05:56.289 a car coming 50-65 miles an hour hitting that. 05:56.289 --> 05:57.790 Do your windshields get sand blasted? 05:57.790 --> 05:59.692 The vehicles do. 05:59.692 --> 06:03.229 You can tell they get pitted. 06:03.229 --> 06:05.965 But it's an amazing place out here. 06:07.934 --> 06:09.802 Dunes are amazing places because of their beauty 06:09.802 --> 06:13.072 and the fun that people have. 06:13.072 --> 06:15.541 On the wilderness side of the highway where vehicles 06:15.541 --> 06:18.111 are prohibited and plants grow unmolested, 06:18.111 --> 06:22.715 it's animals not people that play in the sand. 06:22.715 --> 06:26.686 Typically, people when they think of desert, 06:26.686 --> 06:30.490 they automatically associate it with dunes. 06:30.490 --> 06:32.959 When in reality dunes only make up about 06:32.959 --> 06:36.596 one percent of desert areas. 06:36.596 --> 06:41.596 The Algadones Dunes here in southeast California is 06:43.736 --> 06:48.736 a very rich dune field, although it's small, 06:48.941 --> 06:52.478 contain a great diversity of plants and animals that show 06:52.478 --> 06:57.478 the adaptations that it takes to live in such an environment. 06:58.151 --> 07:03.151 When you first look at dunes you think it's devoid of life. 07:08.494 --> 07:13.494 But if you look closely, there's a lot of sign of animals 07:13.733 --> 07:18.571 and if you look around, you'll see little burrows. 07:18.571 --> 07:21.207 Some of the animals that make these is the sand cricket, 07:21.207 --> 07:24.310 small cricket that's light colored, matches the sand 07:24.310 --> 07:27.947 and has this unique structure on the hind feet. 07:27.947 --> 07:29.982 They're comb like and they use that to move sand 07:29.982 --> 07:34.982 as they burrow in. 07:42.929 --> 07:46.098 But forage during the night when it's cooler and more moist. 07:46.098 --> 07:51.098 Another animal that burrows and is usually hidden 07:53.706 --> 07:56.576 during the day are scorpions. 07:56.576 --> 08:01.576 One unique one here is the giant hairy scorpion. 08:03.349 --> 08:08.349 They'll come out in twilight time 08:09.188 --> 08:12.492 and typically at night. 08:12.492 --> 08:14.026 They're predators that forage on insects 08:14.026 --> 08:19.026 and other invertebrates. 08:20.032 --> 08:23.069 There's also a number of lizards that are found in 08:23.069 --> 08:25.238 the dune areas. 08:25.238 --> 08:27.440 One unique one is the fringe toad lizard. 08:27.440 --> 08:31.844 It has scale-like fringes on the toes. 08:31.844 --> 08:36.482 They expand the toes and these act like snowshoes 08:36.482 --> 08:41.482 and keep the lizard from sinking in the sand. 08:42.822 --> 08:47.393 A number of snakes also occur in dune areas here 08:47.393 --> 08:49.729 in the southwest. 08:49.729 --> 08:54.729 One unique one is the sidewinder. 08:56.035 --> 09:01.035 It has a problem of trying to move itself across lose sand 09:03.676 --> 09:08.676 and has a way of moving sideways so it has width of part of its 09:11.384 --> 09:14.520 body to push against the sand as a hold and then reach out 09:14.520 --> 09:18.558 and the front part of its body and takes another hold. 09:18.558 --> 09:22.461 So it moves sideways like that. 09:34.106 --> 09:36.375 Sand dunes are formed when wind blows constantly 09:36.375 --> 09:38.277 out of one direction. 09:38.277 --> 09:40.880 Star dunes are a little different. 09:40.880 --> 09:42.848 They have prevailing winds that come at different seasons 09:42.848 --> 09:46.385 and blow constantly. 09:46.385 --> 09:51.157 That produces the dunes going in different directions. 09:51.157 --> 09:54.260 Some of the biggest star dunes are in Mexico. 09:54.293 --> 09:59.293 Getting out to the dunes has always been a challenge. 09:59.365 --> 10:02.001 The sand is so bad that somebody had to lay down 10:02.001 --> 10:05.037 two rows of tires to mark a road to get to the 10:05.037 --> 10:07.540 Sierra el Rosario. 10:07.540 --> 10:09.542 That's probably the only way they could keep 10:09.542 --> 10:12.645 from getting stuck in this sand sea here. 10:12.678 --> 10:15.815 So to make a roadbed, they'd use what was convenient 10:15.815 --> 10:18.684 and that was old tires like this. 10:18.684 --> 10:20.920 Well, living near the highway I suppose they could pick up 10:20.920 --> 10:22.455 these tires but it sure wouldn't make for a smooth ride. 10:22.455 --> 10:24.323 Oh, no. 10:24.323 --> 10:26.525 Can you imagine running your tires across this. 10:26.525 --> 10:29.095 It'd be bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bump all the way. 10:29.095 --> 10:31.130 But that's better than being bogged down and sitting 10:31.130 --> 10:33.499 there digging yourself out all the time. 10:33.499 --> 10:35.001 It was not my idea of a beautiful roadway. 10:35.001 --> 10:39.038 Not beautiful but effective. 10:39.038 --> 10:41.774 Well, I hope we have good shocks, Yar, 10:41.774 --> 10:46.646 because this is the way of all flesh. 10:46.646 --> 10:48.147 And if we can make it over this hump, 10:48.147 --> 10:52.685 we can make it on to the rest. 10:55.121 --> 10:57.156 It's hard to believe, but this ocotillo fence and corral 10:57.156 --> 11:01.861 was built to keep goats in by an injido, 11:01.861 --> 11:04.296 that's a collectively owned piece of land that 11:04.296 --> 11:07.733 the government sponsors, oh, back in the very early 70s. 11:07.733 --> 11:09.902 Well, they didn't have much money and so they used what 11:09.902 --> 11:12.338 materials was available and what they would do is cut the 11:12.371 --> 11:16.208 branches of the ocotillo and then kind of plant em and wire 11:16.208 --> 11:19.345 em together to make a very decent fence 11:19.378 --> 11:23.549 with spines and everything. 11:23.549 --> 11:26.185 In the early 1970s the Mexican government wanted to have a 11:26.185 --> 11:30.022 populaced image so they figured they would offer free land to 11:30.022 --> 11:32.324 very poor peasants from the south and this was the 11:32.324 --> 11:35.161 land they offered. 11:35.161 --> 11:36.462 And guys would come up here not knowing, say, 11:36.462 --> 11:38.564 "Hey, free land." 11:38.564 --> 11:41.100 And they'd get here, they were dismayed, hurt, depressed 11:41.100 --> 11:42.668 because they were looking forward to beautiful gardens 11:42.668 --> 11:44.770 and lots of livestock. 11:44.770 --> 11:46.572 But what they found was a place that wouldn't support 11:46.572 --> 11:48.674 any goats, there's no water between here and 11:48.674 --> 11:51.644 probably the Colorado River. 11:51.644 --> 11:54.080 There's no water there, so, terrible place. 11:54.080 --> 11:56.082 They must have had to haul it for miles. 11:56.082 --> 11:58.117 Plus look around, there's hardly anything to forage on. 11:58.117 --> 12:00.286 And even this poor mesquite tree, it couldn't make it. 12:00.286 --> 12:02.922 That's dry. 12:02.922 --> 12:05.091 It's probably because the goats were so hungry they ate 12:05.091 --> 12:07.793 all the leaves and finally killed the tree. 12:12.798 --> 12:17.798 In the Rosario, the Grand Desierto, it's one of the 12:21.640 --> 12:24.677 driest areas in North America. 12:24.677 --> 12:27.613 Less than three inches of annual rainfall plus very 12:27.613 --> 12:30.783 high temperature, extreme temperatures during the summer. 12:30.816 --> 12:34.520 It can get up to 120 degrees frequently. 12:34.520 --> 12:38.424 As you look around, you can see numerous species 12:38.457 --> 12:41.794 of plants that have adapted to these kind of conditions 12:41.827 --> 12:46.532 and actually do quite well. 12:46.532 --> 12:48.801 Man, on these dunes, the sand is always moving something. 12:48.834 --> 12:50.836 It's moving, it's moving things around it. 12:50.836 --> 12:52.705 It's changing every day. 12:52.705 --> 12:55.107 Look at it fall four feet. 12:55.107 --> 12:57.476 Yeah, right here you get crests and blowouts like this. 12:57.476 --> 13:00.479 Well, so are these plants. 13:00.479 --> 13:03.149 This may be a buckwheat or some kind of sunflower. 13:03.149 --> 13:06.352 Initially this plant had to cope with being buried 13:06.352 --> 13:09.388 by sand shifting in. 13:09.388 --> 13:13.692 So the trunk part, root part grows very quickly 13:13.692 --> 13:17.530 to keep the body of the plant up above it. 13:17.530 --> 13:21.700 There's a whole array of animals that take advantage 13:21.700 --> 13:25.004 of the plants there. 13:25.004 --> 13:26.939 Kangaroo rats and pocket mice that feed on the seeds 13:26.939 --> 13:29.975 that's produced by these plants. 13:29.975 --> 13:34.547 And then predators prey on those animals like kit fox 13:34.547 --> 13:39.351 and hawks and owls and things like that. 13:39.351 --> 13:44.351 The animals that you find out here have to try to minimize 13:45.457 --> 13:49.995 their exposure to the heat and dryness. 13:49.995 --> 13:54.200 So most of the animals are nocturnal. 13:54.200 --> 13:56.402 They come out at night when it's cooler and 13:56.402 --> 14:01.402 the relative humidity is higher so they forage for whatever. 14:03.676 --> 14:07.847 There's certain insects that are found on dunes fairly common. 14:07.847 --> 14:10.683 One's the Pinacate beetle and this one you'll see 14:10.683 --> 14:15.054 out during early parts and late parts of the day itself. 14:15.054 --> 14:19.992 They feed on dried decay and plant material. 14:19.992 --> 14:24.992 One of the adaptations the kangaroo rats have to get around 14:27.666 --> 14:32.666 efficiently and cover a lot of distances that they hop around 14:33.572 --> 14:35.875 on their hind leg and that's called salutatory movement, 14:35.875 --> 14:38.377 jumping movement. 14:38.377 --> 14:41.547 Although surprisingly the wind moves grains of sand 14:41.580 --> 14:45.584 here on the dunes in the same fashion. 14:45.584 --> 14:48.153 The wind causes the grains to hop and it takes anywhere 14:48.153 --> 14:52.224 from ten to seventeen mile per hour winds to start this 14:52.224 --> 14:56.695 process depending on the size of the grain of sand. 14:56.695 --> 14:58.964 Actually individual grains are picked up by the wind 14:58.964 --> 15:03.135 and carried a short distance. 15:03.135 --> 15:06.672 And then as the grain lands, it bumps into other grains 15:06.672 --> 15:09.675 and moves it along. 15:09.675 --> 15:13.979 Almost like the old lawn came of croquet. 15:17.316 --> 15:19.218 Oh, look, two different colors of sand here. 15:19.218 --> 15:21.720 Well, this is just a light covering of this 15:21.720 --> 15:25.024 really thick white sand. 15:25.024 --> 15:29.128 Look, it's not, it's barely a millimeter thick 15:29.128 --> 15:31.897 and underneath it's the regular sand. 15:31.897 --> 15:36.168 If you'll notice, the tan sand is much finer and smoother, 15:36.168 --> 15:40.806 more round where the whitish sand is larger grains. 15:40.806 --> 15:42.207 Huge grains. 15:42.207 --> 15:44.510 Huge and more angular as well. 15:44.510 --> 15:49.448 So it hasn't been tumbled, eroded, rounded as much. 15:49.448 --> 15:53.485 It's really young stuff by comparison with. Yes, it is. 15:53.485 --> 15:58.390 The light tan sand is a real fine primarily quartz 15:58.390 --> 16:01.727 sand grains that the source is from the Colorado River Delta 16:01.727 --> 16:05.097 area and along the Colorado River here. 16:05.097 --> 16:09.268 Where the whiter sand is a coarser sand also 16:09.268 --> 16:13.339 primarily quartz and it's eroded from the granite 16:13.339 --> 16:18.043 outcrops and make the mountains here. 16:18.043 --> 16:20.813 It's also more angular because it hasn't been transported 16:20.813 --> 16:24.016 as far and the edges haven't been rounded as much as the 16:24.049 --> 16:28.420 finer Colorado River sand. 16:34.059 --> 16:36.428 One sure indicator that it's rained in the desert 16:36.428 --> 16:38.430 is if you see the ocotillos and they've turned green. 16:38.430 --> 16:39.431 That's true. 16:39.431 --> 16:41.033 They put their leaves out. 16:41.066 --> 16:43.335 Normally they're drought deciduous so when it's dry, 16:43.335 --> 16:46.438 they drop their leaves and the branches photosynthesize, 16:46.438 --> 16:49.675 you can see that they're green. 16:49.708 --> 16:50.709 Boy, this is a healthy one. 16:50.709 --> 16:51.977 It's a healthy one. 16:51.977 --> 16:53.145 There must have been a good rain. 16:53.145 --> 16:55.714 Fifteen, twenty feet tall. 16:55.714 --> 16:57.316 They can survive when cacti can't cause they 16:57.316 --> 16:59.451 just drop everything when it's dry. 16:59.451 --> 17:03.022 You know, say, "Hey, we're gonna go to sleep," and they do. 17:03.022 --> 17:05.724 God, those red fire-colored flowers, 17:05.724 --> 17:10.062 that's what it's named for, ocote in Spanish means torch. 17:10.095 --> 17:11.430 It's actually an Aztec word. 17:11.430 --> 17:14.433 So the little ocote, ocotillo. 17:14.433 --> 17:16.368 They're starting to put the blooms out so there'll 17:16.368 --> 17:20.572 be a blaze of red on top of those branches. 17:20.572 --> 17:23.809 The tallest ocotillos reach up to about twenty feet. 17:23.809 --> 17:26.512 But that's not all that grows tall in the desert. 17:26.512 --> 17:29.615 The rosarios are purported to be the tallest dunes 17:29.615 --> 17:32.684 in North America. 17:32.684 --> 17:36.522 There's only one way to find out. 17:36.522 --> 17:39.491 The GPS elevation reading is about 480 feet 17:39.491 --> 17:42.361 so let's see what it is up on top. 17:42.361 --> 17:43.662 Yeah, and as these clouds are coming and going, 17:43.662 --> 17:44.963 I hope it clouds up. 17:44.963 --> 17:46.198 It'll be much cooler. 17:46.198 --> 17:47.499 You bet. 17:47.499 --> 17:50.702 It's gonna be a hot climb. 17:53.439 --> 17:55.974 This is characteristic of a star dune. 17:55.974 --> 17:58.944 These knife edges. 17:58.944 --> 18:03.282 If this were solid rock, if you fell down, 18:03.282 --> 18:05.417 you'd be cut in half. 18:05.417 --> 18:07.586 Well, you've got your choice of which way you want to tumble. 18:07.586 --> 18:11.156 To the left or to the right. 18:11.156 --> 18:15.461 So it's 600 feet one way and 550 the other. 18:15.461 --> 18:19.932 Sure makes it hard, very difficult to walk. 18:19.932 --> 18:24.803 I need to get a GPS reading right up here. 18:24.803 --> 18:26.238 Okay. 18:26.238 --> 18:31.143 Any guesses how high this star dune is? 18:31.176 --> 18:32.978 Well, I've read 600 feet but it sure felt like 18:32.978 --> 18:36.548 it was higher than that to me. 18:36.548 --> 18:38.350 Coming up that slope to get to the top. 18:38.350 --> 18:39.852 Yeah, it felt like 500,000. 18:39.852 --> 18:41.420 .5,000 feet. 18:41.420 --> 18:42.688 Yeah, that's right. 18:42.688 --> 18:44.756 This is top? 18:44.756 --> 18:46.425 All right, I'll get a reading. 18:46.425 --> 18:47.259 What a view though. 18:47.259 --> 18:48.961 Man! 18:48.961 --> 18:52.931 Surrounded by dunes you can see them on both sides. 18:52.931 --> 18:57.931 All right, I've got 1,372 feet and we'll see 18:58.203 --> 19:00.139 what it is below. 19:00.139 --> 19:02.274 But if I remember right it was just over 500 feet 19:02.274 --> 19:04.409 so that's more than they're saying in the book. 19:04.409 --> 19:06.778 Yeah. 19:06.778 --> 19:10.149 From the very hot tall dunes of Mexico we travel 19:10.149 --> 19:15.120 to the cooler friendlier dunes of southern Utah. 19:15.120 --> 19:16.388 Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park is another 19:16.388 --> 19:19.024 divided dune system. 19:19.024 --> 19:21.326 Here protected area is small. 19:21.326 --> 19:26.326 This fence was put up to keep vehicles on one side 19:27.533 --> 19:29.067 and non-vehicles on the other. 19:29.067 --> 19:30.235 That's correct. 19:30.235 --> 19:32.137 It's about 25 acres. 19:32.137 --> 19:34.273 It gives people an opportunity to walk around 19:34.273 --> 19:36.708 and see the same types of things without being 19:36.708 --> 19:40.479 directly involved with ATVs out on the other side 19:40.479 --> 19:45.350 of the fence. 19:45.350 --> 19:47.452 The sand dunes were established in the late 60s 19:47.452 --> 19:51.557 for the people to come and enjoy. 19:51.557 --> 19:54.960 We have a designated campground which fills up quite often. 19:54.960 --> 19:57.729 People come for the photography. 19:57.729 --> 19:59.865 As you can see today, the yellow-flowered mule's ears 19:59.898 --> 20:02.501 are starting to bloom. 20:02.501 --> 20:04.836 That's one of our popular attractions. 20:04.836 --> 20:06.805 And hiking. 20:06.805 --> 20:08.640 There's plenty of hiking in this area open as well 20:08.640 --> 20:13.078 as a few designated trails. 20:13.078 --> 20:16.949 And for the ATVs, people will bring their own ATVs 20:16.949 --> 20:21.520 to utilize the dunes in that aspect. 20:21.520 --> 20:25.324 We have numbers that show 150,000 visitors a year. 20:25.324 --> 20:29.328 We estimate visitors using the dunes with ATVs 20:29.328 --> 20:32.064 to be about ten percent. 20:32.064 --> 20:36.401 Then the other 90 percent would be people camping and hiking. 20:36.401 --> 20:41.401 Those cliffs are old dunes petrified by time and pressure, 20:41.607 --> 20:44.409 broken down, blown into here to make new dunes. 20:44.409 --> 20:45.377 Yeah. 20:45.377 --> 20:47.446 And the same process.. 20:47.446 --> 20:49.681 The sands here at Coral Pink Sand Dunes originated 20:49.681 --> 20:52.751 to the south from sand that erodes off of massive cliffs 20:52.751 --> 20:55.654 of Navajo sand stone. 20:55.654 --> 20:58.824 The Navajo sand stones were originally huge dunes 20:58.824 --> 21:03.824 very similar to the Sahara that essentially fossilized, 21:04.263 --> 21:07.065 were buried and become rock. 21:07.065 --> 21:12.065 And now they're eroding again down to sands and 21:12.838 --> 21:15.641 prevailing winds from the south blow 'em here 21:15.641 --> 21:18.910 and pile up the sand. 21:18.910 --> 21:21.813 So you're from ancient sand dunes to rock to sand 21:21.813 --> 21:26.813 and sand dunes again. 21:29.187 --> 21:31.290 If I look through my magnifying glass real closely 21:31.290 --> 21:35.594 I can actually see the tiny sand grains that 21:35.594 --> 21:38.897 through enormous pressure have been forced together 21:38.897 --> 21:42.134 and actually melted a little bit and cemented to form 21:42.134 --> 21:47.134 this vast amount of very, very hard rock. 21:49.107 --> 21:51.777 The wind comes in from this little notch 21:51.777 --> 21:54.646 in the mountains over here and also from where you can see 21:54.646 --> 21:58.216 the reddish tones, this is the Navajo sand stone 21:58.216 --> 22:00.552 and the way with the wind coming in and meeting 22:00.552 --> 22:02.554 about right here, just makes a deposit of sand 22:02.554 --> 22:06.758 up through this valley. 22:06.758 --> 22:10.362 The sand at Coral Pink Sand Dunes is very fine. 22:10.395 --> 22:13.231 It's easily picked up and transported by the wind, 22:13.231 --> 22:15.934 much more easily than the sand of other dunes. 22:15.934 --> 22:18.804 It has another strange property. 22:18.804 --> 22:21.440 When it's viewed in the early morning or late afternoon 22:21.440 --> 22:25.777 sun, it looks coral pink, hence its name. 22:25.777 --> 22:27.279 But in the more direct sunlight it looks just like 22:27.279 --> 22:30.782 an ordinary coffee brown. 22:30.782 --> 22:35.782 It might be called chameleon sand. 22:37.322 --> 22:39.758 The Coral Pink Sand Dunes are kind of on the boundary 22:39.758 --> 22:42.361 between the Colorado Plateau Desert to the east and the 22:42.361 --> 22:46.031 Great Basin Desert to the west. 22:46.064 --> 22:50.502 So you get plants that are associated with both deserts. 22:50.502 --> 22:52.971 Sagebrush, which is kind of a signature plant of 22:52.971 --> 22:57.971 the Great Basin; piñon junipers, up on the slopes 22:58.343 --> 23:01.613 away from the dunes; here you also get some of the 23:01.613 --> 23:05.083 bigger pine trees like Ponderosa pines and Douglas fir trees. 23:05.083 --> 23:10.083 This is 6,000 feet above sea level. 23:10.188 --> 23:12.557 During the winter you get even snow here. 23:12.557 --> 23:17.129 Essentially a cold desert. 23:17.129 --> 23:21.133 During the summer the temperatures can get very high. 23:21.133 --> 23:24.469 So most of the animals come out at night when 23:24.469 --> 23:27.372 it's much cooler and that's when they're foraging either for 23:27.372 --> 23:32.077 seeds or plant material and then predators on them. 23:32.110 --> 23:35.247 As you look around, you'll see an amazing number of different 23:35.247 --> 23:40.247 footprints of activity from the night previous. 23:40.552 --> 23:45.552 Man, there's at least three sets of tracks here. 23:47.993 --> 23:52.993 There's a beetle, lizard. 23:55.033 --> 23:58.437 Some kind of kangaroo rat or something. 23:58.437 --> 23:59.905 Yeah. 23:59.905 --> 24:01.640 You can see it's track coming through here and 24:01.640 --> 24:05.510 they look like little snowshoes. 24:05.510 --> 24:07.112 Yeah, but look at the holes dug here. 24:07.145 --> 24:09.414 Well, they're out looking for seeds. 24:09.414 --> 24:11.850 That's a primary food resource. 24:11.850 --> 24:13.952 And they can smell seeds actually buried in the sand 24:13.952 --> 24:17.823 and he dug down. 24:17.823 --> 24:19.658 And then you can see him moving away. 24:19.658 --> 24:22.294 He wasn't in as much of a hurry cause you can see 24:22.294 --> 24:25.163 the tail drag there but there's two little prints 24:25.163 --> 24:28.433 side by side as he's hopping along. 24:30.469 --> 24:33.071 Sand dunes are home to myriad species 24:33.071 --> 24:34.072 of plants and animals. 24:34.072 --> 24:35.574 Many of them are rare. 24:35.574 --> 24:37.809 A few are endangered. 24:37.809 --> 24:39.377 Some dune fields are protected by their own 24:39.377 --> 24:42.347 magnificent isolation. 24:42.347 --> 24:46.251 Others are magnets for people and their vehicles. 24:46.251 --> 24:48.386 Every day more and more people drive through 24:48.386 --> 24:52.724 and over the dunes, placing greater pressure on those 24:52.724 --> 24:56.094 small protected areas that the plants and animals 24:56.094 --> 24:57.896 require to survive. 25:02.067 --> 25:04.603 Scattered throughout the deserts of southern Peru 25:04.603 --> 25:08.840 are spectacular remains of ancient civilizations. 25:08.840 --> 25:13.078 From the air you can learn about the Nasca people. 25:13.078 --> 25:16.781 From the cities, about the Spaniards. 25:16.781 --> 25:20.919 On lakeshores, the monument building Incas. 25:20.919 --> 25:24.823 And in between, there are civilizations on the wild side. 25:27.125 --> 25:28.126 Join us next time on the Desert Speaks. 25:31.730 --> 25:34.132 Season usually goes six months from October 1 25:34.132 --> 25:37.369 until somewhere in May. Until it gets to hot. 25:37.369 --> 25:40.872 Halloween is a big kickoff season. 25:40.872 --> 25:43.975 Halloween we'll get 100,00 people out here 25:43.975 --> 25:46.411 On Halloween is that right? 25:46.411 --> 25:49.247 Just like Thanksgiving is to ski where everyone goes up and 25:49.247 --> 25:51.516 goes skiing after Thanksgiving. 25:51.516 --> 25:54.419 Halloween is the unofficial - official dune season. 25:59.824 --> 26:02.994 Funding for the Desert Speaks was provided by 26:02.994 --> 26:06.965 Desert Program Partners. A group of concerned viewers 26:06.965 --> 26:10.402 making a financial commitment to the education about and 26:10.402 --> 26:12.971 preservation of our desert areas.