Deserts

Congress is considering permanent protection for 26 million acres of beautiful and historic landscapes in the American West, but has quietly excluded millions of acres of California desert.

Pilots brushed off a series of false sightings and scoured Nevada's high desert as the huge aerial search for aviator Steve Fossett grew more urgent nearly a week after his disappearance. Maj. Cynthia Ryan of the Nevada Civil Air Patrol said the search could continue for weeks. But concerns about the 63-year-old's ability to survive in the harsh landscape were growing, and there were no solid clues about where his plane might have gone down.

Temple Beth Hillel's annual Passover trek to the desert has often found itself, well, plagued. One year, wind so pelted campers that they circled their RVs for protection. During another, Rabbi Jim Kaufman had to halt the communal Seder because gusts were shredding tents and tablecloths.

Desert winds have dumped 300,000 tons of sand and dust on the Chinese capital this week, turning gray rooftops yellow and forcing residents to wear surgical masks. But officials said Thursday they were confident nature would not disrupt plans to host environmentally "green" Olympic Games in 2008.

At least 60 miles from the coast, where the San Bernardino Mountains shoot through clouds, a signpost painted on a weather-beaten water tower beckons like a desert oasis: Mentone Beach. The same two words adorn a gas station, a liquor store and a car repair shop on the main drag, Highway 38, promising cool water in a place where stepping outside feels like stepping into a blast furnace.

April Sall stood in the charred remnants of a Joshua tree forest, bark peeling off melted black limbs. Above her, ridges once thick with 1,000-year-old pinon and juniper pines were scorched bedrock and stumps. More than 90% of the surrounding Pipes Canyon Preserve was consumed in last month's Sawtooth blaze.

A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to ban off-road vehicles from more than half a million acres of California desert that are home to the reclusive desert tortoise, which is protected under the Endangered Species Act. The injunction by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston is a setback for the Bush administration and its public lands agencies, which have been whittling back critical habitat for scores of endangered species, conservationists said.

The website of the Palm Springs Modern Committee makes a strong case for preserving the Coachella Valley's wealth of midcentury architecture -- from seemingly silly structures to the undeniably sublime. The advocacy group, which was founded in 1999 to promote and help preserve the Desert Modern style, takes its mission seriously while still managing to have fun on this cheerful site.

The desert, to many, is an ocean of sand, a desolate place whose scant plants do little more than scratch and bite. But look closer and one can see the softer side, evidence that the solitude and stark beauty of desert flora need not come with spines, stickers and other prickly problems. In creative hands, these plants become a gentle desert garden of unarmed trees, shrubs, perennials and succulents.