Mule Deer

Grand Canyon North Rim, Arizona My brother, John, loves deserts, slot canyons, mesas, buttes and treacherous dirt roads. At home, he pores over U.S. Geological Survey maps, dog-ears pages in hiking books, studies dry treatises on the archaeology and geology of the Southwest. Sometimes, he spreads out his camping gear on the patio -- camp stove, check; sleeping bag, check; headlamp, compass, TP, check, check, check. He has a special way of setting up a tent and you'd better get it right if you want to go with him. And I do because he always takes me someplace remarkable -- Fish and Owl canyons in southeastern Utah; Haleakala Volcano on Maui; the old Mojave Road in eastern California; Picacho del Diablo in Baja.

While leaders of the Wildlands Project are making long-range plans to connect wilderness areas across the continent, a more modest--some would say more practical--effort is underway in the foothills of southwestern Riverside County. The project, believed to be the first of its kind in the state, would link the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve to the Cleveland National Forest, just 3.5 miles away.

Oy, camping! My backpack is the size of a Honda Fit. It has 54 pockets, 27 zippers and a functioning spleen. It weighs as much as a 9-by-12 rug with a dead Soprano rolled up inside. To shed it at the end of a long hike is the sweetest thing imaginable. We have backpacked eight miles into the wilderness, no world record but nothing to sneeze at either, eight miles straight up a broken escalator. Eight miles from the nearest bucket of ice or cheeseburger, medium rare. Me, I get too far from cheeseburgers and I start to panic a little, my breath coming in short, troubled bursts.

It was with horror I read "The Curse of the Broder Buck" [Oct. 19] about the world-record mule deer antlers. And it was with delight I read how this "prize" tore a family apart. A just and fit punishment for someone having killed so magnificent an animal. Therese Whitney Sherman Oaks

The Rat Pack lives again -- or at least Palm Springs, once the party pad of Sinatra and the boys, does. The Coachella Valley city, which had devolved into a caricature of a Hollywood playground, has reinvented itself: Its retro-chic look, striking scenery and hip hotels and restaurants are drawing a new generation of visitors. And, of course, there's always the weather, a tourist attraction on its own (in winter, anyway). The city prides itself on having 350 days of sunshine a year, a siren song that plays loudly and clearly in Canada and other frosty North America realms in the depths of winter.

Among them, they have a few hundred appearances on Carson and Letterman to their credit, but they are not young anymore. They are comedians who, at middle age, are finding audiences in less likely places--in casino showrooms on Indian reservations, or at company retreats. George Miller still appears regularly on "The Late Show with David Letterman," supplementing his year with corporate work and dates in Reno and Las Vegas. Gary Mule Deer, who lives in Spearfish, S.D.

Re "Losing Ground?" [May 17]: Habitat losses along critical migration routes and in wintering areas do indeed harm mule deer and other wildlife. In summer, deer migrate up to the high country that is largely protected, as national parks, forest, and wilderness. In other seasons, deer and people share the lower elevation lands in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, critical portions of which are privately owned. As more people move into deer habitat, the deer -- and their main predator, the mountain lion -- are squeezed out, and their populations drop.

Smack in the middle of Los Angeles, feasting on deer and roaming the chaparral-covered slopes, a mountain lion prowls Griffith Park. Yes, there had been sporadic rumors over the years of the 140-pound beasts lurking in the shadows of populated hillsides near the park's attractions, but wildlife biologists had discounted them because of the improbability of the animals crossing the freeways to get there. For the first time, however, scientists now have photographic evidence of a lion inhabiting the park.