Dispatch: Week of February 7

Post Office burglaries, plus Joshua Tree National Park 2023 visitation record

Hello from California’s high desert, and welcome to 2024. I hope you’ve had a good start to the year — rain and all — and are looking forward to everything else in store.

I spent most of January in South America, enjoying the austral summer and hiking around Patagonia. I hope you’ll grant me one photo indulgence this week, and we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next week.

The Fitz massif as seen from Laguna de los Tres in the pre-dawn light, outside El Chaltén, Argentina.

With that, onto this week’s news:

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In local news:

• Joshua Tree National Park Rangers found human skeletal remains in the Black Rock area of the park last week. The remains belong to missing hiker Trammell Evans, 25, who was reported missing in May 2023 after failing to return from a hike as planned.

  • Evans’ family, who had been running a Facebook group hoping to locate him, blames alcohol withdrawal for Evans’ death. The coroner has not yet released an official cause of death.

• Joshua Tree National Park visitation broke another record in 2023 — 3.2 million visitors, according to preliminary NPS data.

• The Landers and Pioneertown Post Offices were burglarized this past weekend. The San Bernardino County Sheriff is investigating alongside the U.S. Postal Agent.

  • If you are missing any mail, you can report it to the United States Postal Investigator at 1-877-876-2455.

• Last World Hospitality, the owner organization of Red Dog Saloon in Pioneertown and The Copper Room in Yucca Valley, is facing a lawsuit from former employees that alleges the company withheld gratuities paid via service fees at the groups’ restaurants.

• The 29 Palms Book Fest is hosting a free-to-attend launch party on Thursday, February 8, at the Old Schoolhouse Museum at 5 p.m. The event will feature local authors and artists discussing this year’s theme, “Never Underestimate the Desert.”

• Twentynine Palms Parks and Recreation Department is hosting its second annual paint night this Thursday, February 8, at the Luckie Park Activity Center. The 21+ event is $25 to attend. You can register online here.

• A fun story about Joshua tree restoration in Mojave National Preserve: a camel that is helping naturally distribute Joshua tree seeds in burn areas. Enjoy!

In state news:

• Mail ballots have started arriving ahead of the California primary election on Tuesday, March 5. You can still register to vote here. Mail-in ballots will be accepted until March 5, and can be mailed in or dropped off at your polling place on election day.

• Roughly 100 landslides have been reported across the state thanks to the recent atmospheric river and associated storms. Damage has been most severe along the state’s coast, where winds were especially strong and precipitation especially heavy.

• The San Francisco 49ers will face the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII this Sunday, February 11, in Las Vegas.

  • The game will be available on cable on CBS or streaming on Paramount+ and YouTube TV.

In other news:

• Taylor Swift won Album of the Year at the Grammy’s last Sunday for Midnights, making her the first artist ever to win the award four times. Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder each won the same award three times.

  • Swift also announced a new album, The Tortured Poets Department, at the awards show. The album will be released on April 19.

• CBS has a list of Super Bowl ads that are already live, including a Parks and Rec reunion, an emotional Budweiser call-back, and the Basin’s own Jason Momoa for T-Mobile.

• Country music singer Toby Keith, 62, died Tuesday. He had previously disclosed he had stomach cancer.

• King Charles, 75, revealed he has been diagnosed with cancer.

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Alice loves a good lounge day, but she loves playtime outside more.

Pupdate of the week: I’ve been able to trick Alice into going outside in the rain enough times that I’m starting to think she might enjoy it. Oliver would like the sun to come back out, but he’s not complaining about the blanket fort he’s been sleeping in inside.

Trail tip of the week: The rain is a good reminder to stay out of washes and slot canyons whenever rain is forecast. It only takes a few inches to turn a normally dry wash into a raging river strong enough to sweep anyone off their feet. Slot canyons can channel water from miles away, so it’s important to check the forecast even if the skies are clear.

Read of the week: I finished The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff in early January, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. It follows a young woman who escapes an early British colonial settlement in what is now the Eastern U.S. and attempts to navigate herself to an undefined safety through the wilderness, learning more about the natural world and her own place in it throughout her journey. It’s incredibly written, as is customary for everything Groff works on, and creates a poignant theme around language, the natural world, and our own places in it.

Watch of the week: I am absolutely hooked on the new season of True Detective: Night Country on HBO (streaming on Max). Jodie Foster is the lead detective on a case following the disappearance of a group of scientists in far northern Alaska, a case that resembles a previous one she worked on that was never solved. It airs weekly, but the eeriness of it has made it a strictly daytime show for me.

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That’s it for this week! I hope you have a great weekend and brave the elements to get outside, at least once.

- Megan