Death Valley National Park is an American national park that straddles the California–Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park boundaries include Death Valley, the northern section of Panamint Valley, the southern section of Eureka Valley and most of Saline Valley.
Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. It is thought to be the hottest place on Earth during summer. Death Valley is home to the Timbisha tribe of Native Americans, formerly known as the Panamint Shoshone, who have inhabited the valley for at least the past millennium.
Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area is a national recreation area established by an act of Congress on October 15, 1966, following the construction of the Yellowtail Dam by the Bureau of Reclamation. It is one of over 420 sites managed by the U.S. National Park Service. The recreation area spans 120,296.22 acres, straddling the border between Wyoming and Montana. It is divided into two distinct areas, the North District accessed via Fort Smith, Montana and the South District accessed through Lovell, Wyoming. There is no thru road inside the recreation area connecting the two districts. The Yellowtail Dam is located in the North District. It is named after the famous Crow leader Robert Yellowtail, harnesses the waters of the Bighorn River by turning that variable watercourse into Bighorn Lake. The lake extends 71 miles (114 km) through Wyoming and Montana, 55 miles (89 km) of which lie within the national recreation area. The lake provides recreational boating, fishing, water skiing, kayaking, and birding opportunities to visitors. About one third of the park unit is located on the Crow Indian Reservation. Nearly one-quarter of the Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range lies within the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area.
Malibu Creek State Park is a state park of California, United States, preserving the Malibu Creek canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains. The 8,215-acre (3,324 ha) park was established in 1974. Opened to the public in 1976, the park is also a component of Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
The Tehachapi Mountains are a mountain range in the Transverse Ranges system of California in the Western United States. The range extends for approximately 40 miles (64 km) in southern Kern County and northwestern Los Angeles County and form part of the boundary between the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert.
The Ridge Route, officially the Castaic–Tejon Route and colloquially known as the Grapevine, was a two-lane highway between Los Angeles County and Kern County, California. Opened in 1915 and paved with concrete between 1917 and 1921, the road was the first paved highway directly linking the Los Angeles Basin with the San Joaquin Valley over the Tejon Pass and the rugged Sierra Pelona Mountains ridge south of Gorman. Much of the old road runs through the Angeles National Forest, and passes many historical landmarks, including the National Forest Inn, Reservoir Summit, Kelly's Half Way Inn, Tumble Inn, and Sandberg's Summit Hotel. North of the forest, the Ridge Route passed through Deadman's Curve before ending at Grapevine.
The Simi Hills are a low rocky mountain range of the Transverse Ranges in eastern Ventura County and western Los Angeles County, of southern California, United States.
The Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve is a large open space nature preserve owned and operated by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy spanning nearly 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) in the Simi Hills of western Los Angeles County and eastern Ventura County.
The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is a United States national recreation area containing many individual parks and open space preserves, located primarily in the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California. The SMMNRA is in the greater Los Angeles region, with two thirds of the parklands in northwest Los Angeles County, and the remaining third, including a Simi Hills extension, in southeastern Ventura County.
Rubel Castle was established in Glendora, California, by Michael Clarke Rubel and is owned and operated by the Glendora Historical Society.
The Whitewater River is a small permanent stream in western Riverside County, California, with some upstream tributaries in southwestern San Bernardino County. The river's headwaters are in the San Bernardino Mountains, and it terminates at the Salton Sea in the Colorado Sonoran Desert. The area drained by the Whitewater River is part of the larger endorheic Salton Sea drainage basin.
Walter Edward Perry Scott, also known as Death Valley Scotty, was a prospector, performer, and con man who was made famous by his many scams involving gold mining and the mansion in Death Valley, known as Scotty's Castle.
Jack London State Historic Park, also known as Jack London Home and Ranch, is a California State Historic Park near Glen Ellen, California, United States, situated on the eastern slope of Sonoma Mountain. It includes the ruins of a house burned a few months before Jack London and family were to move in, a cottage in which they had lived, another house built later, and the graves of Jack London and his wife. The property is both a California Historical Landmark and a National Historic Landmark.
Mentryville was an oil drilling town in the Santa Susana Mountains in Los Angeles County, California, USA. It was started by Charles Alexander Mentry in the 1870s around the newly discovered oil reserves in that area. The first oil strike was on September 26, 1876. The town is located at the terminus of Pico Canyon Road, four miles west of the Lyons Avenue exit from I-5 in Santa Clarita. It is currently a part of Stevenson Ranch.
Bessilyn Johnson, known also as "Bessie" or "Mabel", was the wife of the Chicago millionaire Albert Johnson, a man who was variously the partner, friend and dupe of the famed American Old West figure Death Valley Scotty. Bessie was one of the main characters who provided the impetus for the construction of Scotty's Castle in what is now Death Valley National Park in California.
Albert Mussey Johnson, was a millionaire who served for many years as president of the National Life Insurance Company, built Scotty's Castle in Death Valley, and was variously partner, friend, and dupe of infamous Wild West con man Death Valley Scotty, for whose outrageous antics he later served as financier.
Mat Roy Thompson, known also as Matt Roy Thompson, Matthew R. Thompson, Mathew R. Thompson, M. Roy Thompson, Roy Thompson, and Leroy Thompson, was a civil engineer and architect who worked on a great variety of construction and development projects across the United States, most notably on Scotty's Castle, the Death Valley mansion of eccentric millionaire Albert Mussey Johnson.
Shadelands Ranch was established by Hiram Penniman, an early American settler of California in 1856 as one of the first and largest farms in California's Ygnacio Valley.
The Wildlands Conservancy is a nonprofit organization with a mission to preserve land for public recreation. It manages 25 preserves, detailed in the list of its preserves, covering over 200,000 acres (81,000 ha) across the western United States. The preserve system encompasses diverse landscapes including mountains, valleys, deserts, rivers, and oceanfront lands. The Wildlands Conservancy buys and restores land, builds public visitor facilities, and provides outdoor education programs for children. All usage is free of charge, attracting over 1.5 million visitors annually.
Whitewater Preserve is a nature preserve owned and managed by The Wildlands Conservancy, a nonprofit land conservancy. Consisting of 2,851 acres (11.54 km2) of land in Riverside County, California, the preserve features the perennial Whitewater River flowing through a desert canyon. The preserve is located within the San Bernardino Mountains and is part of the Sand to Snow National Monument. More preserves can be found in the list of preserves.
