Status Updates From Death Valley to Yosemite: F...

I've always wondered about Dogtown. Now I have to go look to see if the stone cabins and dugouts are still there!

Benton Hot Springs sounded interesting for a minute but then I saw all the pictures of people's red spider mite bites on Yelp and... wow! Nope. Not doing that.

Mono Pass Trail now added to the list of places I want to visit - there's a log mining building and cabins up there! THIS is why I got this book!

Successful mining requires several things once a good deposit has been found - these include fuel, water and roads. I hadn't ever realized how mining shaped the appearance of the Eastern Sierras and Death Valley through deforestation - and wonder what it might look like if they had at least planted trees as they took down mature trees. Nobody did that in the 19th century.

Dang! How is it I have never made it to Cerro Gordo in all my trips to Death Valley!

Thank heaven for Mary DeDecker! I wish she had more closely edited her co-author's contribution to this book - her writing style is much more interesting and better structured.

All in all - the oral history is very "insider-y" and seems to be taken in the order given with little editing for continuity or context -- just adding some $25 words and phrases to make it sound "writerly." This just conflates the style of run on sentences like "Some 15 miles south of blah blah blah .... " that sound more like a description of Google street view for the blind.

Now I know what a "corduroy road" is - because I had to look it up and the author assumed we all know that it's a road made of logs placed perpendicular to the road surface to go across swampy areas.

Apparently DUDES LIKE TO BUILD ROADS! Shorty Borden built loads of roads almost single handedly (with his two favorite burros), and even Aguerreberry built a road (now named in his honor at a famous lookout point).