Transmitting from the Mojave Wilderness in Joshua Tree, California,

now is the time for Desert Oracle Radio, the voice of the desert.

Night has fallen on the desert and another storm is raging in this long, long winter of wild, wild weather.

Snow in the mountains, floods in the valleys, one of those winters to remember.

Makes me think of especially wild winters in the mountains and deserts of the southwest and years past.

Like the El Nino winters of the early 80s, 19 and 82 through 83.

The most devastating storms in a century on the West Coast still nothing quite like it.

Bridges and roads and houses washed away in the mud and the blood, entire civic piers broke apart to monster surf and through the concrete pilings at the beach towns beyond in spite take that the angry sea

it was when I developed the strange and ultimately inaccurate idea that the Mojave Desert was very, very cold in the winters.

Because that winter was the first I'd spent a lot of time out there, out here, bumping around in my old

international scout, getting lost in those beautiful days before GPS and car navigation

systems.

Climbing mountains and blue jeans soaked through with snow melt what a time

there were other good winters too

about a dozen years ago the mojave got covered in deep snow that lasted for weeks.

Especially the Antelope Valley and the foothills of Healan on the north side of the Angeles Crest Forest.

Snowed in for a week straight. It was fantastic. I wore my snow shoes to walk the dog for hours

every day.

Sometimes he would disappear.

An entire good-sized bird dog, and then I'd see his head poke back up like a pocket gopher.

And that was in May.

A merry month of May, but no green buds were showing.

...