What the Dunes Remember: Mule Tracks in the Imperial Sand

I, Bernie Harberts, did not use generative AI to write or illustrate this article. Spell check and grammar check, yes. AI, no.

They once called it The American Sahara, that line of sand dunes that drifts from Yuma toward the Salton Sea.

Then some geographically correct person re-baptized them the Imperial Dunes. As in the Imperial Valley where they grow truck loads of lettuce and alfalfa. Suddenly the dunes sounded tamer. Smaller. It sissifies a mountain of sand to re-name it after a garden, even if it’s one of the nation’s biggest carrot producers.

But just what is large? Does the name of a sand pile matter if it takes your mule three days to traverse?

Into the Dunes of the American Sahara

I unhooked Maggie from her cart and rode Woody and Maggie up into the dunes and turned them loose. We all walked around, staring at the sandy other-worldiness of it all. I felt tiny under the sky. We drifted among the dunes. Sometimes Woody and Maggie were looking down at me. Other times, I was looking down at their backs. Here are some photos that convey the out-there-ness of the experience.

I gathered up Woody and Maggie, led them down from the dunes, and went back to walking them north along the giant dunes. Blue sky overhead, giant sand dune on one side, desert scrub on the other.

We followed a sandy track and I looked down at the tracks of all the desert creatures that called this stretch of desert home. I could identify some of them but others were a mystery. They were all beautiful and I walked slowly, photographing the crispest tracks in the sand.

At four-hand breadths above the horizon, the sun burned the shadows from the tracks and they melted from sight. It was time to knock off for the day. I parked Maggie’s cart next to a creosote bush, stretched a tarp to keep the dew off us, fed Woody and Maggie and stretched out as the night fell.

It got dark and I felt the heavy presence of the sand dunes not a hundred feet away from where we were camped. A light wind sprang up and blew a shower of sand into my sleeping bag and I wondered if a rattlesnake might crawl inside looking for warmth.

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