COLUMN: West Desert wonderland
You gotta love the concept of multiple-use land, but when Woody Guthrie wrote “This land is your land, this land is my land…” I don’t think this is what he had in mind. It is hard to imagine any land that has more multiple use than the Simpson Springs, Utah campground.
For those of you not up on your geography, Simpson Springs lies at the crossroads of the Old West and the bleached, white, desert bones of the cold war military build-up. It was part of the Pony Express trail, the Lincoln Highway (first transcontinental highway) and the Dugway Proving Grounds.
Dugway was made famous in the recent movie “Outbreak” as being the place where some nasty fictional biological weapons were being studied. In real life only Anthrax (not the band), botulism and the plague have been studied there. It is also the place where 888 Weteye nerve gas bombs were moved for storage and near where 6,000 sheep were killed in a nerve gas accident. If you look on the map you will notice that this is an area of the country that cannot be flown over or driven through, but as I found out, you can camp within grenade-lobbing distance.
So about 1 a.m., when most campers are happy and snoozing, I get awakened by the re-enactment of the original “Star-Spangled Banner.”
“The rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air … gave proof through the night that the military industrial complex is still there.”
During the course of the next hour, I saw three of those giant parachuting flares capable of lighting up several football stadiums. Following the flares there were several echoing “ka-booms!”
Seeing how the two biggest military complexes in the world both accidentally shot down commercial airliners in the ’80s, I am not sleeping too well knowing that my truck could easily be mistaken for derelict vehicles they use for targets on bombing runs out on the West Desert. I put in my earplugs, drank another beer and remember the saying “There are no atheists in foxholes.”
The next day I talk to one of the Forest Service rangers, who assures me that “Oh yeah, they do that sort of thing all the time. They must have been on maneuvers last night. You get used to it.”
Later while telling him that the mosquitoes seem especially bad this time of year, he tells me more than I want to know.
“You know, we’re not really sure that these mosquitoes are native to this area. The military used to do a lot of malaria testing on troops out here. They’d give them extra weekend passes for volunteering to get stung by a tent full of mosquitoes. Some of the test mosquitoes probably escaped and cross-bred with the local mosquitoes.”
B-movie horror images of giant, mutated mosquitoes flash through my head and I get a can of Deep Woods Off out of my backpack. I should have brought something more powerful — like a gun, I think.
“Oh yeah,” he continues. “A whole bunch of sheep got killed out there in some kind of nerve gas experiment. They don’t let us take pictures of anything around here, but I tell you there is some scary stuff going on over there.”
I’m tempted to ask him more questions but he gives me that look of “If I told you any more I’d have to kill you.” So I stop and enjoy the view.
I am one of the few, the proud, the West Desert campers.
Dennis Hinkamp’s column appears every Friday in The Statesman. Comments can be sent to slightlyoffcenter@attbi.com.