In 1975, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the Phantom Duck of the Desert started his motorcycle engine in Barstow, California, in defiance of federal orders. He and his friends were headed to Las Vegas for their first “unorganized” trail ride, off-roading through the desert to protest the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The U.S. agency had recently denied a permit for the 10th annual Barstow-to-Vegas, the “granddaddy” of dirt bike races. The Duck and his compadres were incensed.
Barstow-to-Vegas became a symbol that divided the California desert. On one side, dirt bikers like the Duck wanted freedom to ride wherever the plants wouldn’t stop them. On the other, conservationists wanted to protect the desert from the impacts of off-road recreation. The BLM, trying to regulate the desert for the first time, got caught in the middle. Through it all, the desert paid the price. The Barstow-to-Vegas saga reveals how impunity helped make Southern California an epicenter of anti-environmental rhetoric and action that forged today’s anti-environmental moment.
Barstow-to-Vegas was a classic desert race, the kind that bikers liked because it posed a near-impossible test of endurance, persistence, and skill, with only two-thirds crossing the finish line. You couldn’t preview the 155-mile course, so you had to rely on a sketchy map, scant flagging, and your own wits. Along the way, you faced prickly plants, lots of sand, and the desert elements.
Professionals typically led the pack, but most racers were amateurs—working men like the Phantom Duck from all around the rapidly-growing Los Angeles area, who wanted to get out for the weekend. They wanted to see if their self-modified bikes could measure up against the pros, or at least conquer the desert. The race quickly grew from 300 racers in 1967 to 3,000 racers by the early 1970s.
By 1970, BLM employees felt that they “were losing control of the off-road-vehicle situation,” according to Craig Tocher, who had worked in the BLM’s recreation program. The bureau had recently issued one of the first studies of the impacts of off-road vehicles on the California landscape, and the damage to desert soils, flora, and fauna was extensive. Working without any real input from conservationists in these first couple of years, the BLM found that motorcycles accelerated erosion in desert washes, and collapsed burrows of the desert tortoise.