Mojave National Preserve to close 18-mile Cima Road, limit path to historic sites for year

Charlie McGee, Victorville Daily Press
·4 min read
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A two-vehicle crash within the Mojave National Preserve caused one death and one emergency airlift in the area of Kelso Road and Cima Road on Nov 15, 2021, according to preserve Superintendent Mike Gauthier.
A two-vehicle crash within the Mojave National Preserve caused one death and one emergency airlift in the area of Kelso Road and Cima Road on Nov 15, 2021, according to preserve Superintendent Mike Gauthier.

The Mojave National Preserve will close all 18 miles of a major northern access road for more than a year to launch a $24 million infrastructure-improvement project.

The project, which starts Monday, will limit people's ability to visit some historic natural sites and a World War 1 memorial.

The roughly 2,500-square-mile Mojave Desert park plans to designate the entirety of Cima Road an active construction zone and close it from March 20 this year to March 31, 2024, the U.S. National Park Service announced Tuesday night.

The road connects to Interstate 15 at exit 272 along Mojave National Preserve's northern boundary. It runs south into the federally-protected park until ending at Kelso Cima Road and Morning Star Mine Road.

People hoping to visit the Cima Dome, the Teutonia Peak Trail, or the White Cross World War I Memorial, also known as the Mojave Memorial Cross, won't be able to do so during the one-year closure unless they can travel on "unimproved roads that require a heavy-duty four-wheel drive vehicle," NPS officials stated.

Those hoping to access the Mojave National Preserve in general from the north must also take a detour via one of the two other access routes connected to I-15, North Kelbaker Road or Morning Star Mine Road.

The construction project will focus on adding infrastructure "to reduce the Federally Listed Desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) mortality from motor vehicles impacts," NPS stated.

"To protect road crews working in the area, visitors must avoid driving on or across the active construction zone of Cima Road during this closure," NPS officials stated. "Driving around cones, barricades, and signs will be prohibited."

NPS didn't respond Wednesday to a request for further information on the construction project and any plans for resulting changes in traffic flow or road enforcement.

A project page on the website of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration details similar Mojave National Preserve construction plans with a project timeline of Spring 2023 to Summer 2024. Cima Road varies in width from 22 to 24 feet and suffers from "extremely soft shoulders" and "numerous low water crossings," according to the page, which says the project goals include:

  • "Increasing the roadway width to a consistent 26 feet

  • "Providing low water crossings"

  • "Improving safety, updated signing, pavement markings, and paved pullouts"

  • Additionally, providing "spot location improvements to Kelbaker Road, Route 10 consisting of low water crossings and pavement rehabilitation."

The stated aim for Cima Road improvements to protect the desert tortoise, a federally-protected species, is one of the multiple ways NPS has made protecting the native Mojave Desert animal a prominent mission.

The Mojave National Preserve has also cracked down on speeding as a threat to desert tortoises. At least 10 desert tortoises are killed every year by vehicles, NPS has reported, which could ultimately lead to local population extinctions. Since the reproduction rate of the desert tortoise is low, the survival of every individual tortoise is important to the continuation of the species.

The areas that visitors will have limited access to during the closure of Cima Road include some storied attractions.

The Cima Dome is a once-rugged mountain that has naturally smoothed out over time to a near-perfectly round shape rising about 1,500 feet above the surrounding Mojave Desert. A more than 43,000-acre wildfire in August 2020, now known as "the Dome Fire," torched roughly 25% of a massive Joshua Tree woodland across the Cima Dome, according to the NPS website.

The Dome Fire burns near Cima Road in the Mojave National Preserve on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2020. The blaze charred more than 20,000 acres by Sunday evening.
The Dome Fire burns near Cima Road in the Mojave National Preserve on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2020. The blaze charred more than 20,000 acres by Sunday evening.

Access to another area affected by the Dome Fire, the Teutonia Peak Trail, will also be limited due to the Cima Road closure. The trail is a popular hiking route that makes for a three-mile round trip with "eerie Joshua tree skeletons" along the way, making it "a great way to examine the aftermath of the Dome Fire up close," the NPS website states.

The White Cross World War I Memorial is a large cross first placed atop Sunrise Rock near Cima Road in 1934 to honor veterans and people, more broadly, who died in the war.

The memorial became a national controversy around a decade ago up to 2012 when a series of back-and-forth court rulings placed its presence within the Mojave National Preserve in question over the separation of church and state. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of the remaining white cross. The NPS later transferred an acre of land surrounding the memorial to the private ownership of the California Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Charlie McGee covers California’s High Desert for the Daily Press, focusing on the city of Barstow and its surrounding communities. He is also a Report for America corps member with The GroundTruth Project, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization dedicated to supporting the next generation of journalists in the U.S. and worldwide. McGee may be reached at 760-955-5341 or cmcgee@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @bycharliemcgee.

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Mojave National Preserve to close 18-mile access road for a year