As the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts contend with record rainfalls, climate change and urban development are drying up the Great Salt Lake. We talk to David Smith of Joshua Tree National Park about floods in desert parks, and Zachary Frankel of Utah Rivers Council about saving the Salt Lake.

As the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts contend with record rainfalls, climate change and urban development are drying up the Great Salt Lake. We talk to David Smith of Joshua Tree National Park about floods in desert parks, and Zachary Frankel of Utah Rivers Council about saving the Salt Lake.

Join Chris Clarke and a variety of guests as they explore the challenges and opportunities of the American Southwest's fragile ecosystems. Engaging interviews with experts, activists, and advocates on conservation, land management, and environmental justice. Science and sentiment, politics and philosophy, hiking and history, culture and creativity all go into defending the desert. Be forewarned: We are out to recruit you to the cause.

Join Chris Clarke and a variety of guests as they explore the challenges and opportunities of the American Southwest's fragile ecosystems. Engaging interviews with experts, activists, and advocates on conservation, land management, and environmental justice. Science and sentiment, politics and philosophy, hiking and history, culture and creativity all go into defending the desert. Be forewarned: We are out to recruit you to the cause.

Vital info on protecting our irrepaceable deserts

90 Miles from Needles: the Desert Protection Podcast

90 Miles from Needles is a podcast about the environment, landscapes, and people of the American deserts—the Mojave, Sonoran, Chihuahuan, Great Basin and beyond. Host Chris Clarke explores desert ecology, wildlife, public lands, history, culture, road trips, conservation and the people working to protect these landscapes.

90 Miles from Needles is a podcast about the environment, landscapes, and people of the American deserts&mdash;the Mojave, Sonoran, Chihuahuan, Great Basin and beyond. Host Chris Clarke explores desert ecology, wildlife, public lands, history, culture, road trips, conservation and the people working to protect these landscapes.

Record floods and historic drought reveal how climate change is reshaping water across Death Valley and the Great Salt Lake.

S1E16 Flood and Drought; Death Valley and the Great Salt Lake

For our 150th episode, we return to a foundational question: why does the desert need people speaking up for it?

Chris offers four answers. Deserts are widely misunderstood as empty or expendable. They remain surprisingly understudied, even when familiar species such as Joshua trees are concerned. Desert protection cannot be separated from Indigenous sovereignty, migration, heat inequality, contaminated water, and the lives of working people. And beneath the science, policy, and activism lies a simpler reason: we love these places.

Listeners Kimberly, Nancy, and Diane share their own reasons for caring about deserts. Fred Bell supplies the nighttime voices of Woodhouse’s and Amargosa toads at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.

After the closing credits, Chris looks back at the geographical and topical reach of the podcast’s first 150 episodes—and identifies some of the places still missing from the archive.

In this episode:
Why calling deserts “empty” makes them easier to sacrifice
Creosote rings, desert fire and ecological time
How invasive grasses have transformed wildfire in the Mojave
Why conspicuous desert species can remain surprisingly understudied
Environmental justice, border communities and urban heat
What love contributes to conservation
Where 150 episodes have taken us—and where the podcast needs to go next

Resources and related listening:
The National Park Service explains how invasive plants can create a cycle of increasingly frequent and extensive Mojave fires: Fire in the Mojave Desert.
NPS reports that the 2020 Dome Fire burned 43,273 acres, killed as many as 1.3 million Joshua trees and exposed the forest to a potential invasive-grass fire cycle: Dome Fire.
Related episode: S4E31: Five Years On—Cima Dome After the Flames.
Related episode: Joshua Trees and Family Trees.
The Joshua Tree Genome Project and affiliated researchers are using mapping, crowdsourced observations and machine learning to study Joshua tree populations: The Yoder Lab at CSU Northridge.
NOAA’s current assessment of the strengthening 2026–27 El Niño: ENSO Diagnostic Discussion.
Related episode: S5E28: Four Things You Need to Know About Desert Flooding.
Support the podcast at 90milesfromneedles.com/donate.
Learn about the Fellowship for Desert Reporting at thedamn.org/fellowship.


Not sure where to start with 150 episodes? Visit our Start Here page for a selection of episodes that offer a good introduction to 90 Miles from Needles.

For our 150th episode, we return to a foundational question: why does the desert need people speaking up for it?
Chris offers four answers. Deserts are widely misunderstood as empty or expendable. They remain surprisingly understudied, even when familiar species such as Joshua trees are concerned. Desert protection cannot be separated from Indigenous sovereignty, migration, heat inequality, contaminated water, and the lives of working people. And beneath the science, policy, and activism lies a simpler reason: we love these places.
Listeners Kimberly, Nancy, and Diane share their own reasons for caring about deserts. Fred Bell supplies the nighttime voices of Woodhouse&rsquo;s and Amargosa toads at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.
After the closing credits, Chris looks back at the geographical and topical reach of the podcast&rsquo;s first 150 episodes&mdash;and identifies some of the places still missing from the archive.
In this episode:
<ul>
<li>Why calling deserts &ldquo;empty&rdquo; makes them easier to sacrifice</li>
<li>Creosote rings, desert fire and ecological time</li>
<li>How invasive grasses have transformed wildfire in the Mojave</li>
<li>Why conspicuous desert species can remain surprisingly understudied</li>
<li>Environmental justice, border communities and urban heat</li>
<li>What love contributes to conservation</li>
<li>Where 150 episodes have taken us&mdash;and where the podcast needs to go next</li>
</ul>
Resources and related listening:
<ul>
<li>The National Park Service explains how invasive plants can create a cycle of increasingly frequent and extensive Mojave fires: <a href="https://www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm?id=1ee915d9-d4cf-4b89-b567-18b35dcd3dec">Fire in the Mojave Desert</a>.</li>
<li>NPS reports that the 2020 Dome Fire burned 43,273 acres, killed as many as 1.3 million Joshua trees and exposed the forest to a potential invasive-grass fire cycle: <a href="https://www.nps.gov/moja/learn/nature/dome-fire.htm">Dome Fire</a>.</li>
<li>Related episode: <a href="https://www.90milesfromneedles.com/s4e31-5-years-on-cima-dome-after-the-flames/">S4E31: Five Years On&mdash;Cima Dome After the Flames</a>.</li>
<li>Related episode: <a href="https://www.90milesfromneedles.com/s4e34-joshua-trees-and-family-trees/">Joshua Trees and Family Trees</a>.</li>
<li>The Joshua Tree Genome Project and affiliated researchers are using mapping, crowdsourced observations and machine learning to study Joshua tree populations: <a href="https://lab.jbyoder.org/">The Yoder Lab at CSU Northridge</a>.</li>
<li>NOAA&rsquo;s current assessment of the strengthening 2026&ndash;27 El Ni&ntilde;o: <a href="https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml">ENSO Diagnostic Discussion</a>.</li>
<li>Related episode: <a href="https://www.90milesfromneedles.com/">S5E28: Four Things You Need to Know About Desert Flooding</a>.</li>
<li>Support the podcast at <a href="https://www.90milesfromneedles.com/donate">90milesfromneedles.com/donate</a>.</li>
<li>Learn about the Fellowship for Desert Reporting at <a href="https://thedamn.org/fellowship">thedamn.org/fellowship</a>.</li>
<li>
Not sure where to start with 150 episodes? Visit our <a href="https://www.90milesfromneedles.com/start-here/">Start Here page</a> for a selection of episodes that offer a good introduction to 90 Miles from Needles.
</li>
</ul>

Why do deserts need protection? For the 150th episode of 90 Miles from Needles, Chris Clarke returns to the reasons this work matters: deserts remain widely misunderstood, receive less scientific attention than they deserve, and cannot be protected without confronting questions of justice. Listeners Kimberly, Nancy, and Diane share what the desert means to them, while Chris considers wildfire, Joshua tree science, environmental inequality, the border wall, urban heat, and the love that ultimately lies behind conservation. An after-credits report examines where the podcast has traveled during its first 150 episodes—and where its coverage still needs to go.

S5E30: Why Deserts Need Defending

Journalist Joe Dana of 12 News in Phoenix joins Chris Clarke to discuss questions raised by the August 29 flash flood in Grand Canyon National Park—and what happened inside the National Park Service before the disaster.

After the 2025 Dragon Bravo Fire, Grand Canyon Trails Supervisor Adam Gibson warned publicly that the upper North Kaibab Trail had become a substantially more hazardous environment. In a March appearance on The Grand Canyon Hiker Dude Show, Gibson described debris flows, hydrophobic soils and risks likely to persist for years.

Dana's reporting goes further. Sources told him that Gibson had recommended keeping the North Kaibab Trail closed for the 2026 season, and that park leadership initially appeared receptive to that recommendation before the entire trail reopened May 15. NPS had previously described its reopening strategy as adaptive, promising to “open what we can, where we can, when we can,” while balancing visitor safety, resource protection and operational readiness.

Chris and Joe talk about the pressures on park managers to restore public access, the risks faced by trail crews and visitors in a recently burned landscape, and the larger question built into National Park Service management: how do you provide public enjoyment of extraordinary places while ensuring that those places remain unimpaired for future generations? NPS policy says conservation ultimately takes precedence when those purposes genuinely conflict.

The August 29 flood killed two hikers, left a third missing, prompted roughly 80 rescues, and devastated infrastructure along Bright Angel Creek. As of September 8, the North Kaibab Trail, Phantom Ranch, Bright Angel Campground and several other inner-canyon areas remain closed, with no estimated reopening date.

Links and background

Joe Dana and 12 News

Grand Canyon Hiker Dude: Adam Gibson's March 4 interview

NPS: North Rim reopening announcement, March 25

NPS: Current North Rim and North Kaibab Trail status

National Park Service Management Policies: conservation and public enjoyment

Chris will also be taking 90 Miles from Needles to El Paso for the Fourth Chihuahuan Desert Conference, November 4–6, 2026, at the El Paso Zoo and Botanical Gardens.

Chihuahuan Desert Conference information

Journalist Joe Dana of 12 News in Phoenix joins Chris Clarke to discuss questions raised by the August 29 flash flood in Grand Canyon National Park&mdash;and what happened inside the National Park Service before the disaster.
After the 2025 Dragon Bravo Fire, Grand Canyon Trails Supervisor Adam Gibson warned publicly that the upper North Kaibab Trail had become a substantially more hazardous environment. In a March appearance on The Grand Canyon Hiker Dude Show, Gibson described debris flows, hydrophobic soils and risks likely to persist for years.
Dana's reporting goes further. Sources told him that Gibson had recommended keeping the North Kaibab Trail closed for the 2026 season, and that park leadership initially appeared receptive to that recommendation before the entire trail reopened May 15. NPS had previously described its reopening strategy as adaptive, promising to &ldquo;open what we can, where we can, when we can,&rdquo; while balancing visitor safety, resource protection and operational readiness.
Chris and Joe talk about the pressures on park managers to restore public access, the risks faced by trail crews and visitors in a recently burned landscape, and the larger question built into National Park Service management: how do you provide public enjoyment of extraordinary places while ensuring that those places remain unimpaired for future generations? NPS policy says conservation ultimately takes precedence when those purposes genuinely conflict.
The August 29 flood killed two hikers, left a third missing, prompted roughly 80 rescues, and devastated infrastructure along Bright Angel Creek. As of September 8, the North Kaibab Trail, Phantom Ranch, Bright Angel Campground and several other inner-canyon areas remain closed, with no estimated reopening date.
Links and background
<a href="https://www.12news.com/article/about-us/team-bios/joe-dana-i-team-reporter-anchor/75-33994618">Joe Dana and 12 News</a>
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep103-breaking-grand-canyon-trail-supervisor-shares/id1720435707?i=1000753007953">Grand Canyon Hiker Dude: Adam Gibson's March 4 interview</a>
<a href="https://home.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/2026-north-rim-summer-season-access.htm">NPS: North Rim reopening announcement, March 25</a>
<a href="https://home.nps.gov/grca/northrimstatus.htm">NPS: Current North Rim and North Kaibab Trail status</a>
<a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/policy/mp-1-foundation.htm">National Park Service Management Policies: conservation and public enjoyment</a>
Chris will also be taking 90 Miles from Needles to El Paso for the Fourth Chihuahuan Desert Conference, November 4&ndash;6, 2026, at the El Paso Zoo and Botanical Gardens.
<a href="https://chihuahuandesertconference.wordpress.com/">Chihuahuan Desert Conference information</a>

After the Dragon Bravo Fire, Grand Canyon trail staff warned that the North Kaibab Trail faced years of heightened danger from debris flows, flash floods and rockfall. Yet the entire trail reopened in May 2026. Journalist Joe Dana of Phoenix's 12 News joins 90 Miles from Needles to discuss his reporting on internal National Park Service recommendations, pressure to restore public access, and the decisions made before the deadly August 29 Grand Canyon flood.

S1E16 Flood and Drought; Death Valley and the Great Salt Lake

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