Featured videos
This collection will continue to grow as additional High Desert Keepers videos are added.
Featured High Desert Keepers video
A featured look at the people, places and field work behind the High Desert Keepers mission.
Operation Borderline in Five Minutes
A complete time-lapse of Operation Borderline, documenting a major three-day desert cleanup from beginning to end.
Giant Rock 2023
Giant Rock, near Landers, is an enormous desert landmark with a rich and unusual history. For generations before modern settlement, Indigenous peoples of the region regarded the rock as an important gathering place. Prospector Frank Critzer later excavated rooms beneath it, and his friend George Van Tassel went on to establish an airstrip, host spacecraft conventions and construct the nearby Integratron. Today, Giant Rock is a popular off-roading destination on BLM-managed public land. Many off-roaders camp and ride responsibly and clean up after themselves, while others leave trash or graffiti behind. The recurring cleanup is spearheaded by Positional Projects with partners including Bighorn-Desert View Water Agency, Blightsites, Desert Cleanse Project, Element Society, High Desert Keepers, Landers Community Association, Mojave Desert Land Trust and ReFuel Your Fun. High Desert Keepers participates three times each year—in January, around Earth Day and for National Public Lands Day—to remove waste, address graffiti and help protect this remarkable place.
An Organized Illegal Dumping Operation
This short video documents a site in the Los Angeles County desert that High Desert Keepers identifies as an unlicensed, unregulated landfill. Based on field observations, the affected area is estimated to cover roughly 50 acres, with buried waste reaching approximately 20 to 30 feet deep in places. The footage illustrates how illegal dumping can become an organized, profit-driven enterprise: land is acquired, truckloads of waste are accepted, bulldozers are used to bury the material and the operators can take the proceeds and leave once the property is full. This location is one example of the much larger illegal-dumping problem confronting desert communities.
Illegal Mulch Dumping in the High Desert
A rapidly growing threat in the High Desert is the dumping of unprocessed, contaminated mulch in enormous piles. These materials have not been properly cleaned or processed and can contain trash and other waste. This video highlights a site in El Mirage where High Desert Keepers observed material being poured onto a mulch pile and an odor so severe that standing downwind caused immediate physical discomfort. Of particular concern, this activity is occurring above the region's groundwater resources. High Desert Keepers has also observed serious harm to surrounding wildlife habitat and native desert vegetation, including Joshua trees. The El Mirage site illustrates why stronger oversight, investigation and enforcement are urgently needed.
