Mojave National Preserve

Traveling through California, we came into the wide openness of the Mojave National Preserve, a landscape that at first feels empty, but slowly reveals its depth.

The desert stretches in every direction, dunes rising unexpectedly from the sand, volcanic formations shaped by time, and fields of Joshua trees breaking up the horizon. Here there is space, with land uninterrupted.

The preserve was established in 1994 through the California Desert Protection Act and is now managed by the National Park Service. As a national preserve, it is protected as part of the National Park system, while still allowing certain traditional uses of the land.

This is not a place shaped by boundaries, but by openness. It is not defined by a single feature, but by the space between them, how it all exists together.