The US Marines tried to capture this remote California Desert, a beloved off-roader, but officials eventually managed to mediate a deal that allowed both Leatherneck and Dirt Riders to share the same rocky valley and wrinkled mountains in the Johnson Valley.
Now, over a decade later, the Marines are back. This time I’m looking for the sky.
The Pentagon proposes limiting civil air traffic beyond the majority of the Johnson Valley Off Highway vehicle area to expand and support training exercises. However, those who have made frequent and frequent visits to the area just west of the Twentynine Palms Marine Base say the proposal will severely limit access to recreation and reduce safety.
They say airspace restrictions prevent rescue helicopters from evacuating injured drivers, and could threaten the famous off-road race of hammers held there every year.
And perhaps most importantly, they fear that the proposal must be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration – is just the first step towards ending public access to areas set aside by Congress for public use by the Marines.
“It feels like it’s literally another way they take the land, but from above,” said Shannon Welch, vice president of the Blue Ribbon Union, off-road group.
The proposal also attracts criticism from aviation officials who say the restrictions could affect the operation of small local airports and add time and cost to commercial flights.
The military says such fear is exaggerated.
Recently, basic staff members said the proposal would limit airspace to only up to 60 days a year. The Marines are considering adding the FAA just days after the first year, but base officials told The Times they are not seeking additional revitalization in parts of the Johnson Valley, which is shared with the public. They also said they are working on mitigation measures that allow the sky to be shared even when restrictions are active.
“We don’t intend to limit public access to Johnson Valley,” said Cindy Smith, the base’s government and diplomacy land management specialist.
A Johnson Valley follower, Dave Cole lives on 15 acres backed up in the OHV area. From his main entrance he can jump on miles that line up along the sand dunes and sturdy boulder piles. The vastness reminds him of the sea. There, changing the constantly changing tide means that two trips will not bring about the same experience. And in the world of electric recreation, the 96,000-acre riding area simply does not have a peer.
“The kind of off-roading and the kind of things like that, it’s surfing for me. It’s like Oahu. It’s beachfront,” Cole said.
On a recent afternoon he was standing on a ridge above the vast, dry lake bottom. There, in a few months, a temporary city called Hammertown is born from the sand that burned the sun. Approximately 80,000 people were expected to watch the rock-torn races and races, camp and hear vendors pitch the latest automotive technology.
Cole co-founded King of Hammer in 2007. This is to prevent Marines from expanding westward. He thought off-road competitions were important to pay attention to areas maintained by the Bureau of Land Management and to make it public.
The two-week festival has grown into one of the biggest events on public lands other than Burning Man, and a report commissioned by San Bernardino County estimated the economic impact of the race to be $34 million in 2023.
Regarding Marine expansion ambitions, they were addressed by compromises in the 2014 defense bill. The law set aside approximately 43,000 acres of Johnson Valley and 79,000 acres and 53,000 acres to share with the Marines for recreation. Marines are permitted to close their shared areas for two 30 days each year.
The proposed airspace limit will extend over many of the recreational areas, including the entire common use area.
King of the Hammers relies on helicopters and drones to respond to emergencies and live stream events around the world. Welch of the Blue Ribbon Union described the potential loss of air support as “devastating.”
Cole isn’t worried about the hammer King. He believes there is a possibility and even a possibility to compromise on responding to the event. He worries that the proposal may mark the beginning of a wider acquisition in the same area that the Marines were trying to annexate a few years ago. “It’s a different bite. Same apple,” he said.
Restrictions on military space on other public lands often result in ground closures without notice, Welch said. Such areas include BLM-managed land near the White Sands Missile Series in southern New Mexico, as well as the Yuma Certified Area in Arizona, she said.
“These two areas are cautionary substances about what happens when the military gains control of the sky, even if the land below it is technically made public.”
Marine officials said they are committed to respecting the shared agreement, but need additional limited airspace for training, including both piloted aircraft and drones.
Colonel Benjamin Adams, assistant staff officer for the base’s training department, pointed out the order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegses that by the end of fiscal year 2026, all squads must be armed with small drones.
“This is the Marine Corps’ golden gem,” he said. “The training you complete here cannot be done anywhere else in the Marines.”
Marines released an explanation of the airspace proposal in 2019, but several recreational advocates and local officials said they hadn’t heard of it until last month when the Marines released a draft environmental assessment.
San Bernardino County supervisor Dawn Lowe has questioned whether federal officials fully understand how restrictions affect local residents. At least 36 medical helicopters responded to the Johnson Valley area last year, according to statistics provided by the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District to Lowe.
“‘What are you sacrificing at the other end?” Access to public land and recreation? She said. “It falls outside and wants to coexist with the Marines we respect, but we want to preserve the area we’ve known and enjoyed for years.”
Both the Yucca Valley Airport District and the San Bernardino County Airport Commission have voted to submit letters against the proposal.
An increase in military flights through traffic patterns at Yucca Valley Airport will raise concerns about public safety and noise, board chair Tim Lewis wrote. He said the military already has 31 special use spaces within the 100 Marines area at Twentin Palms Base, with restrictions still continuing from Burstow to Prescott, Arizona.
Adding more restrictions could likely affect commercial air travel, he wrote, which could reduce the number of flights through potentially used corridors. And he writes that it will restrict the use of multiple small airports, including Yucca Valley, Twentynin Palms, Big Bear City, Needle, Burst Udaget and Apple Valley.
“I think in the end, Marines will find that the public opposition they encounter will demand some compromise from them,” said R-Big Bear Lake, a pilot.
Regarding Big Bear, the proposed limitation overlaps with the line of pilot approaches using equipment flight rules, said Obernolte, who served on the airport committee at Big Bear City. If the proposal is approved, these pilots will not be able to land at the airport under current procedures, he said.
Obernolte is attempting to add a provision to this year’s defense bill that will condition the expansion of Marines in compliance with previous laws that require pilots to be alerted to restricted airspace conditions.
“This is a really painful issue,” said Jim Bagley, in the cockpit of the Cessna 172 in 1955, robbing airspace that was subject to restrictions. Thousands of feet below are old houses spread out like playing cards on a poker table.
Bagley, a former three-time mayor of Twentynine Palms, is a recreational pilot and flight instructor currently sitting on the county airport board. For him, backcountry flight is another mode of tourist, hiking Yosemite or hiking a boat under Niagara Falls.
Open areas like the Johnson Valley allow you to race in line as fast as you want, or land ultra-lightweight on dry lake beds.
However, even Bagley, a meticulous watcher of the project, who gave the Environmental Assessment Draft a careful read, was initially unaware that some of the restrictions would be restricted to the 60th day. This is explained in the appendix above the middle of the 394-page document. The rest will repeatedly frame the proposal as the establishment of permanent restricted areas.
Smith said the project notifications were published in local newspapers and sent to various stakeholders. Public feedback will be incorporated into both the final environmental assessment and the steps to specify how the proposal is implemented, she said.
Marines are already working with the FAA in their letter, allowing them to use airspace above the shared area for low-level flights, including rescue helicopters. The letter also covers all aircraft approaching Big Bear, according to Andy Chatelin, director of Base’s scope management and development.
Chatelin noted that the proposal has already passed the FAA Aviation Research and Safety Risk Management Panel to determine its impact on the National Space System. A final decision is expected in the fall of 2026, he said.
If the Marines held a public meeting on the proposal and published a 60-day cap, it is likely that some of the backlash against it would have been avoided, Bagley said. He has no problems with the military for training when he needs some of the airspace, he said.
“My objection is to deprive public access to public lands, and those public lands contain airspace above them.”
