Compromise should keep Johnson Valley open to public while meeting Marines’ training needs

Marine Corps officials say they believe a compromise can be reached, allowing them to meet increasing training demands, but keeping much of the public access to Johnson Valley, a rugged playground in eastern San Bernardino County for off-roaders, rock crawlers and outdoor enthusiasts.

The Marines recently completed an environmental assessment that was exploring entirely closing off the airspace for up to 60 days a year above approximately 56,000 acres of the Mojave Desert they share the use of between the deep canyons, sand dunes and scraggly mountains near the Marine Air-Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms.

That would effectively make recreation on the ground in the Johnson Valley Shared Use Area impossible, users worried. Mother Nature already makes the area located near Means Dry Lake almost uninhabitable for several months a year.

About six months ago, word spread that the Marines were looking at making permanent use of the airspace during their 60-day training window, drawing a slew of complaints from off-roader enthusiasts, including Dave Cole, who moved to the area in 2001, partly because he loved its remote and empty feeling and the texture of the dirt, which he said is unlike anywhere else.

He built his house on 15 acres that back up to the off-vehicle area, which he likens to a beach house where many gather and have fun on the dunes and rocks just outside his front door.

“The area, it’s amazing, it made an impact on me,” he said. “It’s unlike any place else. It’s a place you can get lost, it still allows that experience.”

The valley is also host to the King of the Hammers, a popular desert race Cole cofounded in 2007, which, according to an economic impact report from San Bernardino County, brings in an annual $34.1 million. This January, more than 80,000 fans attended.

Marine officials said creating the airspace restrictions is a continuation of a much broader goal, conceived more than a decade ago, to expand Twentynine Palms’ training areas, including on the ground and in the air. Military officials first put out a plan for airspace restrictions over the shared-use area in 2019, but it drew little public attention.

“The recent study completed in March outlines a balanced approach that allows the Marine Corps to meet evolving training requirements while preserving public access to the Johnson Valley Shared Use Area,” said Susan Smith, the base’s land management specialist.

While there will be times during the training when access will have to be restricted, “under the proposal, the Marine Corps could activate the airspace above the shared use area for up to 60 days per year. For the days the military would use the airspace at the same time the area is open to the public, military aircraft would operate above 1,500 feet above ground level – an altitude that allows ground-based recreation to continue below uninterrupted,” Smith said this week. “When the airspace over Johnson Valley is not activated, it would operate as it does today, fully open and accessible to civilian aircraft. There would be no military restrictions, and no coordination required – including emergency flights such as medical evacuations.”

The result, said Cole, has restored faith that a partnership between the Marines and off-road recreation enthusiasts can still thrive.

“Some people had to talk,” he said of the more than 30,000 public comments that flooded in during the draft report’s review period in the fall. “But others had to listen, or it wouldn’t have made a difference. To me, that’s actually the bigger part, that’s a big deal.”

The Marines are looking at Johnson Valley to expand their range west of Twentynine Palms to accommodate more training that combines ground units, aircraft, electronic warfare and drones operating together as they would in real-world battle scenarios.

“There wasn’t a Marine Corps installation that had the land and airspace needed to support that scale and level of training,” Smith said.

In 2014, Congress officially authorized the land expansion, but Smith said the Marines haven’t been able to exercise the full scope of what’s needed for training without also adding airspace.

Since then, Smith said the Department of the Navy and the Federal Aviation Administration have worked to identify the appropriate airspace configuration.

The current proposal, with the compromise, is now before the FAA for approval; no timeline has been given.

“This is not a new idea; it’s really about completing that original requirement,” she said. “If anything, it’s become even more critical as training demands and operational needs have continued to evolve.”

Routinely, brigade-size units train in large-scale maneuvers across Twentynine Palms’ nearly 1,200-square-mile training ranges ahead of deployments overseas, Marine officials said. The base trains nearly half of the Marines’ ground and aviation combat forces each year, allowing 10,000 to 14,000 troops and their equipment to maneuver at a time.

“We are considered to be the crown jewel of the Marine Corps for what we’re able to do as the nation’s premier live-fire, combined arms maneuver training facility,” said Col. Benjamin Adams, assistant chief of staff for base training, who added the Mojave Desert’s terrain also prepares Marines physically for the harshest combat environments.

“The restricted airspace over our combat center is not just an incidental detail,” he said. “It is non-negotiable when it comes to our ability to execute our mission. Without complete control of the airspace, the required purpose of our installation would be impossible to achieve.”

Among the most critical points for securing the airspace, Adams said, is safety and preventing accidents involving military equipment and civilian aircraft.

“A lot of folks think when they hear restricted airspace, the military needs it to fly our aircraft,” he said. “That’s part of it, but 65% of our restricted airspace is from ground-delivered ordnance like artillery, mortar rounds and HIMARS rockets (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System). When we fire an HIMARS rocket, that projectile travels almost 10 miles into space before it comes back down into our training area.”

Raising the altitude to 1,500 feet over the ground, Smith said, had a lot to do with public input.

“We got a lot of comments referencing that 1,500 threshhold,” she said, adding that gave the Marines confidence that the solution they are working through with the FAA was not only “technically sound with their regulations, but was also in alignment with the public’s perspective on what altitude requirements would be needed to maintain the typical activities that happen on the ground in Johnson Valley.”

“It’s a good demonstration of how this project has unfolded over the years with the public shaping these outcomes,” she added.

U.S. Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Hesperia, said he absolutely supports the Marines’ ability to train and recognizes the unique value of the Twentynine Palms base, but that needs to be balanced with the rights of general aviation users, of which he is one.

Civlian pilots fly from smaller airports in the region, including Twentynine Palms Airport, Big Bear City Airport, Needles Airport, Barstow-Daggett Airport and Apple Valley Airport, and argue the base already has a significant amount of restricted airspace.

“They do training there that can’t be done anywhere else in the world, however, we want to also make sure that others’ ability to utilize that airspace is protected and the King of the Hammers is one of the uses we wanted to make sure still going to be permitted, but we also want to respect the rights of general aviation users to use airpsace when Marines are not using it,” Obernolte said. “So, the Marines have been very helpful, and I think we’re coming to a place where everyone is comfortable.”

He is pushing for better communication for when airspace is available to civilian pilots.

“The system is in place, but maybe it’s not as modern,” Smith said.

For Cole, who first learned about the plan in September, the entire experience has been déjà vu.

The Marines’ initial plan to expand their ground ranges prompted his 2007 idea for an off-road race to prove to the Bureau of Land Management that people were using the public land for recreation.

Showing how much the area was used helped when locals and lawmakers in 2013 pushed back, and Congress got on board to prevent a total takeover and crafted the existing shared-use plan instead.

In 2014, Congress established that approximately 43,000 acres of Johnson Valley would be for recreational use only, 79,000 acres would be for the Marines, and 56,000 acres would be shared between the two.

The recreation users have gotten used to the Marines’ occasional use of the area, Cole said, but worried newer plans involving the airspace would mean much less access.

“The restriction would have led to closure of the land,” he said was a concern, adding that drone operation is significant for King of the Hammers because of the daily feeds provided during the two-week January event to hundreds of thousands who watch. Lifting the altitude also provides a sufficient buffer to protect helicopters during medevac responses.

In other areas, when the government has closed the airspace, access for recreational use never returned, Cole argued. For example, he pointed to the US Army Yuma Proving Ground test center that uses 800,000 acres in Arizona.

“It just evaporated, they’re gone,” he said. “That’s what was going to happen here. When the government needs to close 150,000 acres of airspace, it’s not about closing 150,000 acres of airspace; it’s about closing 150,000 acres of land.”

“We’re Americans, we want the best for our military, and we support them,” he said. “But, it’s also balancing what’s left of our culture and what we do, too.”

Charlie Torstvet started riding in the desert when he was 16 and commuted from Anaheim over the years to enjoy the desert. He now lives not far from where Hammertown is set up in the Meads Dry Lake for two weeks every January for the big race.

Hammers is a huge boon for local merchants, he said. “The stores from Yucca to Victorville get a lot of business. Some racers come here a month before to practice.”

About the only time the recreation area isn’t busy with riders, campers or day-trippers, he said, is between June and September, and even then locals like him take advantage of nighttime rides.

Ideally, he said, he wishes the Marines wouldn’t take any of the shared-use land or at least wouldn’t use it during the peak riding times in early spring, but is relieved the current plan seems to be a compromise that still allows access on the land and the ability to fly recreational drones and send in helicopters for medevac.

Just a few weeks ago, Torstvet said a kid got injured, which required flying in a helicopter to take them to the hospital.

If this plan is approved by the FAA, it starts a one-year clock during which the Marines will see how well the arrangement works. If they determine they need more days of use, that would require a new proposal to the FAA and opportunities for public input, Smith said.

“Even under any future scenario,” she said, “for the airspace over the shared use area, public access protections would remain in place, including the use of the 1,500 feet when the area is open. Increased days of use would not change public access of the shared-use area.”

Cole said he is heartened by the fact that a compromise was struck.

“This isn’t the last time we will talk,” he said of the Marines. “What became disappointing to me was that it didn’t seem that we could talk. Communicating is the most important part.”

“People say riding a motorcycle feels like you’re flying, it’s the same concept in the desert on a UTV, you just get lost out there and you feel like you’re flying,” Cole said. “It’s as freeing as it gets.”