Ripley Desert Woodland

Ripley Desert Woodland State Park Entrance

The trailhead of Ripley Desert Woodland State Park photos by Dean Webb

Seven miles west of the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve is the Arthur B. Ripley Desert Woodland State Park or just Ripley as the members of the Antelope Valley Group affectionately call it. This small park is a real treasure preserving the California juniper and Joshua tree ecosystem of the Antelope Valley. If you're looking for a quiet place in a natural setting with few visitors, this is it. Spring is a good time to visit since the weather is likely to be mild and a variety of annual wildflowers can be seen along the trail. If you're lucky your trip will coincide with the blooming of the beautiful blue sage (March or April).

The 500 acre park, which is bisected by the California Aqueduct and Lancaster Road, includes an area which was farmed up until 1972 and is now well covered by rabbit brush. The rest is native habitat, of which the northeastern section is the most interesting being covered with Joshua trees and California juniper with an undergrowth of California buckwheat, blue sage, and linearleaf golden bush. This prime area is the only part of the park which has been developed for visitors. The facilities are minimal, two picnic tables under a ramada, display boards, a trash can and a portable toilet. Be sure to bring water as none is available in the park. A one-mile loop trail begins here and features unusual California Junipers unlike others in the park. Although there are a number of points of interest on the trail, the importance of the walk is to experience the sights, sounds and fragrance of a desert woodland. On a cool, windy spring day it is so peaceful and quiet to be on the leeward side of those large California junipers.

Until the early part of the 1900s the western Antelope valley was a forest of Joshua and juniper trees. Then massive clearing projects opened this area to dry-land wheat farming and olive orchards. Most of these farms were abandoned over time. The Joshua and Juniper forests remaining are only a small patchwork of fragments of what was once a large desert forest on the far western edge of the Mojave Desert. Arthur B. Ripley was one of those farmers, but part of his land was never cleared for farming. Mr. Ripley died in 1988 and willed this land to the State of California. At that time the place was one big dump. The Antelope Valley Group of the Sierra Club volunteered to clean it up. On five different Saturdays, they filled five huge dumpsters with trash which had been deposited over many years. Because of this interest the State fenced the property to prevent further damage to the park. Had this trash not been picked up, it is doubtful that the State would have paid for it to be done. The land may well have been sold to help with budget problems.

Throughout the years, the A.V. Group has held many workdays at the park, and when Milt Stark leads a spring wildflower tour, it usually ends with a picnic there. Milt Stark is a Sierra Club leader and a past president of PR/MDIA (Poppy Reserve/Mojave Desert Interpretive Association). In these roles he has been the major force and inspiration behind the development of Ripley. In 1996 he designed a quarter-mile nature trail and guide, and the A.V. Group came out to build it under his direction. In recent years Milt worked to redesign and expand the trail. This was a major project for him requiring approvals from California State Parks and fraught with many bureaucratic delays. Finally this past year the hard work came to fruition. Milt made arrangements with the Boy Scouts to build the ramada to shade the picnic tables. He worked with State Parks, the A.V. Group of the Sierra Club, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and other groups to organize two workdays to build the new trail.

Now that the trail is complete, what's the next project? Little information is available about the California juniper. Some junipers in Ripley Park contradict some of things that have been written by botanists. So Milt and the volunteer researchers of PR/MDIA are studying the junipers at Ripley in a quest for better understanding of this native plant and how to protect it.

A visit to Ripley will allow you to see California junipers, Joshua trees, and many other native plants up close along with birds and other wildlife native to this special habitat. Arthur B. Ripley Desert Woodland is in the Antelope Valley on Lancaster Road. You may approach the park from either Interstate 5 or State Highway 14. Since it is only a few miles from the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, a visit to both parks can be easily accomplished in the same day.