Beginning in the late 1960s, recreational use of motorcycles and four-wheel-drive vehicles became concentrated in Dove Springs Canyon in the western Mojave Desert. An employee of the Bureau of Land Management, which manages the land in Dove Spring Canyon, took this photograph from the place where the Los Angeles Aqueduct exits the south side of the canyon. The road in the foreground is the maintenance road for the aqueduct. Dove Spring formerly was in the bottomland area just to the right of this up-canyon view. Only a few trails are visible on the midground hillslopes, and most of the bottomland vegetation is relatively undisturbed. The vegetation is mostly Larrea tridentata (creosote bush) and Ambrosia dumosa (white bursage) on the hillslopes, and the same species plus Lepidospartum squamatum (broomweed) in the bottomlands. At least 20 other perennial species, including Yucca brevifolia (Joshua tree) are in the canyon. (photographer unknown, courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management)