February 23, 2001

Clambering Up a Cliff to Record the Fading Handiwork of Man

By LAWRENCE BIEMILLER

Every so often, Jo Anne Van Tilburg loads up her S.U.V. and heads north out of Los Angeles, past the last mall, the last freeway traffic jam, the last tract-housing development. She drives over the San Gabriel Mountains, turns right at a town called Mojave, and crosses miles of scrubland punctuated by sagebrush and Joshua trees. Eventually she leaves behind history as we know it -- industry, mass communication, the relentless advance of science -- and arrives at Little Lake.

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