A number of people (most of them are on this List) have discussed with me their interest in utilizing hot air balloons and ultra-lights, in their efforts at meteorite recovery, over broad areas of sand dunes here in Southern California. Although I'm not very optimistic about their prospects in sand dune fields, I wouldn't want to discourage their efforts. After all, the area between sand dunes can be considered a "blow-out" area. And besides, Michael Cottingham found his Kermit stones in a Texas dune field.
The locality that most of these individuals have selected as being the most promising/pristine, is the Algodones Dunes in Imperial County. But just today, the LA Times ran an article announcing that this very Dune Field will be "under consideration for opening up 49,000 acres to the general public" (meaning, to off-road vehicular traffic). More details here: U.S. Seeks to Reopen Area to Off-Roaders - Desert Plan would overturn Clinton decision that curbed use of sand dunes. <http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-000022361mar28.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dcalifornia> This post serves as a "heads-up" to those individuals that were interested in surveying this "pristine" area from the air, that their time may be running out! On the other hand, they may have the opportunity to canvass the area by dune buggy, but they better plan on getting there early. Some weekends have as many as 200,000 ORVs flying over the crests of these dunes from every direction in the "general use (OHV) area". But plans are to only allow entry to 500 vehicles per weekend (in the former wilderness area). Here's wishing you all good luck, but I'll be sticking to the firmer, flatter terrain. :-) Bob V. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Greetings - send holiday greetings for Easter, Passover http://greetings.yahoo.com/ ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
