EDITOR’S NOTE: On Feb. 12, President Barack Obama created three new desert national monuments, protecting 1.8 million acres of land. We’re taking a look at where to go and what to see in a three-part series. Read the other two parts here:

CASTLE MOUNTAINS MONUMENT: A glimpse at Old West history

MOJAVE TRAILS MONUMENT: Craters, mountains and dunes, oh my!

In the San Gorgonio Wilderness, the needles of ancient pines and towering firs rustle in the breeze with a sound like waves rolling in to shore.

David Myers, a regular in this isolated part of the San Bernardino National Forest, plops down inside the trunk of a standing cedar tree hollowed out by a lightning fire. He leans back and closes his eyes, soothed by the cool mountain air and the gurgle of nearby Vivian Creek.

“If you’ve never been somewhere like this, you don’t know you need it,” he says. “You need it – to be more inspired, to be more insightful, to find balance.”

More visitors are expected to experience those benefits now that this wilderness and the surrounding desert have been designated as the 154,000-acre Sand to Snow National Monument.

The monument was one of three created Feb. 12 by President Barack Obama. The other two, Castle Mountains and Mojave Trails, are in the desert north of Joshua Tree National Park.

Altogether the three monuments protect 1.8 million acres of land that once sustained Native Americans and, more recently, miners and cattle ranchers.

These lands are home to plants and animals not found anywhere else on Earth and have long provided solace to people like Myers – those who seek the magic of open spaces virtually unaltered by human touch.

Sand to Snow is the most biologically diverse of any of the nation’s monuments, with more than 800 plant species, 240 types of birds and 12 threatened and endangered species, including the desert tortoise and bighorn sheep.

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Aptly named, the monument extends from the sand of the Coachella Valley’s low desert to the snow of 11,503-foot Mount San Gorgonio, Southern California’s tallest peak. That’s like going from subtropical Mexico to the Arctic north slope in a span of 10 miles, said Tim Krantz, an environmental studies professor at the University of Redlands who has cataloged the flora of the San Bernardino Mountains.

“We’ve got some plants that are so rare they don’t have common names,” he said. Among the finds: a spotted phlox found only in two tiny patches in the Big Morongo Pass off Highway 62; and Krantz’s catchfly, a carnation relative with maroon petals and bright green on its stamen.

Maintaining biodiversity – the variety of life that supports ecological health – becomes increasingly important as the region warms with climate change and many of the plants and animals move north to cooler climes, biologists say.

The monuments are the key to maintaining that diversity because they create wildlife corridors that allow species to move to more suitable habitat largely unfettered by highways, development and industrial-scale renewable energy projects.

Like a giant web, the monuments link with other protected areas: Santa Rosa and San Jacinto National Monument to the south, Joshua Tree National Park to the east, Mojave National Preserve to the north and Death Valley National Park to the northwest.

“Someone might say, ‘Why be concerned about these obscure, rare, little wildflowers or the Nelson bighorn sheep that run up and down that mountain?’ My answer would be, ‘Each one of those species is one thread of the fabric of those ecosystems. You remove one thread, then another, and pretty soon the fabric’s going to fall apart,’” Krantz said. “Protecting one protects not just one species, but the hundreds that come with it. You’re protecting the fabric of that ecosystem as a whole.”

‘Hidden treasures’

Myers leads The Wildlands Conservancy, an Oak Glen nonprofit group that buys scenic lands and opens them free to the public. The group maintains a 12-preserve system across California.

Wildlands also donates some of its acquisitions to the government for conservation, which was the basis for the Sand to Snow and Mojave Trails monuments push that started almost a decade ago.

On a recent day, the sun glints off snow as Myers, tall and lanky, makes his way toward the steep Vivian Creek Trail out of Forest Falls, about a mile from the wilderness boundary. His favorite trail, South Fork, and many others are closed indefinitely because of damage from the Lake fire last year.

Along the trail, Myers pulls a flat, gray-green leaf from a yerba santa plant, also known as Indian chewing gum, and pops it into his mouth for a little sweetness. He encourages his hiking companions to stick their noses into the grooves of a Jeffrey pine to smell its butterscotch scent.

“There’s a lot of hidden treasures in these mountains, like the (country’s largest) champion oak tree that was discovered three years ago. What else is here?” he wonders.

Myers makes his way toward the creek, pausing in a marshy area where lemon lilies and columbine bloom in the summer. He contemplates staying until his feet take root.

“We have such a great backyard. You could be anywhere once you get back into this wilderness,” he says.

One of the goals of the monument designation is to highlight the San Gorgonio Wilderness, 95,000 acres in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Yucaipa and west of Morongo Valley. On its fringes are campgrounds, trailheads and small towns, but inside are waterfalls, small lakes, meadows, an aspen grove and expansive vistas.

Over the next several years, the various groups that helped win Sand to Snow’s creation will work with federal agencies to write a management plan, which will detail acceptable activities on the land.

Supporters aren’t sure what changes the monument designation will bring.

It could mean more money from Congress for trailhead improvements, trail maintenance and restoration of 19,000 acres of Forest Service land charred by the Lake fire, said Val Silva, executive director of the San Gorgonio Wilderness Association, a 200-member volunteer group.

Her nonprofit group raises about $30,000 a year to fund trail maintenance, tools and expenses for volunteers who donate more than 20,000 hours annually. They improve and patrol trails and conduct campground ranger programs for the chronically underfunded and understaffed Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.

Robin Kobaly, former manager of the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve on the eastern edge of the monument, hopes increased tourism will bring federal money for a visitor’s center to educate the public about the environmentally sensitive area.

“We don’t even know yet how big of a difference this is going to make,” she said.

The 31,000-acre preserve links Joshua Tree National Park on the east to the San Gorgonio Wilderness on the west, providing passage for mule deer, bobcats and bighorn sheep.

Big Morongo is the transition zone between the Mojave and Colorado deserts, where Big Morongo Creek rises to the surface for a few miles and creates a desert oasis that attracts hundreds of bird species, including the rare yellow-billed cuckoo and vermillion flycatcher and the endangered least Bell’s vireo.

The preserve is internationally known as a Pacific Flyway stop, drawing bird-watchers from Japan, Sweden, Switzerland and beyond.

“You just sit here and watch this bird highway in the sky,” Kobaly says.

“They’re flying over the desert and here’s this green oasis. It’s like a food court for them. There are so many habitats here,” she says.

Kobaly reveres this “most precious of places,” with its lush cottonwoods, towering fan palms and a marsh crowded with willows.

This area was once home to Serrano Indians, who depended on its honey mesquite trees, fan palms and willows for food, medicine and building materials.

Kobaly grew up in Morongo Valley and has fought for years to keep Big Morongo undeveloped. When she was a student at UC Riverside and the land was owned by San Bernardino County, she helped thwart a plan to develop the site into a campground with a man-made bass lake.

“This is not a recreation area that wildlife is allowed into. This is a preserve that people are allowed into,” she says.

In 2007, the preserve was threatened again when the city of Los Angeles proposed Green Path North, an 80-mile electrical transmission line project through environmentally sensitive areas, including Big Morongo Canyon.

Kobaly and others formed the California Desert Coalition to stop the project, which was scrapped in 2010. That fight morphed into the push for Sand to Snow.

“It’s so magical for so many people,” Kobaly said. “It’s worth all the work to keep it like this.”

ALSO READ:

CASTLE MOUNTAINS MONUMENT: A glimpse at Old West history

MOJAVE TRAILS MONUMENT: Craters, mountains and dunes, oh my!

CALIFORNIA DESERT: President Obama designates 3 new national monuments