I thought of you Death Valley devotees when I read this obituary. Elden was quite a man:
Elden Hughes dies at 80; longtime Sierra Club leaderHughes was among a dozen environmentalists invited to the White House in 1994 when President Clinton signed the landmark California Desert Protection Act, which created a new national park in the eastern Mojave Desert and elevated Death Valley and Joshua Tree from national monument to national park status.More
here