The spiderweb of dirt roads etched into the desert north of Pearblossom Highway encompasses some of the trashiest scenes in Los Angeles County: piles of tires, bags of used diapers, car parts, whole burned-out cars, couches, office chairs, dining chairs, dressers, motor oil containers, dump truck-sized mounds of unidentifiable rubble and, oddest of all, giant sheets of plastic draped over Joshua trees.
Navigating his red pickup over the rutted roads, Christopher Minsal, council president in the unincorporated community of Pearblossom, pointed out a source of the plastic — a distant white dome protruding from the carpet-like canopy of gray-green desert flora.
“You see the plastic in the distance?” he said. “That’s a marijuana grow.”
This downtrodden expanse of the Antelope Valley unexpectedly achieved a remarkable turnaround last year, reducing by more than half the number of recreational vehicles squatting on its back roads. At least it did so on paper…