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Today on Outdoor Nevada, we visit a Henderson park, catch the perfect land wave, learn about a few desert plants and see firsthand the damage of desert dumping.

♪♪♪ (John Burke) Imagine a place where there was a park near every home.

There's wildlife, scenic beauty and open sky, and it's all free and clean for the public.

Welcome to the City of Henderson Park System.

Henderson is one of the places in Nevada where you're always seeing people enjoying themselves outdoors.

And when you think about it, it's because there's a lot of public parks and recreation activities to take advantage of.

I reached out to my friend Kalie from the City of Henderson Parks and Recreation for more details.

First of all, Kalie, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you meeting me out here today.

-Oh, I'm happy to be here.

Thanks for having me.

-It really is spectacular out here, don't you think?

-It is.

It is beautiful.

-Now, when it comes to the trail system and the park system in Henderson, it's very different than other places.

Tell me how.

(Kalie Crose) So in Henderson, we like to have a park within walking distance of every resident, so a 10-minute walk is our goal to get to a park in your neighborhood.

-That's phenomenal, don't you think?

-It's amazing, yes.

-What do you think that offers the people that come here, the people that live here?

-It offers more of a sense of community.

You get to know your neighbors.

You're coming out, you're enjoying, you know, what's around you.

When you're stuck in your house and you can't get out, you don't get to explore, you know.

So that offers that community aspect.

-Obviously for anybody who thinks that Nevada is just a dusty desert, they have a visual understanding that it's a lot more than that.

What else do these parks offer?

-From amenities like for picnics, we offer reservations where people can bring their families and have barbecues, you know, playground areas.

A lot of our parks connect to trails so you can bring your bike and you can go out riding, you know.

You have access to classes we offer within our parks.

We do a lot of educational things, especially in the outdoor rec department where we take people out on our trails or into our different areas and tell them, you know, what we have to offer and get them on their bikes or get them on their scooters.

-You know, you've got the desert landscape, you've got the sky, you've got the water.

Doesn't it just feel like an exhale out here?

-Yes, it really does.

-And what's interesting is I've seen a couple of people.

Everybody around here looks peaceful, they look happy, they look like they're smiling, and they're using this area for what I think it was developed for.

-Exactly, yes.

We have 180 miles of trail in Henderson, and our trails connect to all different communities.

So I can jump on this trail here, and I can get all the way to Boulder City, you know, or I can take it and I can go all the way into Green Valley just by connecting to different trail connections.

So I mean, we're really reaching this whole valley.

-Yes, it's working.

I have a lot more questions.

Let's keep walking.

How often do you personally get out here?

-I like to get on the trails at least three times a week just for my own personal.

-Very special place, Henderson and all its parks, but let's talk about some of the things you can't do, you shouldn't do here.

-So obviously we'd like you to-- no littering.

You know, throw away-- what you bring in, you take it out with you.

Also, we don't allow motorized vehicles on our trails.

That's something that we really stress, that we don't want any motorized vehicles like ATVs out on our trails.

-This does appear to be a good place to take your pet.

-Yes, pets are always allowed as long as they're on a leash.

We do want your pets on a leash on our trails or in our parks.

We have a lot of great dog parks you can visit where you could let your dog off the leash.

-And it seems like it's handicap accessible.

-Yes.

We have a lot of-- most of our trails are handicap accessible, and if you call our offices, which the number is listed on our website, we could walk you through the best place if you needed special, you know, areas to park or use your wheelchair.

We can definitely tell you where that is accommodating.

-Tell me more about that website.

-So if you visit cityofhenderson.com, it has a great search bar where you can put in actually "parks and trails," and it will pull up all of our parks and trails, and we even have an interactive map on there that you can utilize to see difficulty levels and where they're at.

-And I know you feel this way, but I second it.

I couldn't recommend this more.

-Oh yes, I agree.

The public parks offer so much to a community.

I for one love to see people enjoying them.

Some people even travel from other states to visit specific parks in the city of Henderson.

Recently, I met a couple who not only enjoy the parks in Henderson, they promote them for the incredible land waves they provide.

Meet Shane and Katie of Lost Coast Longboarding.

Shane and Katie are adventurers, artists and entrepreneurs.

Shane loves finding a smooth strip of pavement and rip it.

He loves to ride.

He also loves to share his adventures.

I was excited to meet up with them to learn more about Lost Coast Longboarding.

Shane asked me if I wanted to try one of his boards.

I figured hey, why not?

Well, let me ask you this: What is Lost Coast Longboarding?

(Shane Rabant) Okay.

So Lost Coast Longboarding is our brand.

We started up in Humboldt in Northern California, and they call that the "Lost Coast."

And the reason our symbol has a tree on it is because that's where the tallest tree in the world is.

-And a longboard is just a longer skateboard.

-Yes, exactly.

-And you guys have been traveling around all over the place, right?

How did you end up in Nevada?

-Well, we travel all over.

So we travel south for the winter; when the weather's cold up north, we come south.

And then when it gets too hot here, we go north.

-Man, I got a thousand questions for you.

What do you say we hang ten and find a spot?

-I say let's do it.

-Let's go.

Now, I haven't been on a skateboard since-- well, it's been a minute.

But once I got on, man, it was exhilarating.

Now, Shane, he rips; me, I glide, and I am perfectly fine with gliding.

Dude, how much fun is this?

♪♪♪ Hey, how beautiful is Henderson, Nevada?

-I know, look at this landscape.

-It's unbelievable.

This looks like a good spot.

So let me get this right.

This is really a lifestyle for you, isn't it?

-Oh, absolutely, yes, it's a lifestyle.

My wife and I, we travel around and we just-- we're really "go with the flow" and everything happens for a reason, so we let life take it where it takes us.

-Everybody wants to be you.

How do you make your money?

-Making skateboards.

So far, that's how we survive.

Having an income on the road makes it possible for you to stay on the road indefinitely if you have an income.

So selling skateboards is our income but it's hard to make skateboards, it takes a while, so the income is not huge.

But we also have a blog and we've been doing that for about four years, and eventually we'd like that to get enough traffic to be a supplemental income so we don't have to rely on the boards.

We can have a couple other streams so we can travel more, like internationally and go to different places.

-So you're making these, but these are all one-of-a-kind really, and these are not prints.

You're painting all these.

-Yes.

Every single one of these is hand-painted.

I hand-paint each board.

My wife and I get the wood, we sand them and we hand-paint each one.

We assemble the wheels, the bearings, the trucks, and we apply the clear grip tape.

So the top is painted as well, one-of-a-kind each one.

-You know, it's funny.

If somebody goes to your blog, as you mentioned, one of the things that they'll read that you wrote is "I'm a hard worker."

And I think when people think of skateboarding, you're traveling the country, you know... -Yes, it might look like we don't work hard.

It might look kind of like we're just chilling, but it's literally full time, more than full time.

When you work for yourself, there's no time off.

When you go to work at a traditional job, all right, I work eight to five.

But when you're done, you go home and you do whatever you want.

But when you work for yourself, there's no time off.

It could be in the middle of night I get an email, I'm at work.

I'm at work, so I could be painting a skateboard, we could be climbing a mountain, we could be hiking.

We're always at work all the time.

-You've traveled all over, and you continue to do that.

Give me your impressions of the state of Nevada, its people, its landscape.

-The state of Nevada is great.

We love the people too.

We've encountered so many great people, whether it be in the Vegas area, the Reno area, Beatty, Hawthorne, the little desert towns in between.

There's a unique aspect to the little desert towns and the geography; I mean, look at this.

The mountains and the deserts, a lot of people think the deserts-- I feel like they think of the Saguaro cactus and kind of just plain, but there's so much more than that.

There's canyons, there's rivers, there's mountains, there's snow, there's log cabins up in the mountains.

It's not what everybody expects.

-You keep saying "we," so I want to meet your better half, and I want to see where you're staying and how you create a beautiful front yard every day.

-Awesome.

I'd love to introduce you to my wife, Katie.

-Let's go.

-All right.

♪♪♪ All right.

John, this is my wife, Katie.

-Hi, Katie.

How are you?

-Good, how are you?

-Are these the boards?

-This is the boards.

Katie is setting them up for you to see.

Check them out.

-They are gorgeous boards.

-Thank you very much.

I really appreciate that.

-I can already tell that you two belong together.

How did you guys meet?

(Katie Wellman) I was swimming in the ocean on Venice Beach.

He walked up to me and asked if he could join me and I said yes, and we've just hung out every day since then.

-That's awesome!

Now, this is sort of a different lifestyle, right?

How has it been for you?

-Perfect.

I love everything about it.

I love the freedom.

When I used to live in one place, I always wanted to keep moving to see more and more stuff, but this allows us to do that.

-A fundamental part of your life of what you're doing is your blog.

Tell me about that.

-Absolutely.

So our blog is called "The Lost Longboarder," and it's a documentation of all of our travels, the skate parks we visit, the longboard trails we hike-- or we travel, the hiking, the mountain climbing.

We do a lot of outdoor adventures, and we do it all while living in our house and going wherever we want.

-How's the boarding here in Henderson?

How much did you enjoy that?

-It's really great.

This trail, the Wetlands Loop Trail, there's so many paths around Henderson and the Las Vegas area that are smooth pavement, which really helps.

Some people think a sidewalk is great, but the "dump-a dump-a dump" going over the sidewalk you really feel it, and the smooth pavement here is great.

And not only the trails, but the neighborhoods.

There's a lot of hills and smooth pavement and neighborhoods.

Sometimes longboarders like having a wider road because when it's narrow, it kind of gets scary in traffic and bikes and kids walking.

But if you're in a neighborhood going the same pace as the traffic, it feels more comfortable.

-How do you like Nevada?

Tell me what you like about it.

-I love how you can go to the middle of nowhere and see nobody.

I love the stars; I love the geography.

There's a lot of really cool places to explore where most people don't go.

-And where are you going next?

-We're heading north because it's getting really hot here.

We're going to check out Beatty, Hawthorne and whatever small towns in between.

-Enjoy yourself.

Beatty is awesome; as a matter of fact, stay at the Spicer Ranch and tell them I said hi.

Tell them Outdoor Nevada wishes them well.

-All right, we can do that.

-Guys, keep up the good work.

Roll on with yourselves, okay?

-Awesome, thank you so much.

-So long.

-Bye.

Shane and Katie travel the West Coast spreading the good word of living a full life, outdoor activities and lots of fun.

It sure is refreshing to meet people like Shane and Katie.

They're doing what they love and sharing it with anyone who wants it.

I admire them, and I got to admit, I'm a little bit jealous.

The Mojave Desert-- I absolutely love it.

It looks so ancient, so still, like nothing ever happens out here when, in fact, it's filled with abundance, beauty and growth of all kinds.

That's why today I'm going to meet up with my old friend from the Bureau of Land Management, Lara.

She's a botanist, and through her eyes, see this completely different.

I think a lot of people would look at the Mojave, see this dirt and go well, it's got different colors, that's real nice.

But this is really unique soil, isn't it?

(Lara Kobelt) Yes.

These are gypsum soils.

These have a higher gypsum content, and there's plants that just grow in these soils.

-When you say that, do you mean they just grow in Nevada?

-There are some plants that we're going to talk about today that just grow in Nevada, and specifically Clark County, so we say those are endemic to Clark County.

-That's pretty cool.

-Yes.

-Here's something that stands out to me.

This is a-- well, I'm going to guess it's a poppy of some kind.

-This is a poppy.

This is the Las Vegas bearpoppy.

The name is describing where it grows, which is around Las Vegas.

-And I notice too that some of these guys haven't woken up into spring yet, have they?

-So these are actually towards the end of their flowering period.

If you look, all of these are actually the early seed pods.

If there are any that are still hanging down like these right here, those are buds.

So those haven't become flowers yet.

-There's one.

These guys look like they're all alert.

Can we go look at this one?

-Yes.

-Why is it called the bearpoppy?

-It's called the bearpoppy because the leaves are really fuzzy and they kind of look like bear feet.

-Okay.

So when you look at something like this, you see this at the bottom, it is fuzzy.

It's soft and fuzzy.

This is all one plant?

-Yes, this is all one plant, and these little hairs actually help protect the leaves from water loss.

-How in the world does this thing get pollinated?

Because I'm not seeing a lot of bees out here.

-So anything will pollinate this plant, but there is a solitary bee called the Mojave poppy bee, and the Mojave poppy bee only pollinates this plant.

So it only goes to the Las Vegas bearpoppy.

-That itself, that right there, that's just gold.

That's amazing.

I don't see a bunch of these.

First of all when I think of poppies, I know there's big poppy fields in California.

Is this a relative?

-Yes, this is related to the other poppies you see fields of, but this is perennial so it means it lives more than one year.

Those poppy fields are all annual, so they only live one year and then they die.

-Animals can be threatened and endangered, can plants?

-Yes, plants can be endangered too.

So the Las Vegas bearpoppy is state endangered, and it's also been petitioned for federal Endangered Species Act listing.

-Which brings up a good question.

I'm hiking in the Mojave, and I'm fortunate enough to see one of these.

What do I do, can I just take one home?

-No, you definitely shouldn't take one home.

They're protected since they're state endangered already, and these plants do have a lot of-- face a lot of threats from things like off-highway vehicles and littering.

-Do these stay yellow all year-round, or what happens?

What's the cycle?

-So they bloom this time of year.

They usually bloom in April and then they'll go to seed in May and June, and things like ants will come along and pick up the seeds and move them around.

-You know what's amazing, you look at the Mojave and there's just brown and gray dirt and then boom, this beautiful yellow plant shows up just sporadically.

It's like a gift that just pops up randomly; isn't that cool?

-Yes, it's spectacular.

-Now, there's another one over here I want to take a look at and maybe you can tell me about it.

It kind of looks like a little Christmas tree.

-Yes, okay.

♪♪♪ Okay, you're going to tell me something good about this one.

What is this?

-So this is one we don't touch.

This is phacelia palmeri.

-I'm glad you started with that.

-So this plant also likes to grow on gypsum soils, it's only found on gypsum soils, and it's a type of phacelia.

-Is this endangered as well?

-It's not endangered, but it is sort of rare, like it only grows on these specific soil types.

-It's unmistakable.

The area that we're in, I see the trash.

How does that affect these guys?

-So things like dumping come with offroad driving.

You can see tire tracks right here.

Obviously, the plants are getting run over is an impact, and the tires also compact the soil which is-- you can feel it's kind of squishy.

That actually helps hold water which helps these plants.

The trash dumping specifically, it can be on top of the plants.

It also introduces weeds, and people tend to set trash on fire so that has impacts to these ecosystems too.

-I wonder how that makes you feel as a botanist out here in the Mojave.

-I get very frustrated, I think.

I just think people don't understand how cool these plants are and how important they are, and if they did, maybe they wouldn't dump their trash out here.

-Do you ever talk to them?

-I do not.

-Hold on, I got you covered.

She's taking really good care of you.

Don't worry about a thing.

There's another one over here; it's by its lonesome.

Can we go look at that one?

-Yes.

-Now, I'm guessing this is not a poppy, although it seems to want to try and look like one.

-It's not.

So this is another what we call a "gypsophile."

So it lives in the gypsum and "phile" means loving, so gypsophile.

This is called silverleaf sunray, and it is related to the sunflowers that you grow in your garden.

-I don't see many more of these out here.

Are these hard to find as well?

-Actually, there's a bunch of them.

They just don't have flowers on them.

We're in a drought year this year, so not all of them have put up their stalks.

-Tell me about a bloom year versus a non-bloom year.

How often does that happen, and what does that mean?

-So there's been a lot of talk recently about super blooms; it's been a thing.

In the desert, where there's rain there's flowers, and we just haven't had much rain this year.

We're probably in the worst drought in like 20 years.

It's pretty bad this year.

But you can see some flowers are still poking their heads up.

-Well, where there's education there's value, and I think a lot of people might be tempted to just see this as sort of a wasteland.

But once you read it through your eyes, you really start to value this, and you start to look for it.

And I wish you continued success in your battle to educate everybody about the beautiful land that the Mojave is.

-Great.

Thank you.

As you've watched, I'm sure you noticed the trash.

Well, the area that we're in, it's a local hotspot for illegal dumping.

I'm going to warn you right now, some of the things that you're about to see are expected but there are other things, things I was not only disgusted with, it made me sad and it made me angry.

In my line of work, I'm always introducing people to the beauty of this state, but more and more, I am running into this.

What am I looking at?

(John Asselin) So this is a good example of illegal dumping here in the valley.

We have that interface of the urban area and nature real close together, and people end up coming out and doing this illegal dumping.

It's an issue all around the valley.

-Is it a situation where you clean it up and then it comes back or people see it and they go oh, I can do that too?

-It's both.

We do get groups who come out.

We'll have volunteer groups because we're not in the trash removal business.

We're not budgeted for that.

So we do have somebody who coordinates groups together, and it's a crazy-hard job and gets volunteers out there to clean this stuff up.

But then it just fills right back up and, you know, trash attracts trash.

People see trash, and they're like oh, there's a place where I can dump, and they'll dump their stuff out here and it just gets worse and worse.

-And obviously it's very depressing to look at.

Now, what does it do to the environment?

-Well, it's very bad for the environment.

I don't think a lot of people understand that there are a lot of plants and wildlife that live out here in the desert, and it's a very fragile environment because it's the desert.

It's tough to live out here, so these plants have adapted for living in a desert environment but they haven't adapted to live in, you know, stuff that's been trashed or people driving over things.

You know, as you can see, there's just a few plants here and a few plants there.

So when you destroy those areas, you've destroyed the habitat.

-And you know what else?

It's like on a windy day like this, I'm seeing trash way out there because it's just getting blown out.

When does this happen, is this in the middle of the night?

-I think a lot of it happens in the middle of the night.

It's hard to tell because like I said, we don't have enough people to be everywhere at all times to find when people are dumping trash.

-Why is it charred?

-Well, what happens is people come out and dump trash, and then someone else will come along and say oh, this is something that would be cool to set on fire, and then they set it on fire.

You know how some people are, they just do insane things.

-And there's different kinds of trash.

There's another pile up here.

Let's go take a look because you can find almost anything out here and you wouldn't think about it but there's all different kinds of debris and trash out here.

-Right.

And these things back here, you would think-- you know are not okay.

You know, there's the obvious trash that we came from that you know you shouldn't be throwing furniture and mattresses out in the desert, but some people don't-- a larger number of people don't understand how bad landscape trash is.

It's obvious this car door shouldn't be thrown out there.

But things like palm fronds and things that are cut in the yard, people think it's okay to dump out in the desert because well, it's biodegradable, it's a plant.

But this is the desert, and there's two big problems: For one is the desert; it doesn't rot.

It doesn't decompose out here.

It takes hundreds of years for that sort of thing to happen.

Another thing is these are not native plants to the desert.

They're not native plants to this area at all in your landscaping.

So what ends up happening is you end up bringing out seeds that end up growing out here and then compete with the native plants.

And these landscape-type plants are bred to survive much better than these ones out here that are native plants, so they end up taking over the area.

-And I hear you, but I think somebody who did this doesn't give a darn about any of that, and it's really insulting to anybody who lives and breathes the environment, you know, that breathes and appreciates this state.

What do we do?

-Well, I mean, our biggest weapon for the fight against this is education, and it's teaching people that this is not okay and the dangers to the environment, the dangers to the desert for doing this sort of thing.

-Is that going to work?

-You know, I would hope so.

I remember when I was a kid...

While John and I talked, another Bureau employee arrived.

His name is Nate.

He's the one and only person at the Bureau of Land Management tasked to remove the trash.

All of it.

One guy.

What would you say are the top five things that you find out here?

There's tires, there's mattresses, what else do you find out here?

(Nate Holmes) Tires, mattresses, couches, you know, just bottles, stuff like that, tons of just piles of household trash that people leave.

-So besides a heightened awareness and education of the public, what do you need?

I mean, I feel bad for you.

You're one guy out here and, you know, you're bringing up the rear.

What do you need?

-Community vigilance and responsiveness.

You know, if you see somebody dumping, if you can, try to get a picture of their license plate and send it in.

You can send it to the county or you can send it to us and try to help us enforce the laws.

-You know what else you need?

You need an army of people with you.

You need a staff.

-That's also true, yes.

-I'm going to advocate for that.

Listen, I say this a lot on the show, but today it really hits home.

I just want to thank you for fighting the good fight.

I know it's an invisible fight.

Not everybody sees you or knows you or realizes the value of what you do.

I do.

Hopefully, the audience does now.

And I just thank you.

I really appreciate everything you're doing.

You know, Nevada, I've met you.

I know you.

You're better than this.

I know that.

You don't want this.

So here's what you're going to do.

You're going to start taking responsibility for your part in this system, and if you're looking at hiring a contractor, make sure that they're licensed.

Make sure you dispose of your trash properly.

Everything matters.

And one more thing: Then you're going to go hiking out here.

Maybe I'll see you on the trail, and with Nate's help, we'll beat this thing together.

♪♪♪ Support for Outdoor Nevada comes from Jaguar Land Rover Las Vegas, inspiring the spirit of adventure with confidence in any terrain or condition.

Information at jlrlv.com.