DOINews: BLM and the Silver Screen

Last month, in the run-up to the Academy Awards, the Bureau of Land Management featured a number of its popular film-making destinations on its Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter accounts. Below are few of the images and fun facts from these special places.




Formed by windblown sands of ancient Lake Cahuilla, the Imperial Sand Dunes in BLM's California Desert District create a unique landscape ideal for Hollywood film backdrops. Road to Zanzibar, Flight of the Phoenix, and Return of the Jedi are just a few of the many movies and commercials filmed at the dunes. (Photo by Greg Fuhs, BLM.)




One of the original eight rivers included in the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968, Oregon's Rogue National Wild and Scenic River is surrounded by forested mountains and rugged boulder and rock-lined banks. John Wayne and Katherine Hepburn shot their 1975 film, Rooster Cogburn, alongside the picturesque river. Photo by BLM.




The BLM-managed Bonneville Salt Flats are a 30,000-acre expanse of hard, white salt crust on the western edge of the Great Salt Lake basin in Utah. The remote and rugged site has served as a backdrop for such films as Independence Day, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Con Air, The World's Fastest Indian, and Mulholland Falls. It is also on the National Register of Historic Landmarks for its contribution to land speed racing. Photo by BLM Utah.




The Trona Pinnacles make up one of the most unique landscapes in the California Desert. The tufa spires, some as high as 140 feet, were formed underwater thousands of years ago when Searles Dry Lake connected Mono Lake to Death Valley. More than 30 movies and commercials are filmed here every year – a few examples include Star Trek V, Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes, and Battlestar Galactica. Photo by Bob Wick, BLM.




A short drive from Hollywood, California's Alabama Hills have attracted film makers from all over the world. Since the early 1920s stars such as Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy, and Gene Autry have been shooting it out with outlaws. Classics such as Gunga Din, Yellow Sky, and How the West Was Won were also filmed at the popular site. Photo by Bob Wick, BLM.




The Fisher Towers trail in Utah is one of the most iconic hiking destinations in the entire BLM system of trails. This scenic location has "starred" in many films, from John Wayne's Commancheros and the classic Wagon Train television series to Billy Crystal's City Slickers II and the Disney film John Carter of Mars. Photo by BLM.

By: BLM-National

March 2, 2015