Dear TecopaCabana readers,
As we close out our first year of reporting, I keep coming back to the same thought: in a place as small and far-flung as the Amargosa Basin, the stories that matter most are rarely the ones that travel far. They are the ones that change how we understand our own roads, water, public spaces, and institutions—the practical scaffolding of daily life in our small patch of California: Tecopa, Charleston View, Shoshone, Death Valley Junction, Chicago Valley, Sandy Valley and the surrounding Mojave Desert.
TecopaCabana exists to document those realities with care: to ask hard questions, to translate bureaucratic language into human stakes, and to record community life beyond rumor and hearsay. With that in mind, here is a roundup of our year’s strongest reporting and most resonant moments—stories that, in different ways, drew a straight line between policy and lived experience.
Public Safety, Up Close
The first major story of the year arrived with smoke: the wildfire at Borehole Spring, a popular hot spring whose ecological importance is out of proportion to its footprint on public land. We covered it not only as an emergency, but as a measure of rural reality—the thin margin between a contained burn and a community-wide crisis. And because Borehole Spring is habitat for an endangered vole, the fire raised stakes beyond property and access: it forced immediate questions about post-fire protection, recovery, and whether oversight can move at the speed that fragile habitat requires.
The Borehole Spring wildfire also became the point where our public-safety reporting snapped into focus. Covering that incident made it impossible to ignore what local responders contend with as a matter of routine: a vast service area, volunteer staffing, unreliable communications, and long travel distances that turn minutes into miles. From there, our coverage of the Southern Inyo Fire Protection District followed naturally—not as an abstract institution, but as one of the basin’s most essential lines of protection, and one that depends on clarity, resources, and public attention to function when the next call comes in.
Public safety then emerged as a defining theme for the year. One of our most important storylines tracked the strain on rural emergency response and the barebones logistical improvisation first responders experience day to day. With a new solar developer eyeing Charleston View—potentially the largest construction project in modern Inyo County history—the county’s missing public data stopped being a nuisance and became a liability, and the numbers began to break down in ways that made clear just how unprepared the region is for what might be coming.
Alongside that, we reported on day-to-day law enforcement realities—how technology and tactics are changing in the valley, and why local residents both resent and welcome the renewed attention to speed in a corridor where limits shift quickly and consequences can be severe.
Public-Private Partnership Unravels
The biggest civic story we followed this year was the unraveling—and reset—of the public-private arrangement that keeps the Tecopa Hot Springs Pools and Campground running. The county campground, as it is known, drives the local economy, is a public jewel and a civic anchor: a space that belongs to the public and, in practice, holds a central place in how the community meets, soaks, and connects.
In May, we reported that Inyo County issued a formal 30-day cure notice, and the concessionaire responded by walking away rather than attempting to remedy the cited violations.The county’s letter cited unpaid fees, incomplete improvements, and unauthorized construction—an unusually direct public record that turned vague local frustration into a documented breakdown of expectations on both sides.
We stayed on that thread because it was about capacity, oversight, and whether a modest concession model can realistically carry a heavily loved public amenity. When new records shed light on the site’s finances, they also underlined the structural problem: the gap between what the facility needs and what the old operating economics could plausibly deliver. The county’s termination of the concessionaire contract in June clarified that this wasn’t a soft transition—it was a reset triggered by failure to meet obligations, with the next operator inheriting not only opportunity, but deferred maintenance and heightened scrutiny.
A New Chapter
Then came the search itself. On July 1, Inyo County opened a new request for proposals, a public attempt at a “fresh start” that nonetheless carried the weight of an obvious question: can a new concessionaire succeed where the last one fell short, given the same desert realities and the same community expectations? We covered the RFP process not as bureaucratic paperwork, but as a pivotal moment in governance—one that determines who gets to manage a public resource, on what terms, and with what accountability to locals who rely on the pools as more than a tourist novelty, but as a way of life.
By mid-September, the story had a new protagonist. Inyo County recommended awarding the concession agreement to Las Vegas-based Flippin Happy Campers & Lance Hamrick LLC—an inflection point that signaled the county’s preferred “next chapter” for the site and set off a new round of community questions: about experience, priorities, responsiveness, and what “revitalization” would mean in practice.
But selection wasn’t the same as certainty. We reported through the long middle stretch—when negotiations delayed finalization and even routine public-records access was placed on hold until the deal was complete. As the county moved toward formal approval, the new agreement itself became news: a ten-year contract extending through 2035, with optional renewals that could carry operations out to 2045, and a broader redefinition of what Inyo County expects from a concessionaire running one of Southeast Inyo’s most visible public amenities. That includes the establishment of a county fund to which the concessionaire contributes a percentage of annual profits for the site.
We also took the time to read the fine print in public-facing terms. When we analyzed the incoming operators’ rate proposal, the piece wasn’t just about numbers—it was about values embedded in pricing: higher monthly rates, seasonal tiers and holiday premiums, and some questionable marketing practices that disappeared as they went noticed on these pages. That story resonated because it surfaced a central tension in rural public amenities: whether the purpose is to maximize revenue from visitors or to preserve access, affordability, and dignity for the locals who live alongside the resource seasonally or year-round.
And then, finally, the public got to see change with their own eyes. Inyo County performed work on infrastructure projects as the RFP process progressed. In early November, the pools were reopened by the new concessionaire after months of closure and visible neglect, with early visitors reporting deep cleaning and a meaningful reset of basic maintenance. We covered the reopening as both a practical milestone and a trust-building moment—because for a facility like Tecopa Hot Springs, credibility is not established by press statements; it is established by whether people can show up, soak safely, see their experience meet their expectations, and feel that the place is being well-cared for.
Community, Up Close
This year we launched a Science section, treating Tecopa as a living field site and building a growing repository that examines the basin through a scientific lens—geology, hydrology, ecology, and risk—so local questions can be grounded not just in anecdote, but in evidence.
We also produced a reader’s guide to Inyo County’s draft Tecopa Community Plan—treating it not as a filing on a shelf, but as the document that is quietly shaping the future of what can be built, where growth is directed or restrained, and how the county imagines services and infrastructure in the basin. Our goal was to translate planning language into practical implications for residents: what the plan signals about land use, development standards, and the long-term future of a community that is too often governed from afar.
We also followed the quieter kind of infrastructure story—the one told in inspection checklists and incremental fixes—through our “Paper Trails” coverage of the Tecopa Community Center’s bureaucratic glow-up as it shifts toward service as a climate refuge. Across three years of Inyo County Risk Management audits, the building’s evolution comes into view: exit signs that need to illuminate during outages, cracked concrete and small safety hazards, and the long-running saga of an unpermitted propane tank that refuses to resolve itself on “government time.”
What made that story land was the larger implication embedded in the fine print: the county’s growing recognition that the Community Center is not just a meeting hall, but potentially a “cooling site of last resort” in extreme heat, with modernization needs that follow from that role—capital planning, ADA-ready restrooms, and systems that work reliably when the grid does not. In other words, the paperwork wasn’t the point; it was a window into how a remote community tries to formalize resilience, one delayed repair and one updated standard at a time.
Following the Water
Suitably, this year’s most consequential thread was water—how it is managed, where it goes after use, and what rules are actually being applied. Our reporting focused on the tension between the mystique of “hot springs culture” and the unglamorous details of regulation: use of chemical disinfectants, exemptions from such products, discharge pathways, infrastructure, oversight responsibilities, and what the public can reasonably expect from facilities that operate in a fragile desert hydrology. We treated water not as a scenic backdrop, but as a governed resource with downstream impacts—environmental, legal, and communal.
We heard a lot of things around town and highlighted how quickly the desert can remind us who is in charge. The record-setting rainfall in Death Valley was not just weather; it was a lesson in extremes, infrastructure vulnerability, and public curiosity—about flash flood risk, about ephemeral lakes like “Lake Manly,” and about what a wet season might (or might not) imply for spring wildflowers. These pieces mattered because they captured the desert as it actually behaves, not as it is marketed.
We also spent time doing the unglamorous work of accountability reporting on local hospitality businesses that serve Tecopa’s visitors—reading the county record, analyzing guest reviews as a window into operational reality, and asking direct questions about what is permitted, what is compliant, and what is not. In a region where “tourism” often blurs into informal practice, we treated legality and regulation as the public-interest story they are: the rules that govern water, health, safety, wastewater, construction, and the basic standards guests and neighbors should be able to rely on.
Restoring History in Place
We also made space for the work of preservation and the dignity of local effort. Our coverage of the Tecopa Mines site restoration and the push toward a safer, visitor-friendly museum experience offered a different kind of hope: patient, volunteer-driven, practical progress that protects history without romanticizing hardship. In a region where “heritage” is often reduced to aesthetic, it felt important to document the real labor and safety-minded engineering that makes heritage accessible.
Mutual Care, Desert-Style
Community life remained the heart of the site. The SIFPD holiday dinner and fundraiser in Shoshone—anchored by local restaurants, neighborly generosity, raffle and auction energy, and the simple power of gathering—captured something essential about how this region survives: through connection. That was evident in our story about the Tecopa Town Hall meeting on funding cuts for food commodities distribution, then following up just over a month later with a story on the future return of distributions to Southeast Inyo. The hope is always to translate policy and governance into pantry-level reality.
Throughout 2025, advice columnist Sagebrush Sally kept circling the same core truths about life in Tecopa: community, accountability, and humility in a very small, very intense place. She reminded people that everyone was new once, that belonging comes from how you show up—caring for the land, neighbors, and shared spaces—not from how long you’ve been here or who “invited” you. She warned against mob mentality, gatekeeping, and the habit of turning every disagreement into a recruitment drive, urging folks to resist being drafted into other people’s desert drama and to favor facts, direct conversation, and fairness over gossip and public pile-ons. She defended the importance of scrutiny and local journalism, free speech, and honest records, while stressing that criticism should be rooted in care, not cruelty. And again and again, she came back to the same point: Tecopa only works if people protect both the town and each other—by setting boundaries, avoiding needless feuds, treating workers and visitors with respect, and remembering that in a place this small, the way you speak, act, and repair harm becomes part of the story the desert tells about all of us. Sally’s column “Between Memory and Imagination Lies Community” was the most-read advice piece of the year.
And then there were the moments that reminded us why local reporting should also leave room for wonder. The mushroom spotted along a stream at China Ranch, and the conversation it sparked about mycelium networks and the desert’s hidden ecologies, was one of those small stories that unexpectedly opens a door—an invitation to notice what is living beneath our feet, even here.
Accountability Has a Cost
Finally, one of the most sobering arcs we experienced this year was about the pressures placed on small, independent journalism itself. Accuracy is the foundation that makes all other accountability possible, however, when legal conflict is used as a response to reporting—especially in small communities where relationships overlap and power can feel personal—what is at stake is not only one publication or one editor, but the public’s ability to know what is happening around them without fear or financial intimidation.
Whether you read one story this year or every one—and even if this is your first visit—thank you for making room for this kind of work. TecopaCabana is built for a very unique and very specific place, and that place deserves reporting that is local in the deepest sense: grounded, fair, persistent, and unafraid to ask for clarity when the answers should already be public. If you have the means to support this work, please use our support form below in any amount that feels comfortable.
In 2026, TecopaCabana will introduce advertising packages to help sustain our local reporting, and we’d welcome the opportunity to speak with your business about reaching residents and visitors across the Amargosa Basin. Drop your information here to be among the first notified when our advertising opportunities are released.
Wishing you a steady, safe, and restorative holiday season—and a new year with more transparency, more community, and more light on the issues that shape daily life out here.
If you have a story to share, always feel free to reach out, our contact link is at the bottom of every page. We look forward to reporting on what matters most to you in 2026.
Warmly,
Nicole Brydson
Editor, TecopaCabana.com
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