It is the things in the desert that do not take shape, may never come to exist, that can manage to feel more arresting than some of the things that do.

A decade ago, Oakland-based BrightSource Energy was on the prowl for desert land—-as solar developers generally are—-on which to site a proposed elephantine 500-megawatt heliostat farm. For reasons that do not on their face seem even faintly logical, the company landed on Broadwell Lake, five miles north of Ludlow, as a choice spot for this 5,130 acre (eight square miles, about the size of all of Santa Monica, CA) solar thermal power plant.

Broadwell Lake sits at the center of the Sleeping Beauty Valley, which has been described by one biologist as a “frontier that is poorly documented” and in which researchers “expect that additional inventory here will unearth considerable new discoveries to science.”

What drew BrightSource to this distinct transition zone between the western and eastern Mojave—-an area in which bighorn sheep migrate, an ancient plant (crucifixion thorn) that may live 10,000 years can be found, along with at least 350 other species of plants?

Was the company’s leadership attracted by the powerful and piercing solitude that can be experienced here? Was it how the dry lake sits between two mountain ranges (Cady, Bristol) and abuts one designated wilderness area (Kelso), offering a view so unfettered by even trace development? Was it this that made it seem a well-suited potential home to 200 foot-tall towers that would boil water? Was it that you can spend a full day here and see no body, no car, no thing, no structure—-for miles—-and almost begin to imagine the world before man?

BrightSource withdrew its bold proposal in 2009 not just amid objections from conservationists and scientists, but also because of the looming possibility of the area becoming part of a national monument. Seven long years later, in early 2016, the Mojave Trails National Monument was at last established. To be clear, Broadwell Lake would have been an absurd and destructive location for a power plant. Had the project been realized, one might travel here to experience sorrow over the works of man and their attendant consequences, from which there is seemingly no turning back. Fortunately, we can still visit to instead experience joy over the sublime quality of stillness available here most days, and with scant evidence of man for miles.