Wednesday, April 3, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
The desert floor sparkled in the late morning sun, promising a group of teenage dreamers not riches but a lot of back-breaking work.
Tucked into the hills east of Las Vegas, about 20 young adults shoveled mounds of sand and dirt into large sieves. They sifted and extracted the shards of amber, green and crystal glass.
"It looks like a gold mine," said 17-year-old Jake Smith with Boy Scout Troop 206.
But all that glitters is not gold. The teenagers were working Monday and Tuesday to return the Sunrise and Frenchman mountain area into a pristine wilderness.
"Sometimes I find myself littering and (now) that I'm cleaning it up it makes me respect it so much more," said Charlotte Mausolf, a 17-year-old member of Christ the King Catholic Church's youth group.
The teenagers' community service is part of an effort by the federal government and Clark County residents to clean up the garbage dumped in the foothills southeast of Hollywood and Lake Mead boulevards.
The desert is littered with rusted cars, mattresses, beer bottles, flat tires, shotgun casings and year-old Christmas trees.
"You come out here and you can't do much," Jennifer Edelberg said during a dirt-sifting break. "You ride your bike and you get a flat tire."
The 15-year-old and her friend, Stephanie Ervin, were spending two days of their spring vacation participating in the Bureau of Land Management project.
They share a dream with others that the desert hills can be transformed into a second urban park, similar to Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area. Twenty years ago, Las Vegas youth cleaned up the garbage littering the canyon west of the city and BLM ecologist Gary Pavusko believes it can happen again.
"This doesn't look insurmountable," Pavusko said.
The teenagers' hard work will not go unnoticed. Metro Police and BLM rangers have promised to better patrol the area for illegal shooting and dumping, activities that carry heavy fines if caught, officials said.
The nonprofit organization Citizens for an Active Management of Sunrise and Frenchman Mountain Area plans to coordinate volunteers to continue the clean up.
Organization President Tom Hickey said his group envisions an area where people can ride bicycles and horses, go camping and hiking. But for now, the work continues.
"What we have here is a diamond in the rough," said Hickey as he stood among the glass and scrub brush.
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