Members of this community were more than ready to welcome the new Sand to Snow National Monument. Conservation groups and the chamber of commerce unveiled a new sign proclaiming Morongo Valley “Home of the Sand to Snow National Monument” Tuesday, just four days after President Barack Obama designated the new monument.

For years, a sign on the road that descends into Morongo Valley declared the town the “future home” of the Sand to Snow National Monument. That future has arrived, and now Morongo Valley has a new sign. For the crowd that turned out to celebrate the unveiling of the sign on Tuesday, the occasion marked a victory after years of pushing for the national monument and a time to be proud of their town and its desert vistas stretching from the oasis of Big Morongo Canyon to snow-capped Mount San Gorgonio.

For communities of residents in places like Morongo Valley, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms, the national monument designation is pure elation for what it means for conservation as link between the San Bernardino Mountains and Joshua Tree National Park, said Frazier Haney, conservation director for Joshua Tree-based Mojave Desert Land Trust. “We worked to have this designation for seven years,” Haney said, in an interview prior to the monument sign dedication.

The White House has announced that three new National Monuments will be designated in the California Desert, covering almost two million acres of some of the wildest, most ecologically crucial landscapes remaining in the state. The monuments, which will be formally announced by President Obama on Friday, will fill in the blank spots in what is now a nearly unbroken chain of protected land stretching from the Southern California coast to the Colorado Plateau.

At 1.6 million acres, the Mojave Trails Monument is the largest of the three. The name refers to the desert trails that the Chemehuevi people used to follow along the trading routes to the Pacific. The monument also follows a more modern trail: the snaking Route 66, one of the most iconic roadways in the United States. And it includes huge stretches of mountain-and-basin terrain that aren’t paved. “You can explore Mojave Trails up into the hills, and you can see for 100 miles and not see any roads or buildings,” says Frazier Haney, conservation director of the Mojave Desert Land Trust. “It’s as big a vista as you can find anywhere.”

With his second term winding down, Obama has now protected more than 265 million acres of land and water, more than any other administration. A year ago, Obama designated much of the Angeles National Forest as the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. The designations, which do not include funding, were supported by groups including the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Assn., the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Mojave Desert Land Trust.