Dales now consists of approximately 25 homes with approximately 70 residents, a few ranches of varying sizes, and a trout farm. The local geography includes vernal pools to the west (Hog Lake) and just north of the Station (Dales Lake), as well as volcanic buttes (Tuscan Buttes, Soap Butte, Inkskip Hill), natural mineral springs, rolling hills of blue oak savannah, several seasonal gulches and the anadromous Payne's Creek, and borders the Sacramento River Bend area. The ancient Indian tribes known as the Yana, including the Yahi and Nomlaki, occupied and flourished in this area for millennia until slaughtered by white settlers in the 1800s. The Ishi Wilderness is a local protected public area dedicated to these Indians, named for Ishi, the last known survivor of the Yahi, who made contact with the modern world in 1911. This area borders other protected areas including wildlife preserves, which are the winter habitat for the migratory Tehama deer herd, the largest migrating deer herd in California.