If you camp out, be sure to check your boots in the morning before putting them on. Scorpions are notorious for hiding in boots. This advice, if followed, will make it possible to have a very safe desert trip. In fact, you may go for years and seldom, if ever, encounter a snake or scorpion. There are some manmade hazards on the desert, too.
Old mines are always dangerous, but the desert mines are especially so.
Unlike the hardrock mines in the mountains, desert mines are often dug in sand and shored up with timbers. As the timbers rot away, the mine becomes a big hollow bubble under the ground. Cave-ins are common where the miners dug too close to the surface. Don't ever go in an old mine, and be extremely careful when walking around desert mines. There are often unmarked shafts, and there is the ever present danger of a cave-in.