Trona Pinnacles

The pinnacles formed under the water of Searles Lake 10,000 to 100,000 years ago. Each one was a spring that grew as the calcium-rich spring water mixed with the alkaline lake water and formed layers of tufa. When the glaciers that fed the lake were gone the pinnacles remained, rising out of the dry lake basin. 

 My blogger friend, Nickie, recently wrote about the bad condition of the road leading to the pinnacles but we were passing by and decided to try it anyway. It's still bad! We didn't get any farther than her and Jimmy. We camped on the BLM land and I zoomed in on the pinnacles to get a few photos of them highlighted by the setting sun. 

Just down the road is the desolate town of Trona where a huge  processing plant, mostly closed down, is the last remnant of the mining operations the began on the dry lake bed in 1863. In 1913 Trona became a full fledged company town and remained that way until 1967. Rows of identical company houses line some of the streets but others feature burned out or collapsed structures, evidence of a series of earthquakes that hit the town in 2019, further adding to its decline.   35.61567, -117.37928  Pinnacles