(Early May, 2019) We kicked off the start of our 2019 travel season with a short stay at the bizarre Trona Pinnacles, a National Natural Landmark in the dry Searles Lake Basin of Southern California. This unearthly landscape of towering calcium carbonate spires (tufas) formed under a deep lake at the end of recent ice ages, between 10,000 to 100,000 years ago, as mineral-rich hot springs percolated up and interacted with cold lake water and algal colonies.

The spires have been filmed in many TV shows and movies, including Lost in Space, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, and Planet of the Apes.

I had first visited this dramatic area in the early 2000’s on a photo road-trip and was looking forward to spending more time exploring and photographing around the spires.