When we left Red Rock Canyon, I was nominally aiming for an obscure mine and peak at the edge of Death Valley, but it quickly became clear that the weather was still a bit unstable. Snow was forecast down to about 5000 feet, and the same "we're still getting used to the vehicle and don't want to deal with snow" thinking led us to change plans. So, back to the trusty atlas!
It didn't take long to find the Trona Pinnacles National Natural Landmark. Hmmm....I've never heard of that before. A little bit of research showed that it is an area of ancient tufa formations -- pinnacles sort of like the tufa in Mono Lake, but these formed in the bed of ancient Searles Lake, which has has long since dried up. Sounds cool. It's on BLM land, with allows dispersed camping. Let's go! (Never mind that it's only an hour or so down the road; we were out to have fun and not make distance.)
The road leading into it was dirt, and a little washboarded, but not too bad. It paralleled the old railroad tracks, and the terrain was scenic under the dramatic sky full of weather rolling through.
After about 5 miles of braided dirt roads, we got to the official signboard. You can see the tufa pinnacles in the distance. These towers of rock were formed by calcium carbonate precipitating out of an ancient lake as calcium rich spring water rose into the alkaline lake from underground. The lake then dried up, leaving alien-seeming towers crumbling in the middle of the valley. Apparently, movies are filmed here occasionally, as one might imagine this to be an alien landscape.
As we got closer to the pinnacles, it became clear that we would not have them to ourselves, despite it seeming like the middle of nowhere. You see, this patch of land is also designated as an off-road vehicle area, so there were people out with their jeeps, trucks, and motorcycles, zipping around the rocks. One could be annoyed by this, but the area was big enough that everyone was spread out and we decided to look at others' recreation as our evening's free entertainment.
We found ourselves a likely looking flat spot to park the van for the night
set out for a walk,
and then found a better spot closer in to the pinnacles.
The views on our walk of exploration were fun, because the sky was ever-changing. One could see rain in the distance, and it did sprinkle on us a little, but by and large it was pretty nice.
Windy!
The evening's entertainment as we cooked dinner was watching people drive their 4WD rigs around the not-so-difficult roads across the way. We were amused at one point by the aural contrast between the people we couldn't see off to the north, who were engaging in redneck target shooting, and the clean-cut person in the ravine over to the south who was clearly shooting a video for social media extolling the virtues of his extra shiny SUV. All types can enjoy BLM land.
The evening light was good.
We enjoyed the fact that our van cozy pod shielded us from the cold wind. Chad set up one table just outside the door on which to cook, and another tiny table in the van on which to eat. It also turns out that the refrigerator makes an excellent bench once you put a fluffy bath mat on the top of it for cushioning!
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