Trona and Beyond

We spent a day or two hanging out in Death Valley, then we were off to the Trona Pinnacles, which we had heard about online.  The Pinnacles are a bunch of tufa formations on a dry lake bed.  The lake used to be full of water, and certain concentrations of minerals allowed these neat rock formations to grow.

We stayed there for a night, parked right among the pinnacles, and then we decided to head on to Ridgecrest.  We ran some errands, got some Internet, and decided to go a little bit up Hwy 395 to a BLM campground called Fossil Falls.

Fossil Falls was really cool!  There was a bunch of volcanic activity a long time ago, and so there's all these neat, volcanic-looking, black rocks scattered all around.  There are also some dry falls that you can hike to.  There's a bunch of rocks in the riverbed where the falls used to be, and the water polished them so they're REALLY smooth.  We had a lot of fun climbing around there, it was really cool!

The next morning, after some biking and some math, we headed back up 395, planning to stay at the Alabama Hills Recreation Area, which is a bunch of BLM land outside of Lone Pine.  But first, there was something that we had to do...

A while ago, I read this article online about a guy who was obsessed with finding the spot where U2 took one of the pictures for The Joshua Tree.  The picture has the band standing in front of a Joshua tree, looking angry and unhappy.  The guy did manage to find it, and he left a big plaque there to commemorate the spot.  The Joshua tree in question died a while ago, (maybe from everyone walking around it?) but it was still an important stop for us.  The article gave GPS coordinates, so I saved them for when we were nearby.  (I think we were in Texas when I found the article.)

So, we took a little detour!  It was a little bit out of our way, but it was a pretty great stop.  It was in the middle of nowhere, on some BLM OHV area, about a quarter mile off the road.  (36°19’51.00″N, 117°44’42.88″W)  We hiked out to it, and there it was!  There's the dead Joshua tree, the plaque, a few guitars, and a suitcase filled with U2-related stuff.  We took some pictures too...

After our pilgrimage, we hopped back in the truck and drove a little further to the Alabama Hills.  We had read about it online, but it was a bit cooler than we expected!  There are these huge piles of rocks, kinda like at Joshua Tree National Park, and you can just pull in and park among them!  It's really awesome!  We're definitely gonna be here for a few days...