Trona Pinnacles

In our final week of Baja, we changed our minds from the original plan of going to Disneyland for an adult trip to the fun-land to avoiding all that is Southern California. We have talked about revisiting Hwy 395, which we have not done together as a couple, and it seemed like a great route to take on our way up the Sierras. So, we high-tailed it up from the border, past the San Diego and Los Angeles areas, and started our Northward journey.

Considering just how many miles I’ve driven around the West, specifically around the South West, it is weird to say the following statement, but here goes; I’ve never been there. The statement was true for the Trona Pinnacles, a National Conservation area out in the middle of the desert between Bakersfield and Death Valley, until now. Kerri had never been here either so it was an easy choice for our first week back in the states.

The Trona Pinnacles is a surreal area taken straight from some landscape on Mars. A large area of Tufa spires in an old dry lake bed, it is miles off a main highway passing through towns of little importance to the rest of the world. It takes a determined person to trek the long washboard dirt road to get out here – which Big Blue did at breakneck speed. Initially we found a few others in vans and larger RVs out here as well, but by the start of our work week the wind started up and seemed to have scared all the other campers away. That’s all great for us, as we have the entire area to ourselves!

We are taking this time to slowly re-acclimate to life north of the border, where there is free camping,  half-n-half,  and turning the left knob on a sink actually does something. We got to go on a hike around the pinnacles on our first day here – our first hike since October back in Moab. The 3.3 miles we hiked felt great, not only for us but Moose, who ran all over the desert like a mad dog for 90 minutes. He slept well after that. Byron stayed back and slept well while we hiked. That’s his jam nowadays – sleep.