The Trona Pinnacles are living history – and that's why they're worth a drive

From the archive: This story originally published at The Desert Sun in April 2018.

The moment you turn off State Route 178 onto the dirt road that beats through the dry bed of Searles Lake basin, the Trona Pinnacles erupt like spires in the dusty distance.

It’s as if they’re floating across the horizon, these tufa formations that were created underwater between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago. History right there in the making. Signposts of another era, a different time.

Hot springs once surged from beneath this lake, creating fractures that allowed the calcium rich groundwater to combine with highly concentrated, carbonated brine from Sierra Nevada snowmelt. What resulted was calcium carbonate (tufa). As it simmered, it bonded with algae colonies beneath the surface to create the hollow tubes that we see today.

Now, an entire ecosystem lives in and around the towers: prairie falcons, ravens, kit foxes, coyotes, kangaroo rats, desert iguanas and horned lizards. Sidewinder rattlesnakes slither through the sandy washes dotted with desert holly.

This dry bed holds “half of the natural elements known to man,” according to informational marker, including trona and pink halite. But it’s difficult to pull your eyes away from the more than 500 spindly formations that cast shadows across the basin. You may know them from films like "Planet of the Apes," "Star Trek V" and "Lost in Space."

A dirt road loop allows you to drive around the “middle group” of pinnacles, dating back 25,000 to 32,000 years. There’s also a short walking trail through the formation. And it’s clear from beat-down paths that others have gone off toward the youngest northern group (10,000 to 25,000 years old) and oldest southern group (32,000 to 100,000 years old).

From afar, the pinnacles look almost extraterrestrial but up close they’re massive, looming dollops. At the height of midday, when the sun seems to balance overhead in a cloudless sky, they quite nearly glow in the brightness of the Mojave.

Another marker notes to look westward from the northern group in the afternoon – you can see strandlines on the distant slopes, evidence of glacial melt during the Tioga and Tahoe Ice Ages. And if you find yourself in the southern group, it says you can see tracks from the “shortest regulated railroad in the country.”

Archeologists have found large spear points and atlatis (throwing sticks) in the lake, according to another signpost, evidence of human life dating back approximately 8,000 to 10,000 years. Camel and wooly mammoth bones have also been discovered around the bed. For the last 77 years, the Searles Lake Gem and Mineral Society has hosted an annual Gem-O-Rama on the second weekend in October, drawing rock hounds from across the globe. (The lakebed has been mined since John Searles discovered borax in 1862, a sign says.)

But the pinnacles alone are worth a trip during the cooler months of the year. (In the summer, temperatures can reach upwards of 115 degrees.) When the sun sets and pink hues begin to streak across the horizon, you might just feel as if you’re on an alien planet. Meanwhile, the tufa towers will stand mighty, unchanging – once underwater, their spires now reaching for the sky.

Where are the Trona Pinnacles?

If you go: The Trona Pinnacles are located in the Mojave Desert, about 20 miles east of Ridgecrest in San Bernardino County.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: trona-pinnacles-california-roadtrip