The Trona Pinnacles: Giant Spires of Californias Ancient Seas

Welcome To The Pinnacles!

Welcome everyone! Today i wanted to explore the Trona Pinnacles with you all.

The Trona Pinnacles are located....you guessed it....near Trona California. Trona California is a small mining town on the edge of Searless Dry Lake and is named after the mineral trona. The pinnacles were formed during the pleistocene when the large glacial deposits that sat atop the Sierra Nevada mountains began melting, forming a series of inland seas. During three separate ice ages, calcium carbonate began to precipitate giant spires, the tallest of which reaches 140 ft. As they formed underwater they began to take all different shapes

The Tufa formed four general shapes: Towers, Tombstones, Ridges and Cones. Towers are taller than they are wide. Tombstones are stubby and rise 20-30 feet. Ridges are massive toothy tufa ruins and Cones are less than 10 foot tall mounds.

@derekrichardson and i set out to explore these geologic features. The pinnacles lie 10 miles south of town on a dirt road off highway 178. Once you turn onto the turnout, you are greeted by a giant sign explaining what you are about to see down the road.

The road heading down to the pinnacles crosses over an old railroad track that appears not to be in use and has a section of cars just abandoned on the rails.

We stopped for a photo op

Continuing on down the road the pinnacles became much more prominent. The road was pretty rough and very washboard. It took almost a half hour driving the few miles of dirt road.

Once we reached the pinnacles we sat atop a little overlook with flat area that i would assume would be a parking lot.

There were also small information centers that broke down what the larger kiosk by the road explained.

Derek and I set out to have fun and give these tufa formations a closer look.

This was a great place to offroad and at one point i got a little carried away and told derek i was going off trail and attempting to crest over a ridge in between two of the towers. It was a very sketched move and derek was shocked i even went through with it.

After that crazy move and almost rolling the truck Derek got the after shot of the nervous but exciting moment.

As the day went on we wandered all over the three areas of formations

Before turning in and camping for the night, the sunset allowed for some really great photography.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and i hope you enjoyed visiting the Trona Pinnacles.

!steemitworldmap 35.6168 lat -117.3703 long ´The Trona Pinnacles´ D3SCR