| Trona on the Web: The Pinnacles |
 Photo by unknown "Location: The pinnacles are located at the south end of Searles Lake. They are 15 miles from Trona and 5 miles east of Death Valley Highway. "May 3, 1971, we read in a newspaper the Astronauts of the Apollo Moon Mission practicing for their July exploration. However, they were located at the Coso Mountain Range because of it's physical resemblance to the area where the plan to land on the Moon. Now any Trona youngster could have told them that the pinnacles were the place to go because TV science fiction series and several movies have been taken there.
"One Trona youngster, little Dennis, was about four when Neil Armstrong took his first historical walk on the moon. he was a sleepy little guy, but stayed up to watch television. When excitement got the best of him he shouted, Come on Mom, let's go to the Pinnacles so I can see him. "The Pinnacles to Trona youngsters mean outer space, a great place for a wiener roast and a spooky place for a Halloween party on a moonlight night. To the artist, it is an area of start beauty constantly changing under different lighting, but always inspiring. To the geologist the formations have been a challenge to study and explain and they have come up with some differing theories. Historically, their resemblance to the spires towers gave them the name of Cathedral City, and they were conspicuous landmarks to to freighters and prospectors traveling from San Bernardino. Commercially, they faced extinction as they were broken off and hauled to the cities to be used as garden decoration and also as agriculture lime. (1)
Information about the Pinnacles from Dessert USA can be found by going to the Desert USA site. Some the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen of the pinnacles and of Panamint Valley can be found at Clayton Mansnerus's Web Site. He is a truly talented photographer. Episodes of "Star Trek" and some scenes from the remake of "Planet of the Apes" were filmed using the Trona Pinnacles as background. http://www.geocities.com/paulmack.geo/gallery/ Peter Bloom sent me the
following information and link. It
turns out that parts of the "Lost in Space" television program were shot at
the Trona Pinnacles. There are some pretty cool pictures of the
Pinnacles -- some comparing shots from the show with how they look now. (1) The above was taken from the "Searles Valley Story" which was written and published by Searles Lake Branch of American Association of University Women in 1975 for the Searles Valley bicentennial. Last Update: 12/08/2006 |
