Trona Pinnacles
Rock Formation · Trona, California
More than five hundred tufa spires standing up to a hundred and forty feet out of a dry lakebed in the Mojave, formed underwater when Searles Lake filled this basin tens of thousands of years ago. It looks so unlike anywhere on earth that it has stood in for other planets repeatedly — Star Trek V, Planet of the Apes, Battlestar Galactica.
Pinnacle Road, off Highway 178, Trona, California, 93562, United States
Open 24 hours, year-round, free. Five miles of dirt road — impassable when wet.