Trona Pinnacles

This is one of our favorite daily tours, that is, one of our many daily tours, that we enjoy equally as much.

The formations are so different than anything you have ever seen...Everyone really has a super good time climbing. Some of them are a real challenge, only the experienced, even take the challenge, and with rubber climbing shoes. We call them "spidermen".

Trona Pinnacles are one of the most unique geological features in the California Desert Area. This unusual landscape consists of more than 500 tufa spires, some as high as 140 feet, rising from the bed of the Searles Dry Lake basin. These pinnacles vary in size and shape from tall and thin to short and squat. They are composed primarily of calcium carbonate[tufa].They are spread over an area about 3 miles wide by 4.5 miles long.



Trona Pinnacles rock formations developed between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago when Searles Lake formed a link of interconnected lakes. This lake system originated in the Owens Valley and flowed in a downward stair-step fashion to China Lake and Searles Lake. At peak periods Searles Lake reached a depth of 640 feet and overflowed into Panamint Valley and Death Valley.

The Trona Pinnacles formed underwater through the interaction of blue-green algae and local chemical and geothermal conditions. Due to a limited outflow and mineral rich runoff from surrounding geothermal sites, the waters of Searles Lake became a highly concentrated carbonate brine. On the lake bottom, underground hot springs welled up through fault line fractures to introduce calcium rich ground water that, when combined with carbonates, formed calcium carbonate deposits.

These deposits would have been an ordinary mineral deposit except for the blue-green algae colonies that bonded with the calcium carbonate making the diverse pinnacle formations.

Over several thousand years, these tufa formations developed in a reef-like fashion providing an optimal surface area for the algae to take advantage of limited nutrients and sunlight. Tufa samples taken from the pinnacles and examined in cross section under magnification have revealed the stony molds of these fossilized algae cells.