Once Hollywood’s favorite western location, the Alabama Hills Recreation Area provides a playground for photographers and outdoor enthusiasts. Twisted knobby rocks, arches, and the spectacular backdrop of the Sierra Nevada and the Inyo Mountains create a spectacular wonderland of strange alien shapes.
Located at the foothills of California’s tallest mountain, Mt. Whitney, the round granite rocks of the Alabama Hills contradict the jagged mountainous backdrop.
When you drive on CA-190 toward Death Valley, you will see a road sign to Darwin. Paying no attention, nearly everyone flies by. Nobody seems to care about this lonely small town decaying in the hot summer sun of the Inyo Mountains.
Darwin is a desolate place, a sorry excuse for a city whose best days are over 100 years away. A few individuals still cling on to life in this peculiar and eerie town at the edge of Death Valley. Of the “50 or so” inhabitants that the city limits sign announces, you will see mostly distrusting eyes lurking behind closed windows. Who can blame them? What cruel deity has banned them to this pitiful stretch of America? A few people actually drive around in cars whose value doubles each they fill it up.
Darwin is an interesting place for photography. It is worth the quick detour for the bizarre, twisted pictures you can take here. You cannot help feeling funny when you arrive and feeling better when you leave.
The Trona Pinnacles are a strange and alien landscape of giant tufa formations stretching skyward. Strange enough, to serve as the “Planet of the Apes” in the 2001 remake of the movie. The calcium carbonate tufa rocks are similar to those you can find in Mono Lake, only much larger. When you are standing in [...]
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