Trona Pinnacles

What do the movies Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek V: the Final Frontier and Planet of the Apes have in common? They were all filmed at Trona Pinnacles, an eerily beautiful natural landmark where some 500 calcium carbonate spires (tufa) rise up to 140ft out of an ancient lake bed in otherworldly fashion. Find the site at the end of a 6-mile dirt road off Hwy 178 in Trona, a hard-scrabble mining town partly abandoned after suffering severe earthquake damage in 2019. It's about 25 miles east of Ridgecrest en route to Death Valley. Check locally for road conditions.