The Trip to Fat Mountain

On one of the roads from Los Angeles to the high Mojave you drive past the Trona Pinnacles.

Here's a look...

Further North, on the East side of Owens lake there's an old mining town know as Cerro Gordo (Fat Mountain). The mineshaft below this building goes down around 9,000 feet. 

The guy who now owns the Ghost Town has been down it, he's trying to get a well to work down there. The town's at about 8,500 above sea level.

A bit further east, between the Panamint and Saline valleys is an area called Lee's Flat. It's where you'll find one of the largest Joshua Tree forests in the USA. 

These trees are weird, wonderful and threatened by global warming. They only propagate in a narrow band between about 1,500 and 5,500 feet and require a moth that evolved with the trees (co-evolution in fancy speak)  to pollinate. If the moth goes so, probably, do the trees.

This one is starting to go...

This dancer is also on the way out. Note the forrest behind it, all Joshua Trees...

They give a photographer some pretty interesting shapes to play with...

And...

Back up at Cerro Gordo, I found a bit of tin that took me back to Aaron Siskind, a photographer with a wonderful eye for the abstract...In homage...

And a final look around caught a bit of old Robo Culture...

The gap where you stick in the hand crank gives it away...

Thanks  for looking, I hope you enjoyed.