Travel | Mojave Desert | California

Trona: An Unexpected Wonder on the Edge of Nowhere

This faded California desert town is far, far off the beaten path

A hulking mineral smelting plant, looking like something from a dystopian, post-apocalyptic land, greets visitors upon their arrival to Trona, CA. (Photo: ©Craig K. Collins)

I am the only car on a two-lane desert road heading south from Death Valley into the great void that is California’s Mojave Desert.

My car thermometer reads 123F and a sign has just warned me not to expect any gas, service or semblance of civilization for the next 50 miles.

Undaunted, I press ahead, thankful that the blazing sun is about to sink below the Panamint Range to the east, where Telescope Peak rises over 11,000 feet from the desert floor.

I have been driving for a full hour and have watched the eastern sky shift from yellow to orange to rose to violet, bathing an otherwise harsh, unforgiving landscape in soft, enchanting hues.

I follow the road, which snakes up and over a ridge until I begin the descent into Searles Valley, where before me stretches a 17-mile-long, 8-mile-wide dry lake bed. During the day, this vast salt flat gleams harsh and white beneath the relentless desert sun. But at dusk it glimmers with the pink pastels of the overhead sky.

Trona is a seemingly desolate, forlorn town on the edge of nowhere, just south of…