First of all, BLM TRONA PAGE

What are they? Trona Pinnacles are an "unusual landscape" of more than 500 tufa spires, some as high as 140 feet, rising from the bed of the Searles Lake (dry) basin. A geological feature in the California Desert National Conservation Area. The landscape consists of more than 500 tufa spires that sit isolated and slowly crumbling away near the south end of the valley, surrounded by many square miles of flat, dried mud and with stark mountain ranges at either side. *  *

Tufa : calcium carbonate : porous rock formed as a deposit when springs interact with other bodies of water

 Pinnacle: tower, spire, needle or natural towers are an individual column of rock, isolated, in the shape of a vertical shaft.*

Trona Pinnacles are public land and the management agency is the Bureau of Land Management. It is part of the California Desert Conservation Lands

MY GOAL  I went to the desert on a new moon to take pictures of the starry sky with the Pinnacles as foreground.

• Google Map Google Map to the Trona Pinnacles Info Center at 5.68143, -117.39033

• From Rincon Point, travel time is 3.5hs by freeway and the distance is about 200 miles in a north-east direction.

• Alleged coordinates of the only toilet 35.61851, -117.37351

• According to BLM, The Trona Pinnacles are located approximately 20.0 miles east of Ridgecrest. Access to the site is from a BLM dirt road (RM143) that leaves SR 178, about 7.7 miles east of the intersection of SR 178 and the Trona-Red Mountain Road. The 5.0-mile long dirt road from SR 178 to the Pinnacles is usually accessible to 2-wheel drive vehicles, however, the road may be closed during the winter months after a heavy rain.

• Visit Ridgecrest why not 

Trona Terrain: The Mojave Desert

This is boondocking or dispersed camping in an arid and remote desert.

THE MOJAVE DESERT IS REALLY DRY AND YOU MUST BRING LARGE AMOUNTS OF WATER.