Trona Pinnacles | Wild Camping

April 2nd, 2024 by institutionalking10

As previous posts mention, super cool pinnacles, mountain ranges all around, big skys for star gazing. Many many places to camp; tent, van, RV, TT, etc...We arrived the day after a major rain, so there were large puddled and ruts to navigate in our 28' RV, towing our small Jeep. 35 - 40 minutes to Ridgecrest, that has everything you need. 2 - 3 bars Verizon, no T Mobile. Clean pit toilet, bring your own paper. We walked all around the area, and no trash but some broken bottles. Please pack your trash out.

March 7th, 2024 by Delica_girl

Amazing place to explore and camp right in the middle. There are literally hundreds of spots to choose from, especially if you go through the wash to the further set of pinnacles. Rock Wrens are singing and the Desert Gold blooming. Good cell signal.

February 24th, 2024 by margaretblueford

Wonderful spot to camp! We stayed for one night on our way home from visiting Death Valley. Plenty of options to pick from for camping. We were here on a Saturday and there was a decent amount of people but all very spread out. Would recommend!

January 16th, 2024 by ClewleysOnTour

Stopped here for 3 nights. Stunning, especially at night. We drove in ok with our Hymer MLT 560 RWD. Although it took us 40 mins or so to would certainly use again.

December 1st, 2023 by elatedbirdhouse03

Gorgeous view of sunset, indeed pit toilet is fine just no toilet paper available. There is a cargo train that comes by occasionally (twice last night) but goes slow and not much noise.

The way to get there is a 5 mile dirt track. We made it in our 20’ class c 2WD. But that was stretching it. Road is totally doable but it feels like driving on a rubble strip for 5 miles

November 15th, 2023 by eviewoof

Beautiful and clean. Gorgeous Pinnacles! A bit of blow sand at the first third of the road then the road was fine. Spent 3 nights in our Promaster, great hiking! We were sure to knave before the rain.

September 7th, 2023 by makeitso94

Signs and postings said passenger cars would make it, but the road was washed with soft sand when I was there and I got stuck 3 times. Dirt roads near Red Mountain were more forgiving.

February 15th, 2023 by rob

Not your typical earthbound location. Good place for kids with imagination. Adults too. Practice respect. LNT.

February 1st, 2023 by Rick Laroux

Beautiful and very quiet, several fire pits around but I picked one about a half mile away, up on a nice rise, I didn’t want to be too close to the pinnacles for other peoples sake.

January 18th, 2023 by BacoMcQueen

amazing place to spend the night. We got here with our 2wd, but if it rains it can get very muddy here so watch out. We stayed on top of the view instead of between the pinnacles because we were not sure if we could get back up on the steep hill. This gave us an amazing view with sunrise

January 7th, 2023 by casa.edmondson

Beautiful place! Great for Astro photography and flying drones around sunrise and sunset. Good Verizon 5Guw signal here with 250 down/ 5up. Pit toilet was clean and well maintained when we visited.

December 23rd, 2022 by edy.job

Beautiful isolated location. The pinnacles made this place looks like Mars.

December 22nd, 2022 by bencorrado

Nice campsites and views, a lot of trails nearby too.

December 5th, 2022 by erie80

Beautiful spot, plenty of parking between and around rock formations (be sure to stay out of restoration areas!).
Road in fine for 2WD and easy to navigate even after dark.
Service for Verizon here.

November 29th, 2022 by shaderfx

What a beauty. The road in is washboards and dusty, but I have seen much worse. It does cool down quickly after sunset at this time of year (Nov). Just dress warm, make some tea and enjoy the gorgeous rocks and stars. (Please lets keep this place clean and respect the cornered of protected areas).
Cons: there is a train track nearby, but infrequent trains.

July 15th, 2022 by b.albertson77

Cool Location! Feels very other worldly and there was no one here during our stay.

March 24th, 2022 by pjtyrcha

Exceptionally rad rock formations to explore! with many primitive, established camping spots; some areas closed to all use for desert rehab ~ please respect. Lots of fragile, unseen life underfoot :) Pit toilet in main dirt parking lot (BYO TP), no trash recepticals ~ take it with you. Plenty of Verizon 4G signal. Very exposed, and can get quite blustery. Vast views, beautiful, stars. This area also has a lot of off road vehicle usage (ATVs, dirt bikes, etc), especially on the weekend, but a few mid week, too. Some respectful, some not so much. And as others have noted, the 5 mile road from 178 out to the rock formations is VERY washboarded, rocky, and dusty. I think any vehicle can do it if you go slowly and mindfully... I brought a 5 x 8 cargo trailer with typical factory tires - just took it slow. Well worth it for a multi-day stay :) Seemed to be typically a little cooler than Death Valley NP despite close proximity.

March 19th, 2022 by Where’s Oscar

What an incredible place to visit. We could not stop taking pictures of our Rig in these pinnacles. So cool. One of our all time favorite camping spots. But damn it’s windy!!

No TMobile coverage. Decent Verizon coverage.

This whole area used to be underwater in a giant ancient lake shortly after the Ice Age ended. The rock formations were created by volcanic-fed hot springs under the lake bringing minerals up and depositing them into large columns. Each of these formations were under water at one time!

Hollywood uses Trona Pinnacles for movies; with several movies filmed here: Planet of the Apes, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Battlestar Galactica, Disneys Dinosaur, Lost in Space and many music videos.

December 26th, 2021 by danamk1

Great place, lots of room and the view is amazing!

November 5th, 2021 by David Steinbrugge

This is a very rustic BLM campsite, on the very informal side. you can park lots of different places and get some distance between you and other campers. there are pit toilets but no water that I saw. 5 miles of washboarded road from the highway to get here but if you drive slow it's not bad in an RV. very quiet place, the stars were amazing at night.

October 28th, 2021 by robeverich

Thank you Apeman. All true. Easy access, if a bit of washboard. We came in with a 30’ Class A with a toad. We have a jeep so we enjoyed the many trails around the pinnacles. Imagine this place 100,000 years ago as a lake with Wooly Mammoths and Camels roaming around! Our hearts go out to the folks in Trona. They are still still recovering from the earthquake in 2019.

October 19th, 2021 by therollinghouse

5 miles from Trona Road, some washboard and towards the end a bit rocky. Beautiful place. Not many people during the week. No T-mobile coverage.

March 20th, 2021 by DWP is cool with me

There are a lot of other side roads leading S you can get to that are away from the crowd in this BLM area. If you can make it over the second train tracks crossing and have experience high clearance 2wd you can make it to any of the spots.

February 15th, 2021 by kari

Camped 2 nights here. Perfect weather. Lots of places to camp. Had it mostly to ourselves but it was midweek just after a holiday weekend. Tons of off-road trails to explore. Great Verizon service.

February 12th, 2021 by treetownbatiks

bumpy road but so awesome. go get ya some.
lots of off road stuff.

February 4th, 2021 by juliascabrera

LEAVE NO TRASH people...I was getting tired and realized I was nearby. Pulled into here since I was curious to see it in person. No people at all. I saw one pit toilet but didn’t use it. Gets pretty cold at night when sleeping in car. There are some piled up rocks where people may have had a fire. Camp where you have seen people camp to minimize your impact on the area or damage any other area. Where I parked it wasn’t too windy to rattle my car. It’s an okay spot.

January 15th, 2021 by jonmatthew_baker

Great place for a quiet night of free camping. No water so bring plenty. During day there are lots of visitors to see the pinnacles nights it’s yours.

May 17th, 2020 by luizakastro

A million places to park for the night. We pulled up around 8pm on Saturday and it was fully packed, around 20 campbases with tents and vehicles, even so, we were all at least 250 meters apart. Super windy during the night, so much so that we didn't get a good night's sleep cause our van was swinging left and right. If you come here, try parking by a pinnacle, we parked on the field and felt every bit of it.
Very beautiful views. The roads (whichever side you come from) are okay, perhaps if it rains some parts would be a bit challenging, we had no issues in our 2wd cargo van on a dry day. I had cell service but no internet with cricket and atnt.
Overall recommended cause the sunset was spectacular!

December 29th, 2019 by We are Sane, Everyone Else is Crazy

Awesome area, lots of places to camp amoung the pinnacles. We were in a two wheel drive van. Road coming in was very muddy do to recent rains. Well worth the trouble to get here.

March 31st, 2019 by bicitours.blogspot.com

This is a very scenic place. Pit toilet not clean. No cell coverage. We didn’t have much wind which made it pleasant stay.

April 10th, 2018 by Make Like An Apeman

Free BLM boondocking site at the Trona Pinnacles. Sites located all around Pinnacles driving loop. Road is ok - can be a bit Rocky, but you don't need 4x4. There is an ok pit toilet - bring your own TP. Beautiful landscape.