Trona Pinnacles
Four hours from Los Angeles, the barren landscape of tall prehistoric volcanoes, is punctured by the Trona Pinnacles. Located between Ridgecrest, CA and Trona, the small brown National Park sign indicates a dirt road leading towards the rocks. Formed underwater along a fault line that is connected to Searles Dry Lake Bed, these calcium carbonate juts of rock dominate the flat surface.
The film crew perches atop one of the pinnacles to capture the actors and the amazing vista beyond them.
Trona Salt Flats
The Mojave Desert is only fifty miles away but the heat has found the crew. The sun bakes us, is soaked up by the salt infested ground and bounces up. We are surrounded by it. The crew moves slowly through the day and Production Assistants walk around offering water and shade. Their job is to watch everybody to make sure no heat exhaustion or heat stroke hits us.
This parched landscape is perfect for the setting of "Outpost 10". A small house set on war radiated land, the owners scratching a living and waiting for the soil to return to usefulness after years of war between humans and vampires. This is the beginning and ending of our film.
Every day it reaches 120 degrees.
Fishhead Rocks
Our final location in the Trona/Ridgecrest area.
Also known as Poison Canyon for a stream that contains naturally occurring lethal amounts of arsenic and other chemicals. The canyon was originally used as the route the mule teams used from the Borax Plant in Trona to San Pedro, California.
Tucked in a back corner, we wedged a reduced film crew in to film our actors walking along a narrow path, surrounded by wrinkled walls. Filmed at dusk, in the fading light, it was easy to feel transformed to a different time and place here.
(That is me, 2nd from the left)
Ridgecrest
The closest major town to our location, Ridgecrest's (formerly known as Crumville) existence is purely to sustain the China Lake Navel Weapons Base. The base dominates the surrounding terrain, rolling along for acres. Driving along the highway towards our location, I catch glimpses of imagined steel bunker doors embedded in the distant mountainsides and wonder what arsenal is held there.
Our hotel, The Carriage Inn, is charming. The majority of the crew stayed here and gather by the pool at night to cool off and share a beer or two. The rooms are small but the air conditioners work and that
is the most important thing this close to the desert. The rest of the crew stayed in the new Springhill by Marriott . They didn't have ambiance we did but they did have big flat screen tvs!