Recently I had been super curious about a place called Salvation Mountain, a huge hill that has been covered in paint and written scriptures from the Bible. I had first heard about Salvation Mountain from the oh-so famous blogger, Chiara Ferragni, where she and her TBS crew made the pilgrimage to this unique spot and took so many cool and colorful pictures, which had me convinced that I must go to this amazing place – so I did!
What is Salvation Mountain? Well, it is a real life hill located near Slab City that was literally covered in paint and clay with written Christian versus based on the “Sinner’s Prayers”. It was painted by artist Leonard Knight (1931–2014) as his way of sharing his belief and knowledge in God and Jesus to others.
In 2000, The Folk Art Society of America declared Salvation Mountain as a site that was “worthy of preservation and protection,” and on April 2016, Salvation Mountain was established as a official monument.
To go to Salvation Mountain I had to drive about 20 miles past Palm Springs and through the post-apocalyptic looking Salton Sea.
(Salton Sea was human-kind’s failed attempt to make a man-made lake, which became so incredibly polluted that all the fish in the lake died causing the lake to reek of the smell of dead fish everywhere – it was so eerie and gross).
Moving along, as we approached Salvation Mountain there was nothing but old abandoned buildings and tumbleweed everywhere. At times we felt like we were lost, but we just kept going until we saw a huge colorful hill in the middle of the desert. Once we were there we were able to park out car and walk around the monument. There is a yellow path that will lead you to the top and mini caves that offer you shade. It was pretty cool and a unique experience.
(Tips: I would recommend taking an older car, because it gets creepy there. We had a BMW and to be honest I did not feel entire safe in our BMW there because I felt like we stood-out in a bad way. Also beware of the cops there! No joke a cop pulled us over for no reason and then proceeded to lie to our faces that we were speeding, when we had a radar detector and we were going no-joke 30 miles per hour. The cop also made us feel incredibly uncomfortable and not safe. Imperial city gets 2 thumbs down for their police – super untrustable).
Overall, I hope you enjoyed reading and learning and again if you have any questions or comments please feel free to message or email me.
Sincerely,
Maysa (curious fishy)
Ps – sorry Kyan for making you go and the stupid ticket. Your patients and support however amazes me and makes me fall in love with you even more.
curious fishy 