Salvation Mountain

The journey to Salvation Mountain is marked by the sort of epic reminders of days past that make you feel somehow lost in time and space.  The towering quixotic windmills of Palm Springs, beckon.  The dinosaur figures in Cabazon stand sentry.  Joshua Trees dot the rocky landscape.  Then as the day grows longer and the road seems to stretch into an infinite horizon, you come upon Bombay Beach and the ruins of the Salton Sea.  

Like Stonehenge, Bombay Beach is an anthropological monument that attests to humanities constant battle with nature.  A massive scar in the desert sand quietly speaking to humanity's cruelty.  A once beautiful blessing from God- a body of water in the desert turned toxic by agriculture waste runoff.  

Keep going past all signs of civilization with the waters of the Salton Sea eerily still on your right.  Until colors loom ahead.  A vibrant palette screaming from the taupe landscape.  You’ve reached your destination.  Clouds seem to dance around the adobe mound and here you will find the story of a man who believed in a vision and made it his life.  And what a beautiful vision it is...

Leonard Knight had a dream as a child to move to California.  He also had a dream to build a mountain.  

"Leonard Knight was one of those men who was so singular of vision that from a distance some would brush it off as crazy. But it didn’t take much to realize what Leonard was.  Just a conversation and you would know—this man was a saint, an American sadhu in the desert of southern California. The mountain was his living daily meditation." -Aaron Huey, National Geographic