Salvation Mountain, One of the Great American Destinations

 

Sitting on a (Salvation) Mountain

A couple of years ago I was wandering in the desert and pulled into the town of Calipatria, Calif.  It was a weekday morning in June, around 9 a.m., and I wanted to take a walk and get some water.  I went into a store and this biker dude behind the counter started talking to me, asking me where I was from etc. I told him I came to the desert every summer to hike, and he reminded me that Salvation Mountain was still active but that Leonard Knight, the fine character who created it, was ailing and in a home.

Supplies at Salvation Mountain

Leonard died Monday but Salvation Mountain, a painted hillside in the middle of nowhere, will probably endure. I went out from Calipatria to the place that day in 2012.  A video crew, with talent trailer and a box truck of gear, was setting up to do a promo for a Web company. Other than that, I had the place to myself. I walked up to the top of the “mountain” and further on to the water tanks at the back of the lot, which are fully engulfed in spray paint art. Graffiti seems too stuffy a term for the excellent work.

The first time I went to Salvation Mountain was

in the late 90s, and Leonard was out there. It was early evening and

Water tank art

I had heard about some resentment over the attention the mountain was getting from the residents of Slab City, an encampment just down the road a bit.

Slab City is a place for people who just want to keep away from everything. They have their various reasons, but it’s an amazing little power generator place, with community activities and an informal system of governance. That is, don’t fuck our shit up here. 

Some of the people had threatened Leonard. He wasn’t taking it personally.

“Ah, they’re just talking, they’re just looking for something to say,” was how he shrugged it off when I talked to him that night.  Slab City looks pretty scary at night, and some of the people who reside there have had an acquaintance with the criminal justice system.

But he was an easy-going guy, sitting in the middle of nowhere and pretty happy about it.  He had no power, no running water and no worries.

I wasn’t working on any story, I was just curious. I left with some postcards of the mountain that Leonard gave me, a few of which I still have.  Salvation Mountain is one of America’s great destinations and Leonard Knight can rest knowing he did something cool on his own terms.

Chasing Linkletter Ghost, Salvation and Manson Victim Eatery

Salvation Mountain

There’s some average Joe gag from decades ago about people being subjected to the movie reels or slide show from someone’s latest vacation. I always thought it was pretty cool, actually. Any time people go places is a good time, be they tourists or travelers.

I came back a few days ago from a trip that took me from Imperial Valley up to Death Valley. Naw, I won’t burden anyone with details of how great 117 degrees feels or how standing on a rock in the middle of Titus Canyon with no one within 25 miles feels incredibly liberating and alone.

I hit Salvation Mountain, a couple miles east of Niland, Calif., which is a hillside covered in a painted tribute to the faith of Leonard Knight. I visited the place in 1998 and talked with Knight for some time. I was just traveling then as now, no story or anything. Just wanted to get his deal. We talked about some hassles he was getting from some of the locals at Slab City, which begins about 100 yards south of Knight’s little compound, which is composed of a couple trailers and a lot of paint cans, along with the beaming hill.

Knight is now in a nursing home and he has a friend looking after the place. It’s still popular – the day I was there, at least a half dozen folks were poking around, climbing up the sides of the hill, checking out the art.

Slab City is just as compelling as Salvation Mountain. It’s a village of folks living off the grid in the middle of the desert. Some of them have solar panels now, which is a change from the last time I was there. There’s also a place for bands to play called the Range. It’s a stage with a little bar, and I’d say that any band wanting to shoot a cool-ass video and play for a crowd they would never encounter elsewhere, this would be the way to go. Haul the gear out there, bring some folks, stock the bar with $1 cans of beer, and have at it under the desert sky.

I spent the last couple days of my trip in LA, which is always fine and never long enough.  Had much tequila and beer at El Coyote, where Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Foster and Wojciech Frykowski dined before the Manson clan visited their place up the hill.

Where Diane Linkletter took a dive

One thing I also had to do in LA is check out the building that Diane Linkletter was supposed to have taken a dive from under the influence of LSD in 1969. Imagine my disappointment when I found out the cause of death was a ruse by her dad, talk show/wholesome entertainment icon Art Linkletter, to push an anti-drug agenda. The guy had a few burdens and I dug him when I was little, at a time that some entertainment figures were still pretty pure.  I’d say he was one of the good guys. And his daughter’s death came a couple months after the Manson slayings went down, so he was probably thinking he was doing some good by talking about acid being the cause and all. Still…I walked over to her apartments, Shoreham Towers, and grabbed a shot of the nameplate. For some reason, reading that she took a jump because she was depressed made me feel much worse than if it was just a lofty notion of flying on acid.