Salvation Mountain

“A unique and visionary sculpture… a national treasure… profoundly strange and beautifully accessible, and worthy of the international acclaim it receives.” That quote is from Barbara Boxer, a California Senator, in an address to Congress back in 2002.

We were spending the day with my sister and her partner. We were not far from Salvation Mountain and we decided to visit the site.

Salvation Mountain is located in a remote area of the desert, surrounded by makeshift shacks and RVs in varying levels of decay. The area is decidedly rustic, the Mountain visible from a few miles away due, I suspect, to the bright colours.

There is an area for parking. Basically a dirt field with a few vehicles standing guard near the entrance. There is no fee to enter although there is an opportunity to make a donation to help maintain the mountain at one of the vehicles.

Leonard Knight, the artist, had a vision to spread God’s love to the world. And he did it here, with this sculpture, in a remote location about a 90-minute drive from Palm Springs.

“God is Love” appears everywhere.

“Jesus loves you” was also everywhere.

This poster was the only image of the artist that I found on the site.

Leonard Knight passed away in 2014. This mountain was the second construction. The first one collapsed.

Lorraine found her way to the top of the mountain.

Although we are a bit tiny in the picture, my sister and I stopped for a snapshot which provides a bit of context for the scale of Salvation Mountain.

We spent about an hour or so just walking around and experiencing this unusual and unique work of art.

This was how we spent our last day in the Palm Springs area. Well, not quite the last day. We spent all of the next day getting ourselves ready to head back to Canada.

I was so happy to see my sister. We don’t get to spend much time together as we are usually on opposite sides of the continent. This was one of the main reasons why we made the trek west. And it was absolutely worth the long drive.