Eastern California boasts the greatest dryland relief in the contiguous United States–between Mt. Whitney and Death Valley–and that relief exposes spectacular geology. These thirty driving and walking tours each weave the tale of geological features or relationships in this land of extremes. Some sketches ponder questions that puzzle geologists: how do stones slide across Racetrack playa? Others spotlight the earth-sculpturing role of volcanoes and earthquakes: lava columns at Devil’s Postpile and fault scarps that shape a golf course. Still, others focus on less obvious but equally powerful processes: boulders shattered by salt crystals and rocks blasted by windblown sand.
