The Alabama Hills National Scenic Area covers 18,610 acres of public land west of Lone Pine, California, between Owens Valley and the eastern Sierra Nevada. Visitors can drive Movie Road, photograph Mount Whitney, explore natural arches such as Mobius Arch, hike, climb, watch wildlife, and visit locations used in hundreds of movies. The desert has little shade and no trash service, so travelers should carry plenty of water, use existing roads and trails, and pack out everything they bring. Camping is encouraged at nearby developed campgrounds; camping elsewhere is allowed only at marked sites and requires a free annual permit (Bureau of Land Management [BLM], n.d.).
Although the Alabama Hills have smooth, rounded boulders that look different from the sharp Sierra Nevada peaks behind them, both landscapes contain granitic rock. Chemical weathering and erosion widened natural cracks in the granite, gradually producing the unusual boulders, corridors, and arches seen today (BLM, 2019). The high-desert habitat supports hardy plants such as desert needlegrass, barrel cactus, and scarlet milk-vetch, while animals include chuckwallas, red-tailed hawks, and Townsend’s big-eared bats. These plants provide food and shelter for wildlife but may take decades to recover when crushed. Recent geological research dated the Alabama Hills Granite at about 103–102 million years old—nearly 20 million years older than earlier estimates—and connected it to other ancient bodies of granite along the Sierra Nevada and near the Coso Range (Frazer et al., 2022).
References:
Bureau of Land Management. (n.d.). Alabama Hills National Scenic Area. U.S. Department of the Interior.
Bureau of Land Management. (2019). Alabama Hills recreation and National Scenic Area: Map and guide. U.S. Department of the Interior.
Frazer, R. E., Gaynor, S. P., Coleman, D. S., & Wenner, J. M. (2022). Insights from the Alabama Hills into Mesozoic magmatism and tectonics in eastern California. Lithosphere, 2022, 5511120.
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