Salvation Mountain
CALIFORNIA
Writer’s Note:
Ok, I’m just going to be straight with you from the jump. I have started and restarted this blog many times now, continually trying to describe this place and its founder, Leonard Knight, and his efforts to spread the word of God. There’s a lot of things in me that are getting in the way, and I feel like it wouldn’t be in true Biter Bitch form if I didn’t tell you what I really thought. So it was nice knowing you, I’m sure you’ll never come back again, but here we go…
I was very, very excited to go Salton Sea for the first time. I bought props such as blow up floats and gas masks and had this entire end-of-the-world themed photoshoot with my dog in mind. I planned it for months, especially my daytrip to Salvation Mountain and Slab City. But once I was in the Salton Sea area for awhile, it quickly became obvious that this wasn’t just a place of forgotten abandon, frozen in time. There’s a much seedier aspect to this place. It is a lawless land filled with people living on the fringes of society and fighting to stay that way. I can tell you first hand about my experience almost being killed by a crackhead in a PT Cruiser, but that’s a tale for another time. So I preface this by saying pay attention to your surroundings.
Getting There
This paper mache-esque junk pile turned work of art can be found at the entrance to Slab City just outside of Niland, CA. It’s located on the southeastern side of the Salton Sea and about an hour and a half from Palm Springs. You will find a couple opportunities to stop for gas here and there but know you’re pretty far out in the middle of nowhere so don’t go unprepared.
The History
The short of it is a man named Leonard Knight went to visit his sister in San Diego in the summer of 1967 and was “touched by God”. He spent the next several decades trying (and failing) to promote his message that God is love, even in the face of the corrupt federal government (more on that here). Knight passed away in 2014 and now a small number of volunteers continue to keep his work alive, showing up and babysitting the masses of idiots who come to pose for pictures and hashtag Jesus, the message being lost in our now defunct society filled with influencers and Instathots. If you’re interested in the full history, you can find it on their website here.
The Art and it’s “admirers”
A colorful and eye catching deviation from most faith based gospels, Salvation Mountain has been gaining notoriety in the last few years thanks to Instagram and Pinterest. On the day I arrived, my first mistake was picking a weekend. It was, after all, a Saturday, but time and day mean nothing to a road traveling vagabond with a keyboard. In retrospect, it was stupid of me because with Salvation Mountain’s rise in popularity comes also the insincere trashcans, flocking to the religious site for the colors and pageantry and Instagram payoffs. I pulled up to the makeshift car park on the right and was immediately inundated with dipshits. Two guys and their dogs selfying in front of the sign 150 times and a crowd of emo chicks cackling as if in a crowded bar on a Friday night instead of an informal place of worship.
I began taking pictures, moving surreptitiously through the idiots, silently avoiding each cluster like two positively charged magnets. As the wave of obsurdity moved away from me, I saw a makeshift tent open on three sides. Sitting in a folding chair was a gentleman with a small black and white dog; he was a volunteer. I began chatting him up about the site, Leonard, and their desperate need for latex paints when he cut me off to yell “Miss, please don’t climb on that!” 20 feet behind us some dumb broad was trying to scale the love mailbox while her boo filmed with his phone. She just kept posing, without even an acknowledgment to the volunteer’s warnings. Another shout, this one more of a plead, and she moved on to destroy something else, again with not even a semblance of understanding. The volunteer looked back at me, and there was a moment of silence while we sat there in dumbstruck awe at the parade of assholes from the parking lot. It was at that moment that I understood the full weight of Salvation Mountain, it’s message, and perhaps the world’s impending doom.
The Message
I’m not a faith based person. I’m not even a positive person. In fact, I like nothing and no one, of which you know, and the idea that a man dedicated his entire life, decades in fact, to bringing the word of God to a bunch of strangers through art is both fascinating and unbelievable. To me, spending every moment and every penny to further the word of an unknown entity that you admittedly hallucinated sounds fucking nuts. However, the real coup de grace here is not the message itself or how it manifested but rather Leonard’s lifelong devotion to it; That, my friends, is the real message. He believed in something (“God is Love”) his whole entire life until his dying day and no amount of ridicule or adversity stopped that. I’m so in awe at his determination and drive in a world where no one still holds onto anything anymore. Admittedly the only thing I believe in that much is pharmaceuticals. And now that he is gone, that faith persists in the tiny amount of friends, family, and fellow believers who show up everyday and maintain the site in honor of Leonard.
Leonard did not cure cancer. Leonard did not end a war. Leonard didn’t really do much in the face of society as we know it today. Instead, he did something bat shit crazy in the middle of nowhere, and he’s still remembered today for that fortitude and the beauty that it manifested. Leonard essentially did what most great men can only hope to achieve, and he did it solely through faith. While his message may be lost in translation (so far as I witnessed that Saturday afternoon), his idea that something is worth a lifetime of energy, toil and trouble will live on as long as Salvation Mountain continues to live.
If you’re in the area and planning to visit, please consider bringing a donation of latex based paints in honor of Leonard and his message, preferably of the same color scheme. While any contribution would be helpful, the volunteers are at the mercy of the donations for repairs and after so many deaf and dumb bitches climbing mailboxes, there’s plenty of repairs left to make.