| Pinto Basin and the Playa | |
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As you move away from the mountains, the boulder piles disappear and alluvial sediments like these predominate. Thousands of years of flash floods carry the fist-sized rocks seen here many kilometers into the basin but inevitably the stones are winnowed out, yielding to gravel, then sand, then silt and finally dust. In the distance is the low point of the basin—a playa or hard-baked dusty flat where almost nothing grows. The afternoon winds have whipped the dust into a choking haze that not even the creosote bush can withstand. And this is as close to it as I want to go today.
(c) Copyright 2002 Andrew Alden, licensed to About.com, Inc.
