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Spinning a quick U, we hid our vehicles across the highway behind the tall creosote bushes. As the sun went down we gathered our gear and pretended not to see the “No Trespassing” signs while squeezing through the rusty barbed-wire fence. The Atolia Tungsten Mine was established in 1905. By 1916 it was a full-fledged town boasting a modern school, four restaurants and even a newspaper. Between 1916 and 1918 it produced $10 million in ore. By World War II the mines had played out and the town folded up and blew away in the endless Mojave wind. Today the site contains about a dozen buildings, all in various states of disrepair. Some largely intact, others tattered and partially collapsed. Anything of value is long gone. We split up, exploring and photographing opposite sides of the 25-acre site well into the evening, each absorbed in the lonely isolation of the desert night. Every few hours we’d cross paths, “Did you see that giant owl on the transformer?” “No, but check out the Acid House.” “The Acid House” reeked of toxic chemicals spilled everywhere. Sinks and spray booths scorched with chemical burns, I couldn’t spend much time in there, my sinuses instantly burned and I felt my DNA begin to unscrew. Nice place to hide a body. Or dissolve one. Around midnight, a bitterly cold late-winter storm blew through. Clouds bled ominously across the sky as the storm passed. The moon ducked behind the clouds pushing exposure times to the 20-minute mark. Even my Canadian companion got cold. Used to low-desert shooting at night in shorts and t-shirt and typically unprepared, I had to borrow an embarrassingly dorky stocking cap from the artic-explorer Larrie. |
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