Kelso Dunes is one of those places in California in the middle of nowhere that only really shows up on a map if you know where to look. It’s desolate and remote and absolutely stunning, a 45 square mile patch of sand 100 miles East of Barstow in the Mojave Desert surrounded by what appears to be endless, empty, sun-baked country.
No. #0510_14A - Kelso Sand Dunes, California. January of 2017.
It became overwhelmingly apparent that afternoon that I’d become a City boy and there was no going back, having made the two and a half hour drive from Palm Springs into the deep desert with little more than a single bottle of water serving two adults (and a small dog), though miraculously I was traveling with three cameras and at least fifteen rolls of film, just in case.
Anyway, we made out in one piece. No sand worms to speak of.