From Niland (just east of the Salton Sea), follow Beal Road as its bleached pavement transitions to dust until you reach Leonard Knight’s sprawling, technicolor monument.

Knight arrived here in 1984, living at the mountain’s base without electricity, gas, or running water in an old, ornately painted fire truck. Foregoing any formal planning, he methodically expanded and embellished his visionary assemblage every day for nearly three decades.

Self-taught, Knight collected materials available in the nearby desert — salvaged wood, telephone poles, tires stacked to mimic tree trunks, and car door windows repurposed as skylights. Built by hand, the structure is an accumulation of poured and puddled adobe, and donated house paint layered in a generous impasto “as thick as a 2-ply tire”; prominent are depictions of birds, waterfalls, and proliferations of flowers. Each bright bloom took form from a handful of adobe, the impression of Knight’s fist visible at its center. Initially only decorative, he later placed flowers to lend structural support, repairing cracks as they appeared in the clay.

Most iconic of this site are the biblical scriptures which span its vibrant latex landscape. It is the complex, lesser known elements augmenting Knight’s gospel of love, however, that prove to be most compelling. Embedded within the walls of domed grottos are myriad self-referential objects, amongst others of mysterious origin - the trophy Knight received from the “Niland Tomato and Sportsmans’ Festival” in 1998, unfired clay vessel boasting mountain range petroglyphs, or a stray tabby cat who has taken up residence.

Classified as a “threatened” art environment by SPACES Archives, Salvation Mountain is maintained through gallons of paint donated by visitors and the dedicated conservation efforts of volunteers.