Tilted sandstone slabs rise out of a sandy wash in stacked diagonal ridges, the ground that has played alien planets and the American frontier on screen.
What Vasquez Rocks looks like
The rock tilts up from the ground at a steep diagonal, ridge after ridge of pale tan sandstone and conglomerate standing side by side. The tallest is , the formation long nicknamed for its many Star Trek appearances. It rises high enough that a person standing on its crest looks like a speck from below. The sandy wash in front of the ridges is flat and open, wide enough to hold a line of riders or a vehicle in full view of the camera.
Chaparral climbs the lower slopes and spreads across the open ground, kept low by the dry climate so the rock stays in frame from almost any angle. Dirt trails cut between the formations, and a paved road runs in off to a parking area by the . A segment of the crosses the ridgeline above the main slabs.
Away from the main ridge the rock is rounder and more worn, pocked with shallow caves and overhangs rather than tilted into sharp lines. The park has no buildings at the formations themselves, only the interpretive center near the entrance and the dirt pull-offs where vehicles park along the road.
Shot in Vasquez Rocks
The open rock terrain here has stood in for alien planets and the American frontier since the 1930s. Star Trek filmed the fight between Kirk and the Gorn captain on these slabs in 1967, after Bonanza had already used the same open ground for two episodes earlier in the decade.
Star Trek
The same open rock terrain carried the Gorn fight in Arena and the Pony Express arrival in Ride the Wind a year apart. One plays it as another planet and the other as frontier ground, neither dressing the rock itself.
Star Trek: The Original Series, "Arena"
Kirk's Rock
Kirk fights the Gorn captain across this open rock terrain in the episode Arena. It aired January 19, 1967. The ridge is the formation long nicknamed Kirk's Rock for its repeated Star Trek appearances.
Bonanza, "Ride the Wind"
Bonanza used the open ground here for the Pony Express's arrival in a 1966 episode called Ride the Wind. The flat terrain between the ridges let riders and horses move through frame at speed.
What Vasquez Rocks can double for
Red Rock Canyon State Park in Cantil, California
Red Rock Canyon's eroded red and white cliffs sit on the same State Route 14 corridor and have carried the same run of westerns and science fiction since the 1930s, including Jurassic Park and Westworld. Both are open frontier or alien ground within a short drive of a Los Angeles production base. The canyon walls are rounded and horizontally banded rather than tilted into sharp diagonal ridges, so a shot holding the layering gives the switch away. Try searching red and white eroded cliffs now.
Valley of Fire State Park in Overton, Nevada
Valley of Fire's eroded red sandstone stood in for the planet Veridian III at its Silica Dome formation in Star Trek Generations and for the surface of Mars across the park in Total Recall, the same alien reading Vasquez gets from its own Star Trek work. Both are uplifted desert rock within a day's drive of a production base. The domes here are rounder and far more saturated in red than Vasquez's pale tilted slabs, so a wide shot needs grading or distance to hold the match. Try searching red sandstone domes now.
Wadi Rum in Jordan
Wadi Rum's sandstone jebels have carried Mars and other alien worlds in Prometheus, The Martian and Dune, the same job Vasquez does at a fraction of the scale. Its domes rise out of a flat valley floor much the way Vasquez's ridges rise out of the wash. The rock is red rather than pale tan and the formations are vastly larger, so a tight shot of one slab holds the illusion better than a wide one across the whole valley. Try searching sandstone jebels now.
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