Salvation Mountain

After several failed attempts to spread the Word of God through various grand schemes, Leonard Knight finally settled on building Salvation Mountain in the middle of the desert from discarded trash, sand and adobe. He painted it with inspirational quotes from the bible to help protect it from the weather.

Leonard decided to leave California but wanted to spend one extra week in the area to make a small memorial with a half bag of concrete he had lying around. Weeks begat months begat years and after tons of junk, sand, concrete and paint were assembled, Leonard had the 50-foot high creation he was after! Until it collapsed on itself.

Undaunted, Leonard rebuilt the mountain, this time using native adobe clay and straw. He applied paint liberally to keep the elements from washing away his work. Over the years, Leonard has applied well over 100,000 gallons of paint to his mountain of clay and debris as (he hopes) a lasting tribute to God.

http://www.kelleys.org/index.php/salvation-mountain/

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by tzkelley.


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A friend and I recently visited Salvation Mountain and we had the opportunity to meet and visit with Leonard. He is truly an amazing and inspiring human being. Thank you, Leonard, for your dedication and your life's work. As you requested, I am "spreading the Word."
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San Diego Comic-Con was sold out, but we went to Salvation Mountain anyway. Spent some time with Leonard. Climbed up and down and inside and out of the mountain. We gave him some paint and he gave us a DVD. We took a bunch of photos. I'll probably put them up on flickr, and add to the many photos of Leonard and his work that already exist on the internet.

We'd like to go back again before too much longer, and bring our daughter, who was away visiting her grandmother this past time around.
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It's definitely worth a trip. Leonard is obviously completely devoted to his work, but he's also quite pleased with the attention he's gotten lately, especially since being featured in "Into the Wild." He's quite happy to have his picture taken with you. Donations are welcome of course - he buys a lot of paint!
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