The Trona T

News pertaining directly to Trona, Death Valley, the northern Mojave Desert, Inyo County, and adjacent areas.

Re: The Trona T

Postby BoraxBill » Mon Oct 29, 2012 10:09 am

Over the years there have been various rumors of people planning to vandalize the T, but I've never heard of any of these ventures getting beyond the planning phase. My guess is that no one has actually planned on vandalizing the T and that just groups of people have joked about such activity. Of course, someone hears about these jokes and gets their panties in a wad and believes that there's more to the jokes than mere joking. So a rumor gets started that someone is actually going to do something, which isn't actually the case, but the usual airheads believe it to be so. Typical small town crap!
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Re: The Trona T

Postby surfsteve » Sat Dec 15, 2012 8:27 am

I guess that makes sense. Apparently he was planning on shortening the T quite a bit though because the brown paint goes around 20 yards higher than the placement of the flares they leave when lighting the T. The white paint also goes quite a bit lower than the flares. You really have to climb up there to realize just how big it is. It's not something that could be fixed (or destroyed) in a few hours by people with crow bars and shovels. Some of the bigger painted rocks rival the size of the blocks they used to build the pyramids.
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Re: The Trona T

Postby surfsteve » Sat Dec 15, 2012 8:27 am

I wonder why they didn't just change it to an M for Manson. Though it would be a lot easier if he just changed his name to Thompson or something that started with a T. That must have been a while back. How long has the T been there? Does anybody know it's history?
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Re: The Trona T

Postby tronagirl » Fri Dec 28, 2012 9:34 am

I recall a story about some people who were going to change the T into an X. I think this was just a joke and not something they actually planned to do. I think the idea was to try to freak people out since followers of Charles Manson have an X on their foreheads.
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The Trona T

Postby blackturtle.us » Fri Jan 11, 2013 2:27 am

The Trona T
It has been observed that the bottom of the T seems to be deteriorating. This video shows the Trona T as seen from the dike near the cemetery. The last part shows the T at 140x zoom.
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Re: The Trona T

Postby blackturtle.us » Fri Jan 11, 2013 2:27 am

What's up with the bottom of the Trona T?
Here's a video from the surfstev channel on YouTube. He takes a close look at the bottom of the T and provides narration throughout the video.
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Re: The Trona T

Postby desertrat » Fri Jan 11, 2013 2:27 am

surfsteve wrote:
blackturtle.us wrote:
surfsteve wrote:
A. Curtis Bouteau (sp?) - Complimented the senior class on their behavior while they were out painting the T last week

What color were they painting it? Brown or white? From far away it looks like the bottom of the T is fading out but when I climbed up there last week, it was obvious that somebody had painted over the white with brown paint. What is that all about?

The superintendent (David Olney) accompanied the seniors on either the T lighting or the T painting (or both) and he said nothing about brown paint. It seems like it would be a major pain to lug enough brown paint up to the T to paint over all the white. Maybe brown paint was used to cover up areas where white paint had been placed outside the lines (so to speak).


Nope. It wasn't to cover up outside the lines. Somebody went up there on purpose with brown paint and painted out the bottom of the T. If you look from the highway you can see that the bottom looks washed out and uneven and a good 20 feet is missing. My guess is they went up there to paint the whole thing brown and didn't realize how big it was. I have no idea why nobody noticed it. Maybe it was dark when the students painted. It's pretty hard to miss. I also noticed it the last time I went up there, which was a year or two ago. It looks pretty much like I remembered it back than. I don't think anybody has added to the brown this year, nor repainted any of it back to white. My best guess is they used about two gallons of brown latex and and a can or 2 of brown spray paint. Next time I go I will try and remember to bring my camera, so you can see what I mean.

I agree with what a2z said in the other thread:
SurfSteve: Interesting video. As for the brown paint I think DesertRat is right. If someone wanted to destroy the T, shovels and crowbars would be the way to go. It would take an incredibly stupid person to attempt to irradicate the T using paint. It would be expensive and take hours and hours of work. I'd be willing to bet that four people could destroy the T in less than two hours using just shovels. Not that I want anyone to actually do anything like that, but I'm just saying that the brown paint way of doing it would be just plain RETARDED!
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Re: The Trona T

Postby blackturtle.us » Fri Jan 11, 2013 2:27 am

A friend sent me the following information regarding the bottom of the T:
Hey, I see on your website that you guys have been talking about the bottom of the T. It's like that on purpose. Over the years students got lazy and only hiked to the bottom of the T during painting, thus only painting the bottom of the T, leaving it a little bit longer and longer each year until it became out of proportion. Then Haughton, before he died, had to cover it up to cover up the mistake and make it more proportional

I guess this solves the mystery of the brown paint at the bottom of the T.
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Re: The Trona T

Postby whiskeypete » Fri Feb 07, 2014 10:11 am

Interesting thread. It answered a few questions I've had for years about the T. The closest I've been to the T is a little beyond the cemetary. Hopefully the school or someone will continue to maintain the T so that it will remain in good shape for years to come.
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Re: The Trona T

Postby surfsteve » Sun Feb 23, 2014 9:17 am

When I climbed up there I could see that the old bottom of the T had become a little elongated from where the burnt out flares to light the T remain but the area where Mr. Haughton painted goes way above that. I think that Mr. Haughton, being by himself probably measured the proper proportions of the T but may have forgotten to take the slope into account. It looks like whoever originally placed the flares whenever they light the T got it right. Drawing a huge T on a near 45 degree slope by yourself would be a challenge but getting it to look right from Trona seems a lot more complicated and was definitely not a one man operation.
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