Visiting Zzyzx Today: A Practical Guide to Lake Tuendae and Soda Springs

By C. V. Wooster · October 5, 2026

Zzyzx is one of the easiest places in the Mojave to visit and one of the easiest to misunderstand. It is not a ghost town and not an abandoned spa you can explore. It is an active university field station next to a small public nature trail. Here is how to visit well.

Getting there

Take the Zzyzx Road exit from Interstate 15, a few miles southwest of the town of Baker and roughly 100 miles from Las Vegas. The road runs about five miles south to the old resort site on the western shore of Soda Dry Lake. Part of it is paved and part is dirt. Ordinary cars usually manage it in dry weather, but take it slowly and check conditions after rain.

The road ends at a National Park Service parking area with picnic tables and a pit toilet. There is no drinking water, so bring your own, more than you think you need.

What's public, and what isn't

This is the most important thing to know. According to the NPS and the CSU Desert Studies Center:

• Open to visitors during daylight hours: Zzyzx Road, the NPS parking lot and picnic area, and the Lake Tuendae Trail.
• Closed without a reservation: the grounds and buildings of the CSU Desert Studies Center next to the lake, including the old resort buildings and the pool-house ruins.

The NPS puts it plainly: "Zzyzx is not an abandoned ghost town." It says the structures beside Lake Tuendae are private property belonging to the Desert Studies Center, and that park visitors may visit only the lake and the picnic area. Students, teachers and researchers live and work there. Please respect the signs.

The Desert Studies Center also lists rules for the public area: no overnight camping or off-road driving in the lot or along Zzyzx Road, no drones or commercial photography or filming, and no pets except licensed service dogs.

The Lake Tuendae Trail

The trail is an easy, ADA-accessible quarter-mile loop around Lake Tuendae, with wayside exhibits on the natural and human history of Soda Springs. The lake is ringed with California fan palms and reeds, and on a still morning it mirrors the mountains.

Look for:

• Mohave tui chub in the water, the endangered fish whose survival helped save this place. See our tui chub post.
• Birds. Permanent water is rare in the eastern Mojave, so the palms and reeds draw birds out of the surrounding desert. Bring binoculars, especially during spring and fall migration.
• Traces of the resort. From the trail you can see the old buildings and the palm-lined layout of what Springer called the "Boulevard of Dreams." Imagining guests here at the resort's peak is half the fun, and it costs nothing to stay on the public side.

When to go

The Mojave is dangerous in summer. Baker's famous roadside thermometer is 134 feet tall, a nod to the 134°F record set in Death Valley in 1913, and summer days near Zzyzx can be brutally hot. Late fall through early spring is the comfortable season. In any season, arrive early, carry water, wear sun protection and tell someone your plans. Cell coverage can be spotty off the interstate.

Nearby

• Baker (about 7 miles north) has fuel, food and the World's Tallest Thermometer.
• Mojave National Preserve surrounds Zzyzx to the east and south. Its highlights include the Kelso Dunes, the Cima Dome Joshua tree forest and the historic Kelso Depot (check NPS for current hours; the depot visitor center has had closures).
• Soda Dry Lake itself, the vast white playa beyond the lake, is where the Mojave River ends. Springer harvested its salts for his "Zy-Crystals."

Respect the place

Zzyzx has had many lives. The Mohave and Chemehuevi people used these springs for generations. It was an Army outpost in the 1860s, a railroad stop in the early 1900s, a health resort from 1944 to 1974, and since 1976 a field station. The Desert Studies Center acknowledges that it sits on the traditional and ancestral lands of the Chemehuevi people of the Southern Paiute (Nuwuvi) territory. Leave rocks, artifacts, plants and wildlife where you find them.

If you want the whole story before you go, start with how to pronounce Zzyzx and our timeline.