Salton Sea in California…

One of the quirky places that has always been on my “must go see!” list was the Salton Sea. I am not sure why but everything I ever read about it just somehow attracted me to it. Funny, while we were in San Diego all we heard about was that Southern California awoke one morning to a foul odor that wouldn’t go away. Air quality investigators finally concluded that the rotten-egg aroma that stretched across Southern California had come from the Salton Sea. So why go see it? Because that made it even more quirky… I just had to go!

We drove a whopping 40 miles southeast and are staying at the Oasis Palms RV Resort, a fairly nice Passport America park on the northwestern edge of the the Salton Sea. The park has a pool and a hot tub along with the fact that we are in an old orchard and allowed to pick anything inside the park. The bounty included lots of lemons, a grapefruit and several pounds of fresh dates and all for only $18.50 per night. Hard to beat that!

However, the main reason to be here was for us to go to the Salton Sea. The Sea at its deepest points is only about 50 feet but it is a 360-square-mile body of highly saline water. Our plan was to circumnavigate the lake and to do so required a 115 mile drive… so be it! The lake is said to be shrinking and slowly receding into the desert as more water is evaporating from the sea than what is now flowing into it from agricultural runoff. This “sea” was actually created in 1905 when the Colorado River jumped its banks during a particularly rainy season and filled an ancient salt sink some 35 miles long, 15 miles wide and 227 feet below sea level.

The landscape is your typical southwestern scrub desert with rugged dry mountains around the northern half of the lake. The southern half is surrounded by agricultural lands where water from the aqueducts has created an artificially green oasis. Most notable about the Salton Sea are it’s residents. Many towns sprung up around the lake in the hope that this might be the next Palm Springs or even better. However, what was apparently unaccounted for was the explosion in fishes such as tilapia in the lake that now result in massive die offs when there are algae blooms (undoubted due to agricultural fertilizer runoff). The algae blooms, deplete the lake of oxygen in places, many fish die and this pattern now continues annually.

The result is a nasty and putrid fishy smell that permeates the water. Just get a bit down wind or near its edge and you will be quickly reminded of the recent die off. Fish carcasses line the waters edge and instead of sand there are the older boney fragmented remains of past die offs. Very eerie indeed…

Yet towns such as Desert Shores, Salton Sea Beach, Salton, Ferrum, Durmid and Bertram began in the 1950's  because it was believed that this would become a big resort area and that many people would be moving to this beautiful area. Years later after many fish die offs it became evident it was not going to happen.  Therefore what remains is many of these towns are in shambles with numerous dilapidated buildings. There are hundreds of people hanging on to life in these towns but I suspect that many of them are laborers in the agricultural fields nearby. However, there is one town I was seeking out in particular just outside of Niland, California, known as Slab City and I will cover it is its own worthy blog…

Salton lake is a birder’s paradise especially during migration season which we are now in. As a result there were large flocks of birds all over the lake. Most notable were the large concentrations of White Pelicans and Black Necked Stilts. It was a blast walking along the edges of the Salton Sea and checking out the birds. We really enjoyed the beauty of the landscape in this area but can't say we could ever really enjoy the smell…