The Weirdest Sea I ever Sal..ton

The day before returning to SF after his ten week stay at Casa Verde Tad consented to taking another brief road trip with me.  I've wanted to return to the Salton Sea ever since the memory of our last trip has  been enhanced in my mind from contaminated death pond to "it can't be all that bad."  The last trip was with Dick, Cathy, Nate, Matt, our family and others I may have forgotten.  It blends into a series of "Let's explore our desert surroundings" field trips usually initiated by Dick and involving a couple of six packs of beer.  I have a vague recollection of stopping in a dusty store in Mecca to load up on provisions, a brief lunch on a picnic table, literally sitting on the table because the surface was too gull dropping encrusted for food, freezing our dropping stained butts off,  a cursory glance at interpretive displays and the collective cheer when we called it good and snugged back in the rental cars for our return to Casa Verde.  Tad's recollection is colder, dirtier, smellier and with the added dimension of "Boring."

Armed with my optimism and Tad's reluctance we left DB to Sevi and Boxer sit and steered the Snow Buzzard west.  A couple of miles beyond Chiriaco Summit Route 95 bisects I10.  Travel north and you land at Joshua Tree; we headed south for Mecca.  We returned to this intersection 4 hours later having  visited the tallest flagpole in the world, driven by the Fountain of Youth, seen white pelicans on brilliant blue waves, and found Salvation.  For me, stopping at Border Patrol only added depth to this marvelous adventure.  Tad, on the other hand, wished we'd taken the road more travelled to Joshua Tree.  

The Imperial Valley has the nickname "winter salad bowl of the nation."  I know this because I read about it in a terrific Nat Geo article by Joel K. Bourne, Jr., published in Feb. 2005.  This salad bowl fans out  southwest of the Salton Sea all the way to the California/Mexico border.  It looks like giant rectangles of varying shades of green and tan perfectly laid out by some master quilter.  Bourne tells us that "the Imperial Valley's half million acres of fruits, vegetables, and feedlots soak up more water than Los Angeles and Las Vegas combined."

Run-off from this well watered and well fertilized quilt, will diminish by 20 percent as more of the Colorado River is diverted to satisfy consumer needs to the west in San Diego and to the northwest in the Coachella (Palm Springs) Valley. The sea's other major source of water is the  New River flowing north out of Mexicali and contributing 30% to it's inflow. This source is not decreasing appreciably but the blessing is mixed.  Twenty years ago 60 Minutes declared the New River the most polluted river the world.  So what?   So, while the greens on the Indio golf courses stay green and the drinking fountains at Sea World keep flowing, the absolutely weirdest sea I've ever seen will only get more shallow, salty, and smelly.  You'd think this would be a good thing, wouldn't you? Check this out.

It is one of the most important migratory bird habitats in the US

Once a Palm Springs playground

Promoted in the 60's as a perfect camping spot for a perfect family

Now fish dead from oxygen-depleted water litter the beach

Little San Bernardino  Mts above Palm Springs in background.  Algae laden water in foreground.

I have to agree that the Salton Sea was a disappointment from an environmental viewpoint.  Actually, it is a disaster.  I had to keep reminding myself that it is a closed freshwater system which has 25% more salt content than the Pacific  It's origins are a 1905 break in the Colorado River canal south of Yuma, Arizona, which resulted in a massive flood into the Salton Sink 400 feet lower in elevation. Two years later the break was repaired and voila there stood the 500 square mile Salton Sea.  It's been fed by agricultural run-off, a polluted river, has leached minerals from the basin from which it was formed, and been evaporating ever since.  As unappealing as the Salton Sea has become the alternative- a return to the Salton Sink- is unthinkable.  We don't want our winter salad bowl bordering a year round dust bowl.

We continued along the shoreline to Bombay Beach and ultimately Calipatria.  Both are reminders of what was.  Bombay Beach, once a fisherman's paradise, is a mixed use community: trailers, mobile homes, and multiple person rundowns.  Looking at the sign outside the Ski Inn you'd think it abandoned but the bar is still open and at 2pm a couple of cars are parked outside.  We stayed barely long enough to turn the car around.  Next stop was described in my "Salton Sea SHORELINE GUIDE" by V. Lee Oertle, copyright 1964, "as a small agricultural city in the center of many recreational areas...the lowest city in elevation in the United States at 184 feet below sea level" with "World's Tallest Flagpole....the top  of the flagpole is 184 feet above the ground, and therefore is at sea level."

Calipatria's flag pole was definitely tall.  But the lack of a flag and the run-down community center next to it reminds us that a once promising entrepreneurialvision never materialized.

I directed us back on I111 to Niland and my ace-in-the-hole: Slab City.  How could a young traveler not enjoy  a community of vagabonds with solar power and a rock and roll stage?  This would surely win over a Jack Kerouac enthusiast. 

As we drove to Slab City we saw Salvation Mountain off to our right.  We split in our opinions of this masterpiece of donated paint, adobe, and hay bales. While I marveled at the free spirit that formed this non-demoniational Christian mecca my traveling partner viewed this as an aesthetic nightmare.  Likewise, the Range, a venue for concerts where patrons sit in rusted out automobile seats and enter past a collection of vintage hubcaps was met with the extremes of glee and derision.

On our return drive we talked about the pros and cons of a nomadic life.  Was there a difference between living in a trailer in Slab City and on the beach in Mexico?  Did the desert attract misfits?  Did the desert attract photographers of oddity?  How much longer would it take to get home? What should we cook for dinner?  Was living in an Airstream cooler than living in a double-wide?  And other questions of cosmic importance.