Today we took a spin out to the Salton Sea, California’s largest, albeit mistaken, lake. We have seen it many times before but always from a distance. From the top of the Laguna Mountains, maybe 50 miles away to the southwest, the Sea looks like a shimmering jewel in the midst of a brilliant, colorful desert.
We hopped onto CA-78 from our RV park in Shelter Valley and followed it through Ocotillo Wells and across much desert badland until we got to the shore of the lake. Up close, the Salton Sea is a testament to men screwing up nature and having it ultimately strike back. We went through Salton City, a seaside community of some nice but mostly grubby little desert dwellings. Some of them are hard to see through the enormous screening junk piles some folks have in their yards. We drove down to the rapidly receding shoreline and gazed out across the long beach of heavy metal and agricultural chemical residues mixed in with the dirt.
The Salton Sea was created when some levees on the Colorado River failed and the water ran downhill into the deep, way below sea level sump that now is the bottom of the Sea. Our GPS at the seashore indicated we were more than 250 feet below sea level. Take that, Death Valley. Virtually no new water, except runoff from agriculture, replenishes the Sea. Lotsa Selenium here for those interested. The salt level is higher than the ocean, so buoyant stuff floats very high in the water until the stuff dissolves and sinks into the chemical stew. Prolonged drought is evaporating the fraction of the stew that is water, leaving the other, not water, stuff behind. A brown cloud of nasty crud fills the sky when the wind blows. Up close the Salton Sea is not a shimmering jewel.
We bailed from Salton City pretty quickly and headed back toward Borrego Springs on S-22, a lumpy and curvy path through the Borrego Badlands. The terrain, geology and desert plant scenery along the way are fascinating. The Badlands here are every bit as bad as the Badlands in South Dakota except the Badlands here have all the convoluted terrain AND nasty pricker bushes and cactus. But no water.
We continued through Borrego Springs, checking out the houses, golf courses in the middle of a desert and some more roadside metal sculptures before heading over Yaqui Pass back to Stagecoach Trails RV. It was a very nice loop drive although we probably could have left out our the up-close and intimate visit to the Salton Sea. The rest of the drive was gorgeous.
Check the pix. Click here