NEW YEAR'S WINTER JOURNEY III: SLAB CITY, SALTON SEA MUD VOLCANOS, CLARK DRY LAKE ANZA-BORREGO
Report by Desert Frog
Dr. Doom and I originally planned to journey to Saline Valley for New Year's Eve for hiking and soaking in the hot springs there, but with limited time and 2WD tread opted for something a bit closer to urbanization and asphalt: the Salton Sea and its myriad distractions.
Chief distraction on the list: the Salton Sea mud volcanos, geothermal oddities rumored to spurt somewhere along the southeast coast of the already strange Salton Sea. We vowed to find these volcanos, capture them on video, and if at all possible, soak in them without being boiled alive.
Acid mud bath |
 Slab City talent show |
 The rock shot |
I left my Ventura County apartment at 7 a.m. in my 2000 Corolla and enjoyed near impossible 80+ m.p.h. speeds to Pasadena where I rescued Doom from any remaining holiday obligations. We continued at the high rate of speed to Redlands where we ditched the Corolla for a 2002 CRV (2WD) which Doom's mother generously supplied us for the trip.
We continued along the 10 freeway, past the cancerously spreading outlet malls and aesthetically bankrupt tract housing of the Inland Empire and into the billboarded, windmilled, and creosoted landscape of the Coachella Valley.
We practiced our Spanish in Mecca where we bought groceries and lunch and continued south to the fascinating nightmare that is the Salton Sea.
If you don't know the story of the Salton Sea, here is a quick version of what happened. In the early 1900s, the California Development Company, diverting water from the Colorado River for agricultural use in the California desert, built a faulty diversion channel system which eventually flooded and caused the Colorado to flow uncontrollably into a low elevation section of desert. After two years of flooding and millions of dollars spent in repairs, the flooding was stopped and the Colorado put back on course.
The result of the disaster: 376 square mile lake with depths of up to 51 feet. The Salton Sea.
In the decades that followed, the Salton Sea became a popular resort and wildlife area, being initially filled with relatively clean river water. Over the years, however, the salinity in the sea has rapidly increased along with pollutants due to tributaries filled with agricultural runoff and even raw sewage from Mexico.
There is no outlet to the sea, so the concentration of destructive elements has only increased with time, killing off fish and scaring away everyone and everything except for large numbers of birds, people who like birds (both to view with binoculars and shoot with guns), and a few crazy old timers with cracked leather skin who still believe they are living in the year 1950.
Oh, and those idiotic Dagnabits show up there too once in a while to explore the post-apocalyptic moonscape...