Salton Sea

While in the vicinity, I wanted to see the Salton Sea up close. This body of water has a long and checkered history. It didn't even exist in any permanency until the early Twentieth Century when a poorly constructed canal near Yuma diverted the spring floods of the Colorado into the Salton Sink rather than the Gulf of California. At its heart, this birth was really a colossal, man-made diasater. The book Salt Dreams, which I read a few years earlier, chronicles this history.

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Though it has its boosters, I, for one, can't describe the sea as a pleasant destination, but as curiosity it warranted a quick view. Not content to simply drive by it, I wanted to hike at least part of the shore. I found a good place to do that at Salton Sea State Recreation Area on the northeast shore. Lacking any formal trails, the open shoreline is easy to traverse on foot. I planned to hike down about a half-mile along the higher solid ground and walk back all the beach proper.

Stepping out of my climate-controlled car in to the oppressive, late-afternoon heat, I headed south across the barren land with the sea about thirty to four yards off to my right. Along the way a bird–my cousin suggested it was a plover—kept flying around me, feigning dive-bomb runs, and generally making a lot of raucous noise. Cute at first, it got old rather fast.

Having hiked the appointed half-mile, I stopped for a few minutes to rest on a park bench facing the sea, but it was far too hot to stay out for any extended period. I stepped on to the beach and started hiking back to the car. Rather than sand the beach was comprised of what appeared to be crushed sea shells that were very hard to walk on. The air smelled of dead fish. Pockets of scum floated on the water. The clamorous plover returned to menace me. I got salt in my eyes. All told, I suffered a total assault of the senses on the return, but I didn't expect an English garden. I got the experience I sought and in just the perfect quantity at that.



Trip Statistics
Length: 1.1 miles
Time: 33 minutes
Elevation Change: negligible
Total Climbing: negligible
Max. Elevation: -202 feet

It was far easier to hike on the land further from the sea than the beach. Comparatively, more pleasant too.














This is actually the nicer of the two seashore pictures I kept.














The plover pulls up from a bombing run. He and his friends never came closer than arms length, but that didn't stop them from being an annoyance.













After the hike, I continued on my clockwise circuit of the sea along CA-111.