Comments on: Strange Geographies: The Salton Sea

By: ddan

ddan — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:06:07 +0000

Back in 1967 I camped at the salton sea for two days. I was 12 years old. We came to go duck hunting.You could smell the sea miles befor you go there. It smelled like rotten eags and the shore was cover in dead fish and there were old gas stations ,houses ,cars, trucks and boats all left to rot in the sun. It seemed like a place were thing came to die. I did not like it there and will never go back.But the duck hunting was great.

By: beetle

beetle — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:15:42 +0000

Wow, I never heard of the Salton Sea. Very nice pictures. It looks like something out of a post apocalyptic movie.

By: Drew

Drew — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:02:59 +0000

Oh man, I just had the biggest laugh all month. The house with the spray paint that says “The Hills Have Eyes” is my brothers house!!! I’m not even kidding!
It’s in the trailer park called Bombay Beach, just outside of Niland, CA.

Now adays, The Salton Sea is for people who want to escape big town living. It’s definitely ghetto with tweakers, desert rats and massive amounts of white trash but that’s just what some people desire.

By: Hollie

Hollie — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:18:44 +0000

These photos look like the backdrop from the “Land of the Lost” movie with Will Farrel that I saw this past summer.

By: Calli Arcale

Calli Arcale — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:22:35 +0000

Hmm.. a couple of things in the words above don’t seem to fit. Why would Nazi submarines case problems with fishing off California, since borders the Pacific (and Nazi subs were in the Atlantic)? I’ve never seen any statistics that fishing in California was every primarily from the Salton Sea, considering that before about 1900 it didn’t even exist.

I don’t know about fishing statistics, but there most certainly were U-Boats in the Pacific during WWII. They were protecting ships going to/from Japan, which was of course allied with Nazi Germany.

By: John

John — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:09:23 +0000

Good article, I actually met Leonard Knight last summer while doing some exploring about SoCal. I was very pleased to find out that he is the genuine article from what you see in “Into The Wild”. It was quite the experience I had since I just finished the book and watched the movie…and had the Eddie Vedder soundtrack blasting while driving out there from L.A. It was a wonderful experience, Leonard showed me all around and told me his story of how Salvation Mountain came to be. He is truly a man who is full of love for everyone. If you’re looking for faith in human kind, it’s a good place to start.

By: Melodye

Melodye — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:48:41 +0000

Ransom, I love your posts. Thanks!

By: Larrison

Larrison — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:31:55 +0000

Hmm.. a couple of things in the words above don’t seem to fit. Why would Nazi submarines case problems with fishing off California, since borders the Pacific (and Nazi subs were in the Atlantic)? I’ve never seen any statistics that fishing in California was every primarily from the Salton Sea, considering that before about 1900 it didn’t even exist.

Since that time, the “Sea” has been shrinking… and the Real Estate boom that was pushed by speculators in the 1950’s has imploded, leaving ghost towns amid a naturally receeding shoreline.

It is a strange place — too many people take the Sea as natural (it’s not), and the abandoned marinas and villages as ecological disaster. It’s just nature coming back to balance.

There are some really cool places there — the whole southern end is intense agriculture areas with lots of birds and wild life along the shore. It’s one of the largest geothermal energy areas in the world, and geologically active — with surprizing cold bubbling mud pots, driven by CO2 bubbling up from under ground.

By: TacomaMike

TacomaMike — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:43:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRD_r3Wl-W8

from my visit there a few years ago.

By: pamela smith

pamela smith — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:25:19 +0000

Oh how sad. When I was a little girl we use to go to Salton…it was so beautiful.I now live in Florida and I have seen first hand what agriculture run off can do and has done to the Florida Everglades.California needs to clean this up yesterday….truly a disgrace.