Salton Sea – Smelly Lake in the Desert

I have been a few times in the desert near to San Diego in California. And one time we passed Salton Sea.

For me my first vision of the lake was: beautiful. Until I got out of the car. A really stinky air was waiting for me to be breathed. I know that smell from the Baltic Sea, it has the same ‘stink’ of rotten water plants and animals. Actually: dying mussels. If that is the exact reason at Salton Sea I ignore but could be because the beach is not sand but dead mussel shells.

The lake is situated in the Coachella Valley east to San Diego. It is located on the famous Andreas fault in the Colorado desert of southern California. I was very surprised reading about the deepest point of the lake: just 13 m/43 ft. The lake gets it water from a few rivers like the New River, the Whitewater River and the Alamo River. To me it appeared it gets no water at all, being stagnant.

The lake was once formed by the Colorado River, flowing in and out and by the quantity of water the lake was more salty or a freshwater lake or even a dry desert basin. Salton Sea looks large, it is actually 24 km/15 miles per 56 km/35 miles and the largest lake of California.

In the 1950s there were a few resort areas like Salton City, Desert Shores, Bombay Beach and Desert Beach. But shrinking in size and a more and more upcoming smell due to the death of water animals and pollution, the resort areas were soon abandoned.

There are mud pots and mud volcanoes on the eastern side I haven’t visit.

There should be a good avian population. I found out that more than 400 species are living here. I saw some seagulls, nothing more. There is a fish population as well even though it seemed to me a really dead water pot.

I happened to be there right in the late afternoon. At sunset it would have been perfect. The light anyway was beautiful and I thought it is a place where one can really make some great shots. The smell is something one can get used to for a while. Living there would be not really that great I think.

We passed in the town Salton City, it didn’t really look much appealing to me. But maybe I missed something? The lake itself is a good place to get some good quality photos of landscape.