Photos by Hans Tore Tangerud
--- The Salton Sea, California ---
Once called the California Riviera.
To me one of the weirdest places on earth.
It has been on my list of things to see for many years.
Here's a few good Youtube stories on The Salton Sea.
Plagues & pleasures on the Salton Sea. (1 hour.)
Paradise Lost: The Life and Death of the Salton Sea. (15 min.)
The Salton Sea was created between 1905 and 1907 when
the Colorado River broke through diversion canals in the irrigation system.
So an engineering mistake gave birth to californias largest lake. 35 miles long by 15 miles wide.
In the 1940's, 50's and 60's the Salton Sea was a beautiful place with yacht clubs, vacation homes and motels.
Today mostly abandoned and extremely polluted. You have to visit to understand how it is here, and the smell. Uuuuhhhh!
First Impression:
What a beautiful place. Then - What is that smell?
Look at the beach surface, it's not sand it's layers and layers of bones from dead fish.
Check out the beach surface, a "million" fish bones.
Walking the beach you sink half way to your knees in this mixture.
Dead fish.
Beach surface.
