Sands of Time

Formed by flood waters from the Colorado River breaking out of irrigation canals from 1905 to 1907, today the Salton Sea is California's largest lake.  Saltier than the Pacific Ocean, the Salton Sea is 226 ft below sea level.  Prized in the 1950s as a vacation destination for the rich and famous, today the increasingly salty water is fed with agricultural runoff and suffers algae blooms which have ringed the lake with dead fish.

Earlier this month I was on my way to the site of an old resort on the lake when a sand dune across the old road blocked my path.  Nature reclaims what mankind has abandoned.

A documentary has been made on the Salton Sea area, "Plagues and Pleasures":
http://www.saltonseadoc.com/
"While PLAGUES & PLEASURES covers the historical, economic, political, and environmental issues that face the Sea, it more importantly offers up an offbeat portrait of the eccentric and individualistic people who populate its shores. It is an epic western tale of fantastic real estate ventures and failed boomtowns, inner-city gangs fleeing to white small town America, and the subjective notion of success and failure amidst the ruins of the past. Hair-raising and hilarious, part history lesson, part cautionary tale and part portrait of one of the strangest communities you've ever seen, this is the American Dream gone as stinky as a dead carp."

Sands of Time, Salton Sea

Google+: Reshared 38 times
Google+: View post on Google+