California made a sea by accident — and it’s the strangest day trip in America

It’s America’s strangest day trip

The Salton Sea sits 227 feet below sea level in Southern California’s Colorado Desert, east of Palm Springs.

It’s the largest lake in the state, roughly 15 miles wide and 35 miles long, and it exists because of a mistake. In 1905, Colorado River floodwaters broke through irrigation canals and poured into the basin.

Engineers couldn’t stop the flow for nearly two years. The lake stuck around, fed by agricultural runoff from the Imperial and Coachella Valleys.

What grew up around it is even stranger than how it got here.

Hollywood’s desert riviera fell apart by 1984

Developers in the 1950s and 1960s sold the Salton Sea as California’s inland riviera. It worked.

At its peak, the lake pulled in more visitors per year than Yosemite.

The North Shore Beach and Yacht Club opened in 1962, designed by architect Albert Frey, with one of the largest marinas in Southern California. Then agricultural runoff pushed the salinity higher.

A destructive flood hit in 1981. The marina collapsed, and the yacht club closed by 1984.

The building sat empty until a 2010 restoration, and it landed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.

Salt levels now double the Pacific Ocean

Every drop of water that enters the Salton Sea either evaporates or stays put. There’s no outlet.

All the dissolved salts stay behind too, and the salinity now sits at about 60 parts per thousand, nearly twice the Pacific Ocean.

The lake keeps shrinking as farming practices shift and water transfers send supply to coastal cities. Thousands of acres of dry lake bed line the receding shore.

Photographers and road trippers come anyway, drawn by a landscape that looks like nothing else in California.

Over 400 bird species stop here on the Pacific Flyway

The Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge sits at the southern end of the lake, protecting wetland habitat since 1930.

More than 400 bird species have been documented in and around the refuge, one of the highest counts at any national wildlife refuge in the western United States.

During migration, over 124,000 shorebirds from at least 25 species pass through on the Pacific Flyway. Historically, up to 90 percent of the western population of American white pelicans wintered here.

You can walk the Rock Hill Trail from the visitor center and climb the observation tower for views across multiple habitats.

A 50-foot folk art mountain made of paint and adobe

Salvation Mountain rises 50 feet from the desert floor near the town of Niland, covered in adobe, donated paint and found objects.

Vermont native Leonard Knight started building it in 1984 after his “God Is Love” hot air balloon failed to fly. He lived on-site in the back of his pickup truck for nearly 30 years with no electricity or running water.

The Folk Art Society of America designated it a folk art site worthy of preservation in 2000.

Knight passed away in 2014, and the nonprofit Salvation Mountain, Inc. now maintains the site with volunteer work parties.

Slab City runs on concrete slabs and no rules

Slab City sits on the concrete foundations of Camp Dunlap, a World War II Marine Corps training base that the military shut down after the war.

Over the decades, people drifted in and settled on the abandoned land. During cooler months, snowbirds roll in with RVs and push the population to several thousand.

Come summer, it drops to about 150 year-round residents. There’s no running water, no electricity, no sewage and no trash collection.

You can drive through, but respect the residents and their spaces.

East Jesus is an open-air museum built from junk

East Jesus covers 30 acres at the edge of Slab City, filled with large-scale art made from recycled and discarded materials.

Artist Charlie Russell founded it in 2006 after coming to work on Salvation Mountain and deciding to stay. Russell died in 2011, and the Chasterus Foundation formed to carry on his vision.

In 2016, the foundation bought the land from the state of California to protect the site for good.

East Jesus stays open 365 days a year, charges nothing to visit and holds the title as the only registered art museum in Imperial County.

Bombay Beach went from resort town to art gallery

Bombay Beach drew vacationers to the eastern shore of the Salton Sea in the 1950s. Then rising water flooded the east side of town in the 1970s, and most people left.

In 2016, the Bombay Beach Biennale brought artists in to build permanent and temporary installations along the streets and receding shoreline.

Today, sculptures and murals turn the whole town into a walkable outdoor gallery.

The Ski Inn has been open since 1957, and its walls are covered in dollar bills left by travelers from around the world.

Mud volcanoes gurgle and pop near the shore

Near the southeastern shore, the ground puts on its own show.

Mud pots gurgle and small mud volcanoes bubble up, pushed by carbon dioxide gas rising through the earth. These aren’t traditional volcanic eruptions.

The area sits along the same fault and geothermal system that created the Salton Buttes lava domes, some of the youngest volcanic formations in Southern California.

Nearby power plants tap underground heat from the same system to produce renewable energy. The mud can run extremely hot and the ground shifts, so keep your distance and watch children and pets closely.

Camp along the northeastern shore at the state park

The Salton Sea State Recreation Area covers the northeastern shore with campsites, hiking trails and shoreline access.

The visitor center walks you through the history of the lake, its ecology and the communities that grew up around it.

The beaches once lay thick with fish bones from massive die-offs, though most have broken down over the years. From the shoreline, you get wide views across the water to the Santa Rosa Mountains.

If you’re visiting the Salton Sea for the first time, this is the easiest place to start.

Pack water and gas because nothing is close

Most visitors drive a loop along Highway 111 and the roads circling the lake. The contrast hits hard.

One minute you’re standing on a quiet, empty shoreline. The next, Salvation Mountain or Bombay Beach explodes with color.

Summer temperatures regularly climb past 116 degrees. Shade is scarce, cell service drops in and out and services are few.

Bring more water than you think, fill your tank before you arrive and expect the occasional sulfur smell near the shore. This is not a polished destination, and that’s exactly the point.

Artists and birders and geologists all claim this place

The Salton Sea started with a flood in 1905. Now it’s slowly shrinking.

In between, a whole catalog of people found something worth protecting here. Artists built mountains from paint and museums from junk.

Birders come for 400 species on the Pacific Flyway. Geologists study mud volcanoes and lava domes.

Off-grid communities carved out a life with no electricity and no municipal services.

Whether you come for the art, the birds or the sheer strangeness of a desert sea, you won’t find anything like it anywhere else in the country.

Explore the Salton Sea in Southern California

You can reach the Salton Sea in about 90 minutes from Palm Springs by heading southeast on Highway 111.

The Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge visitor center near Calipatria makes a good first stop for birdwatching and orientation.

From there, head to Niland on the southeastern side for Salvation Mountain, Slab City and East Jesus, all clustered within a few miles of each other.

Bombay Beach sits on the eastern shore, right off Highway 111. Check the official website for current hours and conditions before you go.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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