During the week of 10th May I took a road trip to Southern California. While I thought I had visited most places in California before, this trip unearthed a few gems that I had not seen before.
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| Topaz Lake |
I started out heading from the Eastern Sierras and Highway 395, my favorite part of California. The primary reason for the trip was to do some bird watching and I had read that Topaz Lake was a good spot so I pulled of the road and spent an hour or so checking things out. There were a surprising number of birds hanging out there - white pelicans, Western Grebes, Red Winged Blackbirds, Tricolored Blackbirds, Yellow Headed Blackbirds, Mergansers, a Great Blue Heron and a solitary bald eagle sitting at the far edge of the lake. It would have been a nice stop if I hadn’t of messed up on the exit and grounded the car on a rock. I spent a good hour or so jacking up the car and piling rocks under the wheels before I got out. It’s a good idea to examine the lay of the land in front of your car before driving off!
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| Mono Lake |
I finally moved on south on 395 through Bridgeport and made a stop late in the afternoon at Mono Lake. The lake has been filling up in recent years and where once there were strange tufa towers exposed many of these are now submerged. Still that is a good thing we didn’t need the lake to dry out. On one of the remaining exposed tufa towers on the south west side of the lake a pair of ospreys were nesting.
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| Manzanar Japanese Relocation Camp |
I spent the night in Bishop and then continued south on 395 the next day. Manzanar, the Japanese Relocation Camp during World War II is just below Lone Pine and it has recently been upgraded to a National Monument. There is one main building at the site that has been restored and some of the accommodation barracks have been built anew. The Parks Service have done a good job with the restoration and, by means of exhibits and films, quite an interesting story is told. I walked all the way out to the back of the Camp (it’s a good mile) to where there is a cemetery. The path passes through old apple orchards, the original use of the land by settlers before the camp was created. It looks like they are trying to save some of the old trees. The area is quite beautiful at this time of year with snow capped mountains in the real High Sierras, and lovely weather in the valley.
I drove on south for the rest of the afternoon taking in the wonderful scenery down Highway 395 and then the not so inspiring scenery of the Mojave Desert over to Barstow. From Barstow I headed south to Yucca Valley for the evening.
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| Salton Sea |
The next day I drove from Yucca Valley to the Salton Sea, a shrinking inland lake with no outlet and precious little input that has turned into a bit of an environmental disaster for California. The lake’s story is interesting - created by an engineering mistake and a flood of the Colorado River in the early 1900’s, promoted as a desert resort in the 1950’s and 60’s, subject to increased salinity and agricultural runoff that resulted in fish kills in the latter part of the 20th century, and now a problem for California. If it dries out completely it will be another Owens Lake with toxic dust storms polluting the air; if they protect it by increasing flow or reducing salinity, it is going to be very expensive. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next 10 or 20 years.
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| Dead Fish on the Beach at Salton Sea |
The lake actually looks spectacular - blue water, surrounded by white beaches in a valley flanked by high mountains. I was pleasantly surprised at how good it looked, but then when you step out of the car you realize why it is not so popular. The debris of earlier fish kills lies along all the shoreline and the odour is quite bad. Nevertheless it struggles along as a State Park with apparently good fishing despite the dead fish on the beach. The area has deteriorated a long way from the once promised playground of the rich and famous (they all moved north to Palm Springs for recreation) and the area is now very much impoverished and decaying. There is a great documentary about the Salton Sea here.
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| Niland |
Niland is one of the towns along the eastern edge of the lake, it is quite a sad looking town - not much sign of life - closed shops and restaurants, a permanent looking flea market selling all manner of junk, a deserted yet impressive bank building from its glory days and lots of deteriorating housing.
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| Slab City |
Just outside Niland on a dirt road to the east is Slab City - an abandoned military base where all that remains are the cement slabs of base’s buildings. In recent years this has been occupied by people in RVs and tents squatting on the site. As you enter the area a concrete guard station has been painted in bright colors and welcomes you to the “Last Free Place on Earth”. It’s occupants are dwindling now but in its heyday there were thousands of wintertime residents and some 150 year round residents. Truly living off the grid.
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| Salvation Mountain |
At the edge of Slab City is an even stranger place - Salvation Mountain. This is a man made mountain of straw, mud and paint, the creation of one man, Leonard Knight, over some 30 years of hard effort. Basically it is Leonard’s tribute to his Christian God. There are numerous murals, quotes from the bible and various prayers and, of course there is a cross on top. It’s a colorful and quirky place that is most interesting to wander around. It and its creator featured in the film “Into the Wild” about the unfortunate Chris McCandless.
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| Salvation Mountain |
Further south on the east side of the Salton Sea are some geothermal plants that tap into the earth’s crust for energy. In a field adjacent to one of these plants there is evidence of how close to the surface this geothermal activity is. There are several vents in the ground with bubbling mud in them and 10 or so mud volcanoes - 6-8ft high mounds of mud - that gurgle and spew out the occasional splatter of mud. The San Andreas Fault passes through this area and it is very thermally active.
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| Mud Volcanoes |
Alongside the road running along the western shore of the “Sea” is a railway track taking freight to and from Mexico. The line was quite active. At the south end of the “Sea” you are only 30 odd miles from the Mexican border and there is a Border Control post along the road just north of Niland. Lots of lights and cameras focussed on the cars and trucks and a mandatory stop if you are heading north. They are looking for illegal immigrants.
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| Joshua Tree |
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| Joshua Tree National Park |
In the late afternoon I paid a visit to Joshua Tree National Park. I had seen Joshua trees before in Death Valley but this was the first time to this park. It is quite beautiful with some lovely rock formations and lots of the weird and wonderful Joshua tree. The park is the junction of the Coloradan and Sonoran deserts and passing south into the Sonoran desert there is a delightful little forest of Chollo cacti - just a few hundred square yards of desert full of these spiny cacti. Further south there is a nice grouping of Ocatillo, one of my favorite desert plants.
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| Chollo Cactus Garden |
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| Ocatillo |
I stayed another night in Yucca and then headed towards home the next day. The route I took was through Pasadena to the I-5 freeway up the San Joaquin valley. In Pasadena I stopped off at the Norton Simon Museum - a nice little art museum in the heart of Pasadena right by the freeway. It is just the right size, enough to see everything in a couple of hours and the sculpture garden is a haven of peace and tranquility whilst the LA freeway rushes by just outside the gates.
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| The Sculpture Garden - Norton Simon Museum |
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