4 December '07
Tuesday
The Salton Sea is California's largest lake and it just happens to be more than twice as salty as the Pacific Ocean and, it sits 220 feet below sea level. Pretty amazing... It sits just a few miles south of Palm Springs and a few miles north of El Centro. Right now the water level of the lake is dropping, but if it were to continue raining here in the Palm Springs area like it did last week, it would sure help. At one time the "Salton Sink" was the site of a major salt mining operation as early as 1815. the Salton Sea exists today because of a man made environmental disaster in the early 1900's. Irrigation routes from the Colorado River caused the river to flow unchecked into the Salton Sink for better than 2 years. Well now you've got a new lake, and it's very salty... The lake is 35 miles long, and at the widest, 22 miles. It is also pretty shallow...approx 50 feet at the deepest point. With the weather being almost perfect, we decided to take the kayak out of the car and paddle the Salton.
Each time you get into the water you take in totally different sights, and this one wasn't any different. We had mountains across the lake and desert and farming fields on the other. Sea birds were plentiful because of the fish in the sea. We were really taken with the huge white Pelicans. I would guess that we saw well over 200 of them in our 2 hour paddle.