5 votes

Beach Made of Bones and Barnacles

California 111, California USA

Independent

“that's not sand you're stepping in..”

The Salton Sea is a large body of water that has quite the history. Formerly a dried up lakebed, in 1905 heavy rains forced the nearby Colorado River to flood a dike that was made to retain water for the Imperial Valley farms. The Salton Sink, where the Salton Sea is located, received much of this flooding and until the dike was fixed, a small body of water formed. Today, the water has very high levels of salinity and other chemicals, which eliminates much of the oxygen in the water. This essentially chokes aquatic life in the body of water, where they die and eventually dry and wash ashore, their bones only remaining. The beach looks like a long shore of sand, but closer inspection leads to finding small chunks of bones of fish and birds who have died in the Salton Sea, along with barnacle shells that have also died from the salinity.

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Reviewed by
sunshinenclouds

2 Reviews
2 Helpful

October 30, 2014

Rated 4.0

Visited this place a few tears ago. Full of photo ops: abandoned structures decaying at every turn. Bones all along the shoreline and the occasional conversation with local fishers. Don't forget to visit Slab City (the city of RVs) and Salvation Mountain (beautiful mountain of art made from hay and other materials) also in this vicinity.

2 people found this review helpful

Reviewed by
sarahlily

9 Reviews
11 Helpful

July 25, 2014

Rated 1.0

We could not find this place...driving the highway both North and South, we did not see the car or any place near the map marker that we could find car access to.

1 person found this review helpful

Reviewed by
TobrethHansen

15 Reviews
0 Helpful

February 19, 2020

We actually stopped first at the visitors’ center. We were able to see barnacles and bones on the Salton sea beach there. We continued on 111 to the GPS coordinates for this, but it would have been a hike across land that we were not supposed to cross. If you want to go here, there is a Corvino Beach entrance shortly before and you could walk down the beach from there but it would be a hike. Needless to say we flet we saw enough at the visitors’ center and skipped the walk.

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Reviewed by
britty.fintel