Staying @ Headquarters Camp
SALTON SEA, CA
When I originally set out to do this whole RV life thing, back when the idea was still fresh and fun and I wasn’t yet bogged down with the realities of road life, I began a quest to find some awesome and off the grid things to do. I had always wanted to see Joshua Tree and planned a few days in Anza Borrego. While I scanned the map, I stumbled upon this large body of water that wasn’t surrounded by communities, odd for a place as person dense as California. I began researching and was intrigued by the entire situation.
If you already know the story of Salton Sea, go ahead and skip down. Otherwise, here’s the skim of it. Back about a hundred years ago California was doing some work on irrigation canals hoping to increase water delivery to aid in farm and orchard production. Flood waters burst through a part of the canal and filled the Salton Sink, a basin that has historically filled with the Colorado River’s runoff many times before. This time was just a shit load of water in comparison. And while the seas that came before it eventually dried up naturally, today’s Salton Sea is being barely kept alive by the toxic and chemical rich runoff waters of nearby agricultural outfits. Salton Sea is what is called a terminal sea, meaning it is not naturally fed by any freshwater source, and without that, the salinity and toxicity continues to rise, creating an almost post-apocalyptic dustbowl in an otherwise fertile area of the sunshine state. Weird right?
Today Salton Sea acts jointly as both a disgusting termination point for pesticide rich waters and as a struggling California funded recreational area. Home to one official campground called the Headquarters Camp, this is the only place that you can tent or RV camp for a fee. While there are a few other places in this no man’s land that allow for dispersed camping, after a short trip to the local mini mart, I quickly decided staying off grid was a terrible idea (really sketchy). I booked, cancelled, and rebooked, eventually showing up here on purpose, excited to see what the place really looked like and how much of the degradation was yet unexplored.
Upon first pulling up, I was greeted by an incredibly smiley and helpful park ranger who also greeted my growly dog in the passenger seat (muy bonus points for that). He gave me some directions for parking my behemoth in its designated spot, what info is in the visitor’s center, and what places were worth taking a look, AND where to buy beer. After many months of struggle and delay, I was very excited to finally be here. As I pulled around and saw the very, very slim and dilapidated RV spots, my shine began to fade. I pulled into the tiny stretch, riding the white line on either side. The spots are laid out rather weird in that if you’re facing the RV spot, you’re water, power, and sewer hookups are in the plot to the right directly next to your neighbor’s picnic table, and alternately the same. So while I stood outside cussing at the 30 amp box that barely held the weight of my converter and struggling with my still wet sewer line from the previous camp, a nice couple sat just two feet away, munching their sandwiches while the waft of sewer air came from my pipes. Eventually they retreated to their motorhome, and I was alone to really act a fool. The equipment here is the least maintained that I’ve ever come across. None of the water hook-ups are tight enough at the spout and even using a rubber washer, you still end up soaking the power box that the water spigot is conveniently connected to. After many attempts, I decided power was a priority and to stop fucking with the unruly water spout.
After my initial disappointment with the campsite, I decided to wander a little. Headquarters Camp is compromised of 15 pull through spaces that can accomodate Rv’s up to 35 feet. The campground is located in the parking lot of the visitor’s center and while that may be problematic for most parks, it lends quite a bit of extra space and privacy to those campsites since almost no one visits the visitor’s center, or maybe Salton Sea at all. Just on the other side of the parking lot is the actual beach and foot access to the water. I decided to go out at sunset and see what the waterfront looked like, in search of anything worth capturing. I exited my trailer and noticed that same smell of asshole in the air, so I again went to the picnic side of my rig to investigate. No leak, no hose tear. Must have just been residual, but as I crossed the lot, I realized the smell was getting stronger. Once to the sand, the scent is undeniably that of fecal matter mixed with pond scum and a hint of bodily decay, much like my sewer line but far worse. I continued on down to the beach front in my black flippies, crunching along to the edge of the water. I surveryed the area. For as far as the eye can see it was foam, birds, and a shit ton of tires. In fact, it looked like a Firestone dump station. I’d never seen so many tires scattered in my life.
As I began to photograph the tires in their unnatural environment, I shifted and what I thought was a small twig poked my foot. I lifted my heel to retrieve the wood but found a small yellow tinted spine sticking out of my flesh. It was at this moment that I realized all the crunch below my feet, which I had subliminally registered in the back of my mind as not the right tone or pitch for broken shells, was in fact the remains of thousands upon thousands of dead fish being ground into the fine silt and eventual arsenic ridden dust I was breathing. Ok, kind of fucking gross, but I could hang.
Once I got over the putrid smell and the stomping of dead corpses, it wasn’t that bad. The sea is still huge and kind of interesting to see in person from the perspective of an accident turned entire ecosystem. The history of man’s folly and subsequent refusal to address, deal with, or even acknowledge their failure of the Salton Sea is unbelievable, sad, and not at all surprising. When you think about a place that was slated to be the next Palm Springs and then left to die a slow and painful death, it really is a testament to California and our federal government’s inability to give a fuck about anything that is not on their current agenda. It’s a powerful place to visit if you want to be reminded of the fate of the world.
Back in my RV and three micheladas deep, I took a sleeping pill and nodded off for a restful night’s sleep in this barren dusthole. Once I had truly relaxed and fallen into a slumber, I was violently awoken by the sound of rushing carts and blow horns. A few hundred feet from the campsite lies a surprisingly active railroad supply line, hundreds of trains cars deep, whooshing past every hour or so. One around 11, 1:30, 3. Another at 4am. I lost count, but I can tell you there were many, many occurrences. It’s not just loud, it is FUCKING LOUD, enough to wake the dead. I tossed and turned, laying there semi-conscious, awaiting the next cacophony of shrieks and squeals.
In defense of the Salton Sea, anyone seeking to stay here should already know the ecological state of the park and what that entails. Algal blooms, funky smells, dead fish heads are to be expected. And while it is another thing to experience it first hand, it’s an environemtnal wasteland so it goes without saying. The campsites are not exactly to standard, but if you need to be hooked up to electrical, as I do for the hoards of cats I travel with, then Headquaters Camp is certainly the best option at just $30 a night for a space literally on the water (toxic water but whatevs). The hookups could certainly stand to be serviced and the parking lot repaved, but I sincerely doubt that will ever happen considering the ticking time bomb that is the Salton Sea itself.
Based on the facilities of the campground in concert with the park itself, I’d give Headquarters a solid 7; however, in no place anywhere EVER did I read about the plowing locomotives that race behind the campgrounds. They conveniently left that part out of the brochure and while I could deal with all sorts of fuckery in the daylight, I am a woman of conviction and night times are sacred. In regard to the train situation, I give this place a 2. So much potential, and sincerely interesting in a morbid sort of way, but the constant train traffic is just too fucking much. If you sleep like the dea, this might not be so bad but for me it was simply unbearable. My advice: stay at a perfectly nice privately owned campground or roll the dice and sleep in the desert with the factionless and hope for the best.