Here’s a little SoCal geography to set you up for my trip to the Salton Sea.
If you were standing at the edge of the beach in San Diego, you’d be at what altitude?
Sea level. Right.
But if you go 15 miles inland, to El Cajon, where I live, you’d be at an elevation of 435 feet.
What happens if you keep going? Suppose you go in another 15 miles, to Alpine. What would the elevation be then?
If the rate of the slope is constant, it’d be 870 feet, but the rate isn’t constant. Alpine’s official elevation is 1735 feet, or thereabouts. Actually, the situation is more complex because the way Alpine’s borders work, you hit the 1000 elevation mark just before the city limits and the 3000 elevation mark just after you pass the city limts, so you’ve got a 2000 foot jump in just about the course of one town (spread out as it is).
A bit further on, about 60 miles inland, you hit the 4000 foot mark, and you stay above that level for another 60 or so miles, though it never gets much above 4200 feet. Then it drops off again.
FAST!
In six or so miles you drop from the 4000 foot mark down to the flat plane of the Imperial Valley, which is basically about sea level again.
The largest town along the highway is El Centro, which has an elevation of a measley 45 feet above sea level.
So as you move inland from the beach, you get a moderate climb up to El
Cajon, then a really fast climb up through Alpine to a high,
mountainous region that drops off suddenly to the desert floor.
As you make the transition through the mountainous region, you pass
through a number of different small mountain ranges: the Cuyamaca
Mountains ("KWEE-ah-MAH-kah"), the Laguna Mountains ("lah-GOO-nah"),
the In-Ko-Pah Mountains ("In-Ko-Pah"), and the Jacumba Mountains
("hah-KUM-ba"), in that order.
It’s a wild ride! (More on that tomorrow.)
But what happens if you turn north at El Centro to go up to the Salton Sea?
You keep heading downhill.
The slope is gradual, but when you get to the Salton Sea the elevation is:
Yes! That’s right! The Salton Sea is actually below sea level!
In fact, the lowest part of the sea is even lower. It’s got a maximum depth of 48 feet, the lowest point in the place is 276 feet below sea level.
That’s just a fathom shy of being the lowest point in North America, which is 282 feet below sea level.
And where would that be?
A site just up the road from the Salton Sea . . . Death Valley.
There is a small rise of hills that separates the Salton Sea from the Baja gulf. A powerful earthquake in the right spot could cause the ocean to fill up the Imperial Valley.
Of course the Salton Sea was created by flooding of the Colorado River over the years, with the last flooding ocurring in 1901-1904. With all of the dams built on the Colorado River in the 20th century, flooding shouldn’t happen again.
At the risk of stealing Jimmy’s thunder, Mt. Whitney as the highest point in the lower 48 states (14,491 ft.) is less than 100 miles away!
Now that you have set us up, we await the conclusion of your story about why you were there.
That’s right…
You weren’t waking one of the Elder Ones sleeping under the lake, were you?
You weren’t waking one of the Elder Ones sleeping under the lake, were you?
Not INTENTIONALLY!
Sorry for the delay!
More Thursday!