From the 5 freeway exit on El Toro highway and head north and head 7.5 miles until you find the famous biker’s bar Cook’s Corner. Hang a right here and drive another 4.4 miles though twisting roads, through dense forest, and then just as you past O’Niell Regional Park you will find a small area with a restaurant followed quickly by a drainage canal. Pull into the dirt parking area immediately past the canal on the left hand side of the street.

At this point you have 4.5 miles of dirt road to cover to get to the main parking lot. While you can usually drive this is a typical sedan, it is not recommended to try it in smaller compact cars as they simply don’t have the ground clearance, especially when the roads are in pretty poor shape as they were on this particular trip.

Even though the roads aren’t usually in great shape to begin with, on this particular trip they were in the worst condition I have ever seen, on top of that we had a big rain just 48 hours before I headed over. In my car I made it by driving nice and slow and keeping as far to the side of the big puddles as I possibly could. Even though its less than 5 miles in, it took almost 45 minutes to wind my way to the upper parking lot.

On this particular day people had pulled over at different points to try to walk the rest of the way in if they didn’t have enough clearance (or guts) to drive the rest of the way in.

Even the drive in can be a little daunting when you are driving over roads that are flooded and are more part of the river than part of the road. The secret is to take your time and schedule accordingly. Just for safe measure you should budget yourself at least four – five hours from leaving the main road to drive in, hike the trail, and then drive back out. If you have a good high clearance vehicle and the roads are dry then the drive in and out will go much faster. If you are really unadventurous you can ride a mountain bike or motorcycle in. As much as I get thrown around in a vehicle, I know I don’t have the nerves to ride on with less than four tires.

Once you get to the main parking lot by the fire station, take the stairs up to the trail and stay on it even though you walk past several houses. You will eventually see the sign up above and when you have gone one mile from the parking lot you hit the main trail head and the hike is on.

The overall hike is four miles from the parking lot to the large waterfall (and then four miles back of course). The hike follows the course of the river up into the hills. While its a fairly uphill climb, it isn’t too steep in any one area and there are plenty of places to rest. Be sure to take plenty of water, especially during the summer.

If you are in decent shape you can make it up to the big falls in about 45 minutes to an hour and getting down can take 30 – 45 minutes. Along the way you will see numerous man made structures in the water that used to get damned up to provide different fishing holes.

Once you reach the main falls you have reached the end of the road so kick back on the rocks and suck in the falls-induced ozone while you catch your breath. The 30′ falls isn’t the biggest waterfall you may ever see but considering you are just minutes from not just some form of civilization, but from the heart of southern California with millions of people living in the area. This little slice of heaven is certainly worth the trip and makes for an extremely enjoyable getaway. Don’t forget to take a camera!

What is the Salton Sea
The Salton Sea is California’s largest inland body of water and was formed by accident when a dike ruptured in 1905. For 18 months virtually the entire Colorado River flowed into what had been an ancient dry lake bed creating a 385 square mile fresh water lake. After the dike was finally repaired the lake, unknown to anyone at the time, was setup for failure. Without a large infusion of fresh water, made even more difficult by the water demands of the Los Angeles area, the lake began picking up the vast amounts of salt from the area eventually turning the fresh water lake into a salt water lake with four times the salinity of the Pacific Ocean. During the 1940s – 1960s the area of the Coachella Valley and Imperial Valley became a large and important agricultural area. In 1960, developers began putting in hotels and resorts in turned the area into the hottest vacation destination in California, attracting more tourists than Yellowstone National Park. With a huge recreational lake and what even what had became one of the top salt water fisheries in the world, the Salton Sea was an absolute resource goldmine. It wasn’t until the 70′s that concern started to grow over the future of the area. In 1972 a research study estimated the sea would be dead sometime between 1980 – 1990 unless something was done to save it. At this point, irrigation runoff from the nearby farmland was bringing in tons of pollutants and the only significant source of water was the massively polluted New River that flows up from Mexico. With 18% evaporation occurring every year and nothing but polluted water going into the sea to maintain the water level, it was only just a matter of time before the ecosystem was simply going to fail.

Beginning in the 1940′s, salt water fish were transplanted into the sea and eventually created a very successful fishery industry. In 1960, the resort area began to flourish with the opening of the North Shore Beach and Yacht Club. In 1961, The California Department of Fish and Game predicts the Salton Sea will eventually die because of increasing salinity levels by 1980 or 1990. In 1968 Tracey Henderson, in her book “Imperial Valley” writes that the Salton Sea’s “salinity threat is constant and is growing more serious each year.” She notes that by 1972, it may be too late to save the sea.

The Salton Sea golden age began to crumple when the sea flooded in 1977 and destroyed quite a bit of the surrounding area. In 1984 the North Beach Yacht Club finally closed down.

The beginning of the end came in 1986 when the state issued advisories suggesting adults limit their intake of fish from the Salton Sea due to high selenium levels.

In 1992 the nation’s eyes were finally turned toward the Salton Sea when 150,000 eared grebes die. Two years later 20,000 birds die of a result of another eared grebe die-off. Another two years later in 1996 Type C avian botulism causes the deaths of white and brown pelicans. An estimated 15-20% if the western population of white pelicans and more than 1,000 endangered brown pelicans die as a result, causing the largest die-off of an endangered species on record.

In August of 1999 and estimated 7.6 million tilapia and croakers die from oxygen being depleted due to algae in Salton Sea. Even so, scientific studies show the Salton Sea may have the most productive fishery in the world.

In August of 2006 more than 3 million tilapia died, blocking off Varner Harbor at the Salton Sea State Recreation Area. It was the largest die off since 1999.

Debates continue at different levels of local, state, and federal governments about exactly what to do from letting it dry out to building a canal to the Gulf of California. There are some projects happening here and there but no commitment to any large scale restoration plan. Most people can’t even agree wether or not the sea should even be saved at all.

A call to the Salton Sea ranger’s office gives the clear impression that the Salton Sea simply suffers from bad PR right now. Fishing is up, in the warmer months boats and jet skis ply the waters. The stigma is due to the occasional algea bloom that sucks a lot of oxygen from the water causing a large die-off of fish. A few days later things begin to return to normal. There are fantastic campgrounds and bird habitats.