Salvation Mountain's Crumbling Future

I have spent a lot of time at the Salton Sea over the years. It's a bizarre area, which speaks to me on many levels. Weird, abandoned buildings, mudpots, crippling vagrants, terrible smells, temperatures that vary between absolutely perfect and full-on hellish...Burrowing Owls, Wood Storks, Yellow-footed Gulls, Black Terns....what's not to love? But starting in 2007, I did the unthinkable...I began making regular visits to a nonbirding spot.

Salvation Mountain is easily one of the strangest places in the country, featuring one of the largest and (of course) controversial pieces of art around. It is a monument to all that can happen when an eccentric spirit puts his mind to something, and for whatever reason never gives it up, even in the slightest. Unless you are someone who fears the weird things in life, you really owe it to yourself to pay a visit to the mountain. A few minutes east of Niland, it's a stone's throw from the Wister Unit.

For those who haven't been, Salvation Mountain is the work of Leonard Knight (left), who has spent much of his life painting the mountain in the name of God's Love. Yup, painting a mountain. As you know, I am a devout atheist, and I can tell you that this place can appeal to just about anyone. It's just so strange that it kind of transcends whatever weird notions people have about what happens after we die, who made the dinosaurs, etc. Leonard has always come across as a good guy and is never pushy about his faith (the mountain speaks for him), which is probably why no one has a bad word to say about him.

Salvation Mountain has essentially been crafted single-handedly by Leonard over the years with mud, straw, and paint, but now it's future is in doubt. Leonard is an old dude, and a few months ago was moved into an assisted-living home...I think it is safe to say that Salvation Mountain will no longer be added to, and it may not be long before the desert sand and wind (and the inevitable assholes with spraypaint) descend upon the mountain.

If you've been procrastinating about going here, now is the time to go. It's so close to so many good birding spots that you have no good excuse not to go if you're in the area. And for those of us who have had the pleasure of visiting this nonsensical place...well, then I probably don't need to convince you that it's worth seeing, at least for one last time.

Oh yeah, don't forget the Saturday Night "talent show" at nearby Slab City...bring a guitar and a flask, and you'll be set.

Leonard photo by Jim Tucker.

Another look at the main part of the mountain. This is the older part; there is a lot of mind-bending, psychedlic newer work just to the south.

Best sign in the world. I like how "love" is just kind of randomly fit in at the bottom.

To Kill The Sleeping Cop In Me

One of the newly completed areas at Salvation Mountain.

Well it's been a turbulent start to Y2K10 here at BB&B, but turbulence happens right? And like most occurrences, it's usually pretty brief and not something we bank in our long-term memories....why dwell on the bullshit, right? Right.

A lot of birders are getting all uppity and bragging about how many species they've already seen in this Foul Year Of Our Lord, Two Thousand Ten. Which is fine. That's what they do. That's what I used to do. It's in our nature. It's all part of our subcultural zeitgeist, part of what makes us the nerds that we are.



I didn't mean for this shot to come out so dark (that's the sun, not the moon), but I kinda like it.

Which is neither here nor there....and possibly not anywhere relevant. When working on this thing I often require coffee, which in turn (tern?) makes it extremely difficult to concentrate on any one topic for very long. For example, the topic on the tip of my proverbial tongue right now is fallen soldiers. No, not the heroic/unlucky/stupid (depending on your point of view) people who have died for their god and country, but cans and bottles of beer that were opened and had a couple of sips taken.....then left by the wayside. But these fallen soldiers are neither gone nor forgotten....they serve as reminders (the next morning) of A) how wasteful people are, and in the case of a certain German roommate, B) what terrible drinkers people can be.

Indeed.....very much so. I guess this is what you're stuck with....random screeds written by a highly-caffeinated half-asian man. Maybe I should go birding or something, eh? That always seems to make life a little more livable.

Speaking of which, for those of you in the bay area (Fay Area), there are a lot of good shows coming up in January. Andrew Jackson Jihad, Strung Out, The Ian Fays, Devil Makes Three and Strike Anywhere are all playing in the city this month...which sounds good to me. Ha!



A female Common Ground-Dove, wallowing in her scaly goodness.



Sometimes living a life in the dust doesn't seem like a bad idea.

Finally, barring catastrophe, apocalypse, and The Second Coming Of Zombie Christ, it looks like I will be moving down to Arizona at the end of February for some serious point-counting. I will give more details in the near future.....with this in mind, I think I can level my warrior to enjoy funemployment to the maximum. Sick.



A cloud of Snow and Ross' Geese whirls over an alfalfa field at Salton Sea NWR.

Pissing On The Fire

The Salton Sea is one of the strangest places in the United States....in terms of socially, visually, and birdily. Although it lies in an ancient lake bed, it was created (by accident) and is now "maintained" by people. It's the largest lake in California, and is considerably bigger than Lake Tahoe....it enjoyed a lot of popularity some decades ago with the Hollywood crowd, but has since been abandoned from the public consciousness.



Somewhere in the desert, there are Abert's Towhees getting incredible kicks from things you couldn't possibly imagine.



Double-crested Cormorants are one of the commonest birds at the sea.

Because the Salton Sea lies in a naturally very salty area and is primarily fed by agricultural runoff, it actually becomes 1% saltier every year, or some similar figure. It is now considerably saltier than the Pacific Ocean, and now has an extremely simplified ecosystem (aside from its birdlife)....some invertebrates, a bunch of Tilapia (and maybe a few hanger-ons of other species), and a huge diversity of birds. It has been the site of massive die-offs of fish and birds, and it's not well known how much longer it's ecosystem will be able to persist in it's present state. It's an austere place, but it's history of bringing in facemelting megavagrants (I've seen four (4) species of longspur, Rufous-backed Robin, Roseate Spoonbills, Ruff, Sprague's Pipits, Painted Redstart, etc. in the Imperial Valley) will leave many a birder broken-hearted if it deteriorates much more. Granted, some of these rarities weren't found at the sea itself....but when you consider the fact that it's used by millions of birds every year, you tend to forget about the other stuff.....



Burrowing Owls can keep it on the down low when they want to.

Slab City ("The Last Free Place On Earth") and Salvation Mountain were both very popular with some of us on the Burrowing Owl crews when I lived down there, and I was happy to get back to see Leonard Knight and his mountain. Leonard is still well for those of you wondering, and was actually relieved to find out that I'd been there before. "It's that Google Earth", he explained, "because of that thing, I get about 200 people a day now. There's already been over 200 today."

He looked down at his feet, kicked the dust, took a deep breath, and shuffled determinedly toward the nearest tourist. "Hello there! Welcome!".

If you've never eaten at Christine's in Brawley, seen Calipatria's flagpoll, inhaled the fumes at Red Hill, or drnk too much at Slab City's talent show, you must. I'll see you there.



The great ornithologist Felonious Jive contemplates astrophysics in front of Salvation Mountain.