Please review our hiker info page to familiarize yourself with hiker safety rules and our hike ratings so that you can select hikes that meet your level of fitness. Unless specified otherwise in the activity descriptions below, hikes have a 15 person limit, and they begin in the ABDNHA parking lot.
Lecture: The Story of the Salton Sea
Speaker: Dave Blanchet, (ret.) Hydrologist
First there was the geology, and then came the flood. The Salton Sea is located along the San Andreas Fault, and it is geology that repeatedly created and drained a vast natural lake over millions of years, called Lake Cahuilla, in what is now the Imperial Valley. Starting in the 20th century, agriculture began to flourish in California’s Imperial Valley, and diversion canals were dug to divert water from the Colorado River into the dry desert. But the wild nature of the Colorado River soon took the upper hand. Events went horribly awry as record-breaking floodwaters destroyed the manmade dams and canals, and the full flow of the Colorado River flowed unabated into the Salton Trough for two years. Only through immense effort was the flooding finally stopped, and the Colorado River returned to its course, flowing into the Sea of Cortez. Tonight’s speaker, Dave Blanchet, is a retired hydrologist from Anchorage, Alaska, and a lifetime member of ABDNHA. General Public: $12, Members: $10, Volunteers: $8. Please register at www.abdnha.org or at the Nature Center, 760-767-3098.
