I intended to hike Mount Wilson on October 11th, a large mountain towering above Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley. Unfortunately, local government officials banned all people from hiking the trail, which included penalty of multi-year jail and hefty monetary penalties. Those penalties convinced me to forgo the hike. So instead, I decided to drive 2-3 hours southeast to the Salton Sea. In particular, I wanted to visit Bombay Beach, which is the location of the southern most point of the San Andreas Fault. I didn't find any interesting fault features at Bombay Beach, but it was interesting walking through this desert community that sits several hundred feet below sea level on the edge of a giant salty lake.
After departing Bombay Beach, I headed farther south to a group of mud volcanoes located near Niland, CA. This area of geothermal activity is produced by an area of crustal spreading...a likely precursor to the development of an oceanic basin that will fill with sea-water during the next million years or so. I viewed these mud volcanoes at a point in the year in which the water table was low, thus boiling mud was not particularly prominent. Nevertheless, I did get to video a couple of mud-splatter cones that I've posted below. Perhaps someday these 6 foot mud volcanoes will grow a couple thousand feet more?
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