In California, a journey to the end of the road
I came to the Salton Sea as part of the research for a new book about the ecology and psychology of abandoned places, an investigation into how nature can adapt and recover in the long shadow cast by human activities. It had taken me to some of the world’s most eerie, ravaged and polluted sites — from the disaster zones of Chernobyl and Montserrat, to former frontlines in Cyprus and Verdun, Detroit’s blighted neighbourhoods and a Scottish island whose last residents left in 1974. The Salton Sea — its seaside resorts left landlocked by shrinking waters, its boats rotting in the bowls of dry marinas — felt a fitting final destination.