1981 | Travertine Point
I scrambled up this rough slope near Travertine Point, hoping for a good vantage to estimate the old water level of Pleistocene Lake Cahuilla, some 275 feet above the present Salton Sea, which itself lies 235 feet below the Pacific Ocean.
More than a view, I found a sense of the huge volume that had filled the broad basin, covering an area 130 miles long. As I rested with my head aligned to the old water level, I could feel the old waves lapping at my neck as I saw the rough shells of bivalves clearly marking the shore. All the cues were there; I felt buoyed in the old water and free to breathe with my head just above the surface.
This was a fine place to take in a great hydrological cycle of the West, which shifted dry and wet over 400-year periods, and this shoreline revealed its own memories to me. It was easy to go back in time here, after I learned how to be still, and to tread water in the old lake.