SALTON SUITE: PART 2 OF 5

Bombay Beach

February 2013. The 7-up sign is gone now, but this general store is still in business. All photos by the author.

This is Part 2 of a 5-part photo essay, about a series of road trips around the Salton Sea from September 2008 through May 2023. You can view Part 1 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here and Part 5 here.

Traveling south from North Shore along Highway 111 takes us to Bombay Beach, a small community even stranger than its name. In the Salton Sea’s heyday as a tourist destination in the 1960s, Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys and Bing Crosby visited the area. Catastrophic floods devastated the resorts, followed by massive fish die-outs caused by chemical runoff from Imperial Valley farming, and by the 1970s the glory days were over.

Bombay Beach is now a shadow of its former self, with a strange mix of residents: elderly retirees, renegade artists and Millennial tourists. Aspiring influencers can often be seen filming TikTok videos on the beach among the ruins and art installations — the latter often including the former. There’s just one restaurant / bar and a couple of convenience stores serving this tiny community. An atmosphere of melancholy permeates the place.

March 2016. The Ski Inn is the only bar / restaurant serving the town. The BNSF rail line is in the background.