I didn’t understand just how big and how diverse California was until I decided to visit the four corners of the state.
The northwest end of the state is just past Crescent City–wet and lush. It’s a land of redwoods, salmon fishing and wild rivers, like the Smith River near the Oregon border.
The next trip was to the northeast corner, near the town of Cedarville, on the edge of the Great Basin, with alkali lakes, fields of green alfalfa, and the Cascade mountains.
The southwest corner was more difficult. The congested freeways of metro Los Angeles blocked easy access to the corner of California below San Diego. We managed to get close enough to hike to the border of Mexico and California, where an ominous wall marches into the surf. The southwestern corner is dominated by the politics of the U.S.–Mexican border. The black metal wall, weirdly reminiscent of Christo’s Running Fence, serves to prevent immigration, yet California is completely dependent on Mexican workers for its economic well being. Now Trump has embraced a wall as a ploy to get votes from racists.
It was an easy ride over to the southeast corner, where the border follows what is left of the mighty Colorado River. Water diversions have left only a small river, and the surrounding area are mostly sand dunes and desert. At the southeastern corner is an Indian casino. Nearby, miles of sand dunes are being torn up by desert-destroying off-roaders. The Colorado River is diverted by a canal to irrigate the Imperial Valley. When this canal broke in 1905 the Salton Sea resulted. No water from the river reaches Mexico, where people now live in the dry stream bed. Occasionally, after major rains, not all the water is diverted and Mexican homes have been tragically flooded. Both the southwest and southeast corners of the state are degraded landscapes.
I had never heard of anyone making such a trip to see the corners of California. Each area was so different from the others that it was like visiting four separate countries. Californians are able to live in different worlds here, all within one state.
I remember taking my dog to wildly different ecosystems; one week the Sierra, the next the desert, another the big city. I thought that this dog was a real expert among dogs; he had seen it all. I don’t know if it improved him, but I felt that he was sophisticated and worldly. The point remains, there is no other state in America where changes in landscape are so radical.
Take a look at the four corners of the state and think about what they mean in terms of your perceptions of California. In the southeast they are trying to keep Mexicans out. In the northeast, they are desperate for more people. At Crescent City in the Northwest we send the most violent people to Pelican Bay State Prison while and in the southeast we take what is left of the Rocky Mountain’s water and convert it to irrigation for crops in the Imperial Valley, creating a man-made oasis and robbing Mexico.
One tries to think of the state in terms of good or bad, but the reality of California goes far beyond those simple labels. As you will discover in your travels here, this is a place only the gods could fathom.
–Richard Blair
Southwest Corner - US and Mexico ©Richard Blair
Casino on the southeast corner ©Richard Blair
Fishing boat at Crescent City- northwest corner ©Richard Blair
Relic car in sagebrush - Northeast corner ©Richard Blair
Field with dry lake and Great Basin mountains: Northeast corner ©Richard Blair
End of the Colorado River: Southeast corner ©Richard Blair
Coyote pups in pipe: Northeast corner (They were safe in the pipe.)
Border fence and Mexico beyond ©Richard Blair
Castle Crags in fog: Northwest ©Richard Blair.
Border Patrol SUV and fence ©Richard Blair
Herd of Deer: Northeast. (We stopped on the road to look at the deer, cars drove up behind me, Rather than yelling that I was blocking the highway, they all got out and looked!)
Pelican Bay prison - Northwest corner (The inmates are all underground)