I've watched this video probably a dozen times. I love the feeling it creates.

I live in Sandy Shores! This looks identical to where I live!

Yestheory anyone?

Wow, great short film! My family used to spend time out at Salton Sea in the 50's and early 60's. Dad and one of his long time friends (his family also with us) used to test and race boats, here and out on the Colorado River. In addition to catching Lizards - water skiing was of course a favorite past time. It's certainly in a sad state these years and there are times when the Monsoonal weather blows up the Valley - the odor of Salton Sea is horrible!

The Salton Sea is one of those bizarre places that is terribly interesting but attracts the attention of almost no one. I teach high school in Palm Springs, just at the other end of the Coachella Valley, yet almost none of my students has ever visited the Sea or knows much of anything about it; the only time locals discuss it at all is when there's a particularly bad fish die-off and the wind brings us the evidence. Great video, a little surprised you could resist making it mostly in black & white.

"There but for the Grace of God, go the rest of us." Pretty potent words, summing up an excellent video.

Maybe this is odd, but I'd love to see interviews with the people who were in that 50s throwback clip of the Salton riviera community...the old people are certainly dead, but I just would love to know how the middle-agers turned out and what they look like now and what their experience was at the Salton Sea.

Fallout 4 looks great

I've showed this to many over the last 7 years and I'm still blown away at how awesome of a job you did putting this together.

Great filming and music. Thoroughly enjoyed this.

I am fascinated by anything post apocalyptic, and this little short does a great job of showing it. The Salton Sea is also an available study for environmental catastrophe, but this film does not cover that. it's really good, and worth the 7 minutes of your time.

MIND BLOWN

RIP Leonard Knight he passed away today :(

This is my favourite KZfaq video of all time.

I miss this KZfaq, when people made killer films for our enjoyment. Selfish, I know. This short film is chilling and fascinating.

On our way to Salton Sea in 1998 (before we knew ANYTHING about it) we took a VERY long straight road which led us through a checkpoint (one wooden hut) manned by one soldier. We could see this checkpoint from miles away on this long road and could have easily avoided it by driving just 20feet into the desert on either side, but we were interested. The soldier just checked our passports (British & German) and waved us on politely. Salton Sea was a surprise to us and we guessed at the past of the place (and the stink of rotting fish). Love the video.

Leonard Knight is no longer living, but his Salvation Mountain remains.

Still one of my favorite short films. Excellent work that will be revisited for a very long time.

My teacher showed this to me back in middle school. I’m now a senior in college. Something about this video inspires me so much.

Bombay Beach....my hometown. Can you comprehend that people are people wherever they are? I lived, went to school, rode dirtbikes, fished hunted swam ski'd in what was my reality. I made the best of it and never lamented what could be in the ''big city''. I worked, met a girl, married and kept moving forward. We lived in a Golden Age of the Sea's time....sad to see Her now.

Visiting there a few times myself. Its something you need to see with your own eyes. Miles of empty desert combined with the scene of what looks like the world had ended.

Definitely one of my top favorite shorts. I love that you were able to give the history of the Salton Sea with modern and vintage imagery! Narrated half like a novel and half like a poem. Excellent Work.

Great film! I will be walking around the entire shorline of Salton Sea next summer (a documentary film being made about it as well) .. Most interesting, sad, and bizarre place I know of!

After 9 years, this is still one of the most interesting and beautiful videos on the salton sea

You're an inspiration. Without knowing anything about film, i purchased a DSLR just because of this vid. I love coming back and watching this vid every now and then. I think its one of the best out there imo. Will be making my very own docs soon once i get this baby handled :)

This could be a documentary if someone extended it lol

John Green put a link to this in his blog on Tumblr, and I'm so glad he did. This video--and the story of the Salton Sea--contains absolute beauty juxtaposed against such a deserted city (among a litany of other bittersweet juxtapositions) that I'm left almost speechless. I'm subscribing in the hopes of seeing many more videos like this!

Idk how I found this video but, I'm awestruck by how it sucked me into watching the entire thing. Crisp cinematography with brilliant narrative. Total quality worth 👌 with thought-provoking subtexts.

"I go there to catch glimpses of what the world will look like without us." That's the most succinct way of describing ruin porn I've ever heard

Every single time I see this Mini-documentary in my recommended, I ALWAYS watch it. I love the video so much and I wish this guy made more documentaries like it.

Tremendously beautiful video! God and Mama Mary bless you!

"I go there to catch glimpses of what the world will look like without us." Well, that is sufficiently terrifying.

"No matter the endeavor, if profit can be gleamed than someone will try."

I just need to know if a gps works in this area

Anyone still watch this in 2024? Every couple of months, I find myself coming back to this video. @ransriggs, I hope life is treating you well.

I've been watching this for a decade I think. Couple of times a year. Brilliant.

Looks like Pripyat in the desert. Wish I could visit Salton City, too bad I live on the other side of the country.

This is such a sick video 🙌 Who’s here in 2018?

My job keeps me on the road a lot. I spend a lot of time alone driving. I've had to make a few trips to Yuma. I actually volunteer to go. Really because that journey takes me past the Salten Sea at about 5-6am, and the sunrise is like something from a dream. I grew up in the desert. I have both a hatred and a love for it. So many abandoned structures. Rotted boats outside sun-faded houses. Gravel instead of grass. An ever-rolling tidal wave of trash and tumble weeds. A hot, furnace-like wind that always kept me sick as a kid. But it has it's beauty too, for the reasons you say in your video. For me, it's morning. That 6-am sunrise, like the one on the Salten Sea, and the moist smell of creosote. For me, it's home. My father has refused to leave, because he loves the open spaces--a vast panorama bordered by steel-blue mountains. He's worked in Kentucky, but found the dense woods and snow suffocating, and claustrophobic. I've come to feel the same way. If you ever get a chance to visit Johannesburg, off Highway 395, heading toward Ridgecrest, you'll love it. It's a perfect ode to the wild west era, but also a perfect example of abandonment and the eerie feel of a place rotted away by time. I wrote a short story about what it'd be like to grow up out there, next to a slab of well-traveled pavement with nothing but ravens for company and all the time in the world to make trouble. Johannesburg is definitely worth the visit if you appreciate that sort of thing.

I just love how Ransom always makes simple, commonplace things and places so magical; so interesting; so intriguing... I hope one day I'll have the chance of meeting him and speak to him to have a glimpse of how this man's unusual mind works.

The Fallout 4 Hype is just too damn intense

Anyone got Fallout vibe from this? I love this video.

Thank you for those images... really beautiful in every sense

I recently went on vacation to California with my boyfriend and this was a spot he made a point to visit. It's incredibly eerie, but still one of the most interesting things I did while we were in California. This video sums up the story we've told a million times to every one we've seen since visiting.

Slab City is nearby, it's super weird

Well, now i know where they got the inspiration for Fallout New Vegas. Of course, agriculture fucking beauty away. I guess it's the price of progress... at least this was something artificial, and not a natural wonder!.

The days of the Salton Sea resorts may have passed, but its memory lives on through these comments. Visiting this place (and the Aral Sea) has now been added to my bucket list. Thank you, ransriggs

This is a brilliant masterpiece of work. Thank you for posting.

What was in the "toxic looking pools" why was it greeny/yellow?

Yes Theory squad!

What was once a boating paradise is now an offroading paradise! Just a couple miles west of the Salton Sea is Ocotillo Wells. Famous of its dried mud-hills and fossilized coral reefs, it is by far the most fun and interesting place to ride a dirt bike on Earth.

This is my favorite video, I've watched this thousands of times and it never gets old. God bless you.

I love the old man at the end, still waiting for a god that never came.

5:04 Holy shit! That rock thing is in gta 5!

this video is just one of the best things EVER, so fantastically made and so interesting!

I visited the Salton Sea in the early 80's. It was the beginning of June and at six in the morning was 90 degrees. What I remember most was the millions of sand flies. As you walked along the beach a greenish-black cloud buzzed around your feet. At the waters edge the smell of decomposition was so thick that it took on a life of it's own. An old friend of mine remembers fishing with his father there in the 50's and camped with his friends on the beach.

In 2017 a massive water transfer will take place, diverting millions of gallons of water that would normally go to farmers in the imperial valley, that eventually supplies the sea to keep the level what it is today. This will expose thousands of acres of Playa, which contain toxic silt , and when air borne will cause harmful effects on all inhabitants near the lake and afar, depending on prevailing winds. Doing nothing is not an option, its our responsibility to fix the problem. And speaking to that, the federal government caused most of this problem and they should pick up most of the bill. Shame on them for pretending not to realize the magnitude of the problem for the last thirty years. Hell they didn't do anything about the raw sewage flowing from Mexico into the sea until the 90's. Lets all work together to save this treasure.

The real fallout wasteland.

This is one of the best short film I've ever watched! I will keep rewatching it

As a guy who lives in Slab City for the last 2 years plus, you made a wonderful short that captures a lot of my thoughts about this strangely beautiful apovalyptic hellscape. It has it all. Beautiful sunsets, trash heaps, artistic projects sprung from the beauty and tragedy stirred into one big emotionally powerful soup of what could, should or should not be. Nice work.

Yes theory bois

Sandy Shores...

I really love this video. I looked for it for hours. Thank you so very much for this.

Gorgeous. So amazing. I'm so inspired to go there and do photoshoots, thank you

5:08 thats the place in gta v. right?

One day this is what modern cities and towns will look like with the population being cut down to the size of antiquity or even the Stone Age...

I love this video... & I especially love the message that goes behind it.

HOLY SHIT I FOUND IT I’ve been looking for this video for so long 😭 i remember watching this years ago! What a great little film ❤️‍🔥

Fallout in real life.

Who's here from yes theory🤔🤔 comment:yes theory or like if your not from yes theory

Can't wait to see your future videos!!!

I've always loved things like this. Thank you.

It’s been six years and I still regularly find myself returning to this video, there is something inescapable about its beauty. thank you

Jeez. Incredible footage. Incredible documentary. Thank you Thank you Thank you

Well done mini documentary! I've known about Salton Sea for a while, yet every time I come across information it still leaves me awestruck!

Not sure if you are active on here, but I have already watched your film quite a few times this evening, after spending another weekend afternoon at the Salton Sea. Living in Indio for almost a year (my stay is temporary), I have never heard the desert in California explained so beautifully.

This is a wonderful video, such nostalgia. Great music. Thanks you've really made something special.

Definitely a must-see place on a Ruin Tour, alongside Detroit and Pripyat.

Very well done! Please continue to explore and share your knowledge with youtube audiences! Fascinating, short, sweet, loved it!

Rewatch after some years. Great video!

Fantastic short film, absolutely love it!

Beautifully done. I visited in May and can't stop thinking about this strange and wonderful place.

Probably one of my favourite youtube videos of all-time. Thanks man.

Breathtaking !

Beautiful video and great documentary about the place. Such a unique place I will always remember ....

Beautiful documentary. Thanks!

Oh god it's so beautiful. This video is so great. Thank you so much Ransom.

Thank you for this interesting look at this neat location.

This is one of my favorite videos ever. Ever.

..this film is really fantastic.....you must make more..... and longer films......perfection!

Wow....such a great video on so many levels !

I've watched this video...maybe six times now? It always gets me. Every time.

Pavlova's comment says it best: "I just love how Ransom always makes simple, commonplace things and places so magical; so interesting; so intriguing... I hope one day I'll have the chance of meeting him and speak to him to have a glimpse of how this man's unusual mind works."

Well done Ransriggs. Well done. Even after all these years, other vid makers could still learn a lot from you. Anybody that reads this, please remember and come back to this vid a couple times a year. It would be a shame if it were ever buried and lost.

absolutely love this video and am in love with the song

I have been here many times and even shot a music video there for an arty music project. This is one of my favourite places, something about the place just resonates with me. Simply beautiful!

I really enjoyed this video. I have probably watched 50 times already. The amazing juxtaposition of culture and environment, and how precarious each is, is captured so well by your images, words and music. Thank you!

No way!! I was obsessed with this video when I was 11 years old back in 2012... I would watch it once a week. I also loved your video about collecting old photographs. I started reading "Miss Peregrine's" they day the trailer came out (finished it today) and as I was reading, the pictures throughout the novel made me think of your video about collecting old pictures. So today when I was watching the trailer over after reading the book, I saw a recommended video by the author of the novel and clicked. I went to your channel and looked through your channel, and found this video, and practically screamed! What a coincidence! Your book is wonderful, as your videos are. Congrats on the movie, and a happy Easter!

My favorite video on KZfaq ever. Can count how many times I've watched it.

This documentary is still very inspiring. Excellent camera work, editing, etc.