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Salton Sea Mud Pots & Geothermal Mud Volcanoes
Categories: Local Flavor Active Life Parks Local Flavor, Parks [Edit]
Davis Rd and Schrimpf RdCalipatria, CA 92233
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
13 reviews for Salton Sea Mud Pots & Geothermal Mud Volcanoes
13 reviews in English
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Review from J E.
Palm Springs, CA
9/30/2011
The mud pots and mud volcanoes are AWESOME!! Be sure to bring extra shoes and plastic bags for any muddy shoes.
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Review from Philip T.
12/29/2011
The entrance to the mud spots is actually on davis road, look for the huge grey mounds. The roads leading in (schrimpf and davis) are VERY bumpy.
Very cool and interesting. You hear the bubbling and smell the it as well. Worth a visit if you are in the area, but don't go out of your way. Kudos to whoever found this place off the beaten path. -
Review from Kat S.
7/20/2011 4 photos
The Salton Sea is a weird, weird place.
We decided to stop here on our way back home to Phoenix on the I-10. It ended up being quite a bit more out of the way than the map lead us to believe. We made it home 2-3 hours later than we would have otherwise, but it was worth it!
These little mud volcanoes are AWESOME! They come in all different sizes, some were the size of large pots, others I could stop up with my thumb! My favorite part was the noises they make - POPPING, and fizzing, and rumbling and whizzing and boiling - we had to take a video just to capture the sounds!
Be careful! The steam coming out of them seemed quite hot and watch yourself if you get too close - the ground may seem solid but that may just be the top layer!
Finding this place was a bit tricky, so let me spell it out for you: Take Schrimpf Rd. about 2 miles down an easy dirt road - it will eventually force you to turn right on to Davis, you can turn right, but only go about 50 feet and park your car on the side of the road. To your right, there should be a flat field with large mud mounds (they look kinda like big termite hills) and those are the volcanoes!
I imagine that these little guys "operate" all year round - we went when it was 109 degrees in July and they were erupting away! We didn't run in to any other tourists but saw the leftovers of footprints and old shoes. -
Review from Shy A.
4/24/2011
Mud Pots gurgle and bubble.
I've never seen a mud pot in my life until this moment and it was totally RAD! This site is set in the middle of NO WHERE! We drove about a few miles on a dirt road until we were stuck between a field and a factory...There we saw a truck and some people walking around these huge mounds...Boom! Found the mud pots!
This site was amazing...and definitely a great surprise on our adventure to the Salton Sea and a must see if you are ever in the area. It's fantastic to poke around and see the odds and ends of this site...The pictures really don't do it justice, it's absolutely fascinating!
I'd really 5 star this site, but had to take off a star for the really creepy hills have eyes family that were there skulking about without their shirts and their rabid dog....That cut our trip to the site quite short.
BFF/SD 3 -
Review from Paul L.
Updated - 4/11/2010 48 photos
I figured that a Mars landscape on the southeast edge of the Salton Sea accessible from a bumpy dirt road would not be a place to find tourists. Well, yesterday I made one of my pilgrimages to the Davis-Schrimpf Seep field. As I was taking photos of the bubbling mud pots, a large bus came rumbling down the road and, in an instant, a herd of senior citizens descended upon the scene with their point-and-shoot cameras. They were like ants on mounds of sugar but, in fifteen minutes, it was all over. They had disappeared and the air-conditioned bus vanished in a large plume of dust.
Visiting the seep field is always a surreal experience but I'll give the senior citizens the nod this time.Listed in: Natural Wonders
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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2/28/2009
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
The witches in Macbeth would feel at… Read more »
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Review from Ed S.
San Jose, CA
7/5/2010
This place was really cool - if you are anywhere near the area, it's definitely worth a visit. It's just a couple of miles on driving on dirt roads and they're actually in pretty decent shape - not the rut filled roads that I was expecting.
It was just really nice to be completely on your own (we didn't see anyone else in the half hour or so we spent here) and free to check out the geothermal features without anything being roped off. -
Review from Ethan H.
4/7/2008 2 photos
WOW!!!!
The coolest thing I've ever seen and, until now, the Salton Sea's best kept secret. Please people! I'm telling you this in the hopes that you'll come, enjoy and leave the place as you left it. Only share it with people you trust. DO NOT screw it up for the rest of us.
These geothermal 'Mud Pots' (spelled "Mudpots" on wikipedia) are hard to find but well worth the effort. Off a dirt road on the muddy flats near the eastern shore of the Salton Sea, carbon dioxide slowly bubbles up to the earth's surface. On the way, it passes through an aquifer, forcing water and mud to bubble like a cauldron beneath your feet. No, I guess these 'Mud Volcanoes' are no match for their more-famous brethren around the world, especially the famous ones at Yellowstone National Park. But what these Mud Pots lack in fury they more than make up for in accessibility, quirky charm, and vitality -- as they burp, gargle and croak without a sign to mark their presence, without a fence to protect them, and (usually) without another tourist in sight.
View my video of just one of these natural wonders at:
http://www.youtube.com...
There's actually a whole collection of them, and there's nothing to stop you from getting up close-and-personal to whichever ones you choose.
This is a true, off-the-beaten-path Salton Sea adventure. Enjoy the video, enjoy them in person, but don't make this the kind of thing they have to 'protect' because the people who come here don't respect it. With a little restraint and a lot of respect, future generations can enjoy this treasure as much as I did.
PS - In an article referred to me by my good friend Ron K, this set of mud pots is officially called "The Davis-Schrimpf Seep Field". -
Review from Paul L.
San Diego, CA
1/13/2011
I think this site is fantastic. It's a decent drive from...well, pretty much anywhere, but it's not hard to get to and it's only a hundred feet off of the road. Apparently it can be a big mess after some rain, but it was easy to get to today (of course still wet around the geothermally active areas). It's not a huge area, but within this compact bit of land there is so much variation from one mud pot to the next. Some are surface level pools of standing water with constant bubbles of CO2 gurgling up. Next to that a huge mound has formed and spews streams of mud at irregular intervals. Just across from that a tall mound with a large opening at the top holds steaming hot, percolating mud that is so viscus that the process of its bubbles bursting is slowed down to the point that you can see the degradation of the surface as it collapses. Make the trip and see this site along with Salvation Mountain, just ten or so miles away.
YouTube footage of one of the mud pots shot on 13JAN11.
http://www.youtube.com... -
Review from Amanda V.
Pasadena, CA
3/18/2010
It's hard to beat Ethan's review, he is so right on about it.
The Salton Sea is amazing (in a quirky-unique way). And these mudpots really add to that. They aren't roped off and unapproachable. You can get right up there, and there aren't many people there.
I say it's worth the drive in. IF YOU'RE ALREADY AT the Salton Sea, why NOT go? -
Review from Alex S.
Lakeside, CA
2/14/2011 1 Check-in Here
You go about 2-3 miles down a dirt road and where it forces you to go right on Davis you stop and it's on the right, middle of field. The pictures really do give you a feel of what to expect. I brought my 2 year old and she really thought it was cool, but as other reviews have stated, nothing is roped of so be careful. Some areas are very slippery and it can catch you off guard because the ground looks the same everywhere and in some spots it's dry and other are soft mud. Overall I thought this was an awesome thing to see.
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Review from EmJay N.
New York, NY
1/31/2010
As the ground gargles and bubbles, you really feel like a mud volcano is about to erupt and swallow you. Plus, it's pretty eery to hear gun shots every few minutes from the duck hunters nearby.
Its just seems like you are in another world! Make sure to not fall in to one of them...
Make sure to wear shoe that you don't mind getting really really dirty. -
Review from Michelle C.
Kouts, IN
3/5/2010
Maybe we hit the Mud Pots on a bad day or maybe it's just because Salvation Mountain was so cool that nothing else had a chance of being cool that day. Either way, I'd recommend taking a pass on them. It's not worth the 8 million mile drive down a bumpy dirt road that I'm semi-convinced was actually the San Andreas Fault.
Listed in: Salton Sea Weekend Getaway
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Review from Holly C.
Huntington Beach, CA
2/23/2011 11 photos
We went on a Photo adventure to Salton Sea this past weekend and this was one of the stops on the list.....Keep in mind, It had been raining for 2 days before. There is no paved road just a dirt road...well I wouldn't even call it a dirt road I'd call it A MUDDY MESS! Mud was shooting up all over the place my friend was fish tailing BIG TIME and she lost control of her car and we almost ended up in that HUGE ditch! I was FREAKING out!!! I thought I was a goner....We had to turn around because she couldn't get control of it. (Schrimpf road is the road of death after the rain!) We ended up going another way and got there but WOW it was A LOT of work just to get to it...Then once we got out of the car I could see the Mud pots in the distance and I saw all the soggy mud....My friends literally forced me to walk out there. I didn't want to as soon as I stepped into the mud I sank about 3 inches and slipped catching myself from falling a few times (IT WAS HELL) Then I had to concentrate and pay attention to each step that I wouldn't fall face first into the mud!!! Once we got up to the mud pots it was OK...I mean I guess it was a cool thing to see once, I'm sure i'll never go back.....If you seen a picture, that's good enough. It also stinks and I'm weak when it comes to smells I did get use to it after a few minutes. Oh yeah and watch out Mud splatters will get all over your Camera and clothing.
