The Great Salt Lake

Appearing otherworldly and placid against the urban backdrop of Salt Lake City, the Great Salt Lake is the great unknown. Few ponder this fascinating wilderness in our midst, and fewer still visit it.

It takes exploration, patience and curiosity to understand this unique landscape. The Great Salt Lake reveals itself coyly, seducing the visitor with its breadth, grandeur and complexity. Its character shifts with the wind and clouds. Its colors span the rainbow and beyond. It can appear as an alien planet, a bay of molten metal, a polished aluminum plate or a white-capped fury. Its islands appear desolate but hide oases, wildlife and a multitude of secrets. Its tide is subtle, and its mysteries abound.

Measuring 75 miles long by 35 miles wide and less than 50 feet deep, this wonder of nature is the remnant of the Ice Age fresh water Lake Bonneville, which covered most of two states. The lake is cradled by the Wasatch Mountains to the east, the Oquirrhs to the south and the Promontory Range to the north. The mountain-fed waters of the Bear, Weber and Jordan rivers all meet their destinies here, but because the lake is landlocked, its waters are salty.

The Great Salt Lake has always been many things to many people. The lake to some means noise, smells, speed and adrenaline as rocket cars try to enter low earth orbit on spinning wheels along the blinding salt flats that stretch westward to Nevada. Others revel in the Bear River Bird Refuge to the northeast of the lake and the screeching crescendo of snow geese as they swirl upward into azure skies — a blizzard of a thousand pieces. Nesting pairs of long-billed curlews scurry through the long grass amidst the lake’s many islands. White pelicans whitewash Gunnison Island to the northwest.

Every fall, a stream of buffalo thunders across cheat grass valleys, running away from men on horseback and in helicopters before they are captured for inoculation and management by park rangers at Antelope Island State Park. The nights here are quiet and eerie. Salt Lake City lies just across the water, a necklace of lights.

Artistic creations loom large here. The Spiral Jetty warps perceptions as it protrudes like a whisk into the pink-algae saltwater of the lake’s North arm. Since 1970, it appears and submerges with the spring runoff. It’s a two-hour drive from the jetty to Nancy Holt’s sun tunnels — cement tubes aligned for the equinox and pierced with holes to correspond with the constellations. Mormon gamblers and cowboy drinkers squint questioningly at the Metaphorical Tree, a sculpture along the interstate on the way to Wendover’s casinos that’s as bizarre as it is beautiful. Below it are names and slogans formed from small stones and left by wayside travelers.

Local historians seek the remnants of years of tough luck and hardscrabble. The natives left their grinding stones, petroglyphs and hunting points throughout the desert near the lake. And a foot-high cross carved into a large black boulder on an island summit is proof that Kit Carson was here in 1823, as explorer John C. Fremont looked on. Mountain man Jim Bridger paddled miserably as he circumnavigated the lake in a buffalo skin boat a year later, looking for the fabled Buenaventura River, the lake’s outlet to the Pacific. In 1869, Leland Stanford used his hammer to join the nation with a spike of gold at Promontory, marking the spot where the first transcontinental railroad was completed at what is now Golden Spike National Historic Monument.

Historian Dale Morgan called the lake’s waters “more desert than the desert” — up to five times saltier than the ocean. The resulting buoyancy makes it hard to drown, but easy to become dehydrated. Bridger Beach on the north end of Antelope Island is a prime swimming spot, with two miles of glistening, white oölitic sand, small spheres of calcium carbonate.

Brine shrimpers harvest the minute, saline-loving creatures that inhabit the water, and squadrons of sailboats race each other up and down the lake. But boaters must beware storms, as the resultant waves pack a heavy punch. The lake’s anger is legendary.

With a pastel paint box of emerald and gray, sapphire and rose, gray and white, the Great Salt Lake is a prime subject for artists and photographers. They all try to capture the ephemeral essence of this place that awaits discovery — a place that John Muir called, “One of the great views on the American Continent.”

Patrick Cone is the author of three children’s science books, a contributor to numerous national magazines, and adjunct professor at the University of Utah. His work can be seen at www.PatrickConePhotography.com.