Bonneville Salt Flats

(location)

I meant to have a look at the Great Salt Lake as I drove by, and how could I not? I-80 rides right on top of it for miles. But I came across in the dark in a torrential rain. When the 18 wheelers passed, I couldn't even see the road in the splash. I could smell it. Oh, what a stink. I read about the Salton Sea before I started this trip in February, how it comes and goes and when it goes, it is a ecological disaster as it becomes too salty for the fish that somehow came to it. This seems like at least a little of that stink, which is odd because I thought it was too salty for fish.

So having not seen the lake again, I got up with the first of the light and started heading west across the first stretch of desert with the sun rising in my rearview mirror. I stopped for breakfast at the rest area about ¾ of the way between ranges. (Compare and contrast wandering across most of the desert before breakfast with Mark Train's account of coming across a very similar route in a stagecoach in Roughing It, chapter 18.) It's a good spot to take in Lake Bonneville. The Great Salt Lake used to be far greater and Lake Bonneville is the name given to the most recent ancient lake that sat here. It filled the Great Basin until there was outflow at Red Rock Pass in southeastern Idaho. (Actually, that hadn't been the normal state of things and when it breached the pass, it caused a flood down the Snake River and lowered the lake by 300 feet. Presumably it continued to flow yearly until the lake lowered again.)

0: welcoming
Very welcoming! Marking the location (approximately) of "Utah's famed measured mile—site of world land-speed record runs" and a foot wash if you to wandering through it. Only there's no water here anymore. All water was piped 10 miles from Wendover.

1: clouds and cars
Still cloudy, so not much actual sunrise in the rearview of the line of headlights to the right

2: mountains reflecting
Enjoying the "lake" after the night's heavy rains

3: west to east along north
Everything is just flat and salt covered, until it's not

4: structures of salt
The salt forms into structures

5: horizontal lines
Look to the far mountains and note the horizontal lines that are old lake levels

6: water on salt with reflection
More delight in the watery desert

*Lake Bonneville photo album*




©2022 Valerie Norton
Written 6 Dec 2022


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