The Spiral Jetty

[urbpan]

Before we planned this trip, we considered trying to see the Spiral Jetty, an enormous piece of environmental art on the northern shore of The Great Salt Lake. Directions I found online made it seem very difficult to get to. It was. But we're glad we did it. 16 miles of unpaved road later--including the last two miles which seemed downright dangerous--and we found it. It's amazing to me that this thing is so remote and without any kind of interpretive signage or anything. Best of all, we finally got to see the Salt Lake.



We could see at a distance that there were other people there. Amazing, because we hadn't seen a person or a car in over two hours. We were grateful for them, because they lend scale to our pictures.


After we hiked down the treacherous rocky trail to the shore, we found that someone had duplicated the jetty in miniature. Can you imagine the audacity of putting your own environmental art right in front of one of the most famous works of environmental art?


Shocking.


I wasn't sure if the jetty would be above or below the water. It was quite dry.


And salty.


The terminal point of the spiral.


The water was a few feet away from the jetty, pink with halophilic bacteria.


We made sure that we both got our feet wet in Great Salt Lake.


We were really there!


The salt at the shore was crystallized into thin sheets.




The only living things we saw were the salt flies, which I believe feed on the bacteria. The other people were freaked out by "the bugs" but though there were thousands of flies, they kept to themselves.


There was lots of colorful lichen on the rocks above.

Comments

[jolantru.livejournal.com]

Beautiful!

[livsmama.livejournal.com]

really cool. I am glad you made it!

[belen1974.livejournal.com]

wow! these are incredible pictures and the spiral jetty is pretty damn awesome. so cool that you got to rock balance there.

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

There was something weird about that thing. Didn't the artist fall out a helicopter and die while looking at it? And he had some sort of famous name too like Robert Smith or something...

Anyway, I presumed that that piece was temporary and probably gone by now. I'm kind of glad to know it still exists.

[featheredfrog.livejournal.com]

Per wikipedia entry Spiral_Jetty:

Smithson died in a plane crash in Texas, six years after finishing the Jetty (1976)

[gryfindormia.livejournal.com]

Yay the Spiral Jetty! I went there two years ago with a friend, it was amazing.

Was the lake stinky yesterday, by chance? Some days it smells bad, others it doesn't.

[agelena.livejournal.com]

I must get there sometime. Did the water feel funny when you got your feet wet?

[belldandychan.livejournal.com]

That is just to cool!

[says-bomb.livejournal.com]

Yay spiral jetty! It's very impressive that you made it out there!

[shadowofadoubt.livejournal.com]

I really love this entry. Thank you!!

[obie119.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this awesome entry!

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

No smell from the lake yesterday. I kind of expected it to, but it just smelled like desert. To answer your comment on my previous entry, we flew into Salt Lake in order to get to Yellowstone. We'll drive back to Salt Lake at the end of the week, but we probably won't go any further south into Utah. We'll probably stay somewhere within a couple hours of Salt Lake that last day. Any suggestions?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

They felt weird once they started drying and our feet were caked with salt. My dad took his sandals off for a while and when they dried they had shrunk.

You Ask, I Ramble

[gryfindormia.livejournal.com]

Suggestions for hotel or activities?

For activities, not much near 1-15 in Northern Utah that I think you'd enjoy which you haven't already hit (unless you like amusements parks and old timey general stores, which have their charms, or else it's lots of suburban-like sprawl along the Wasatch Front). I don't know what route you took to Yellowstone, but if you can swing through Logan/Bear Lake/down Sardine Canyon (does this route look okay?), you won't be sorry. Especially Bear Lake, I think you may hit it while Raspberry Days are going on.

Since I'll know you'll have to come back to SLC for your flight home and you like beer/pubs, you gotta go check out Uinta Brewery if you have time. And then one of my favorite places in Salt Lake City is up at the University of Utah (which is only a five-minute drive east from downtown), Red Butte Gardens, which actually has tons of longer hiking paths that link up into the mountains (and you'd get see lots of Emigration Canyon), and I believe it has the most diverse collection of native flora in the Intermountain West.

I don't really have any hotel suggestions, never really needed them around here, sorry.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

Sandman Motel
(435) 257-5675
585 W Main St
Tremonton, UT 84337

Galaxie Motel
435 723-3439
740 S Main St
Brigham City, UT

i just liked the names.

[harrietbrown.livejournal.com]

I was recently reading about the Spiral Jetty in a New York Times article, I believe. It's great to read about it from a personal perspective. Enjoy your trip with your dad. I look forward to your posts about your adventures and all the things I will learn from you along the way!

[brush-rat.livejournal.com]

I've had it in the back of my head to get there since I've been out west, but it's still over 400 miles away and haven't done it yet. There's another piece of environmental art called double negative which is tantalizingly close, but requires a four wheel drive to get to.


Any way, jealous and happy you shared.

[weofodthignen]

Oh excellent, you made it there. Thanks for the pix!

M