Exploring Around the Great Salt Lake

On our travels, we decided to spend a day in the Salt Lake City, exploring and checking out The Great Salt Lake at Great Salt Lake State Park.  But, we didn’t want to get here via the regular route, so we found a back road through the nearby mountains to get there

On the way through the mountain, we came across a mine that all info we found said was small, but we thought it was pretty large!!  I especially loved looking at the tailings – I thought it looked a bit like a scrappy patchwork quilt!  But on to the Lake!!

Here we are looking out onto the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island.  The Great Salt Lake is 4200 feet above sea level.  Its maximum depth is only 34 feet, with the average depth of only 12 feet, so it’s really quite a shallow lake.  It covers almost 1.5 million acres of water!  It’s the largest lake west of the Mississippi River and is 4 -8 times saltier than the ocean.  It gets salty because 3 major rivers flow into the Lake.  However, nothing flows out, making it a terminal lake.  The only way water leaves the Lake is by evaporation, leaving behind salt and other minerals.

There are no fish in the Great Salt Lake, only brine shrimp, brine flies, algae and bacteria.  However, the shrimp & flies make this a favorite place for migratory birds, and the Lake is part of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network.  People can often be found sailing on the lake; in fact, that’s the most common type of boat found on the Lake.  However, due to the shallowness of the Lake, sailing conditions can change quite rapidly – from mirror like calm to dense waves of up to 10 feet in minutes.  So, beware!!

Enjoy!