Filed under: National Parks, Photography, There and Back Again, Utah: Life Elevated
Over the weekend J-Mo and I headed South to sunnier weather and a whole lot of nature. I have been to the Moab area several times in the last few years, spending time in Arches National Park and several evenings at Dead Horse Point. I’m not sure why Canyonlands National Park never was on my radar, but I after visiting these last few days I am shocked and appalled that I had not made it a priority sooner. After setting up camp and making some delicious tin foil dinners, we headed into the park for some sunset viewing.
It’s basically like a smaller, less crowded, closer-to-me version of the Grand Canyon. Dozens of finger-canyons are carved out of the plateau and there are layers upon layers of sheer cliffs, buttes, and strange, majestic rock formations.
I was slack-jawed at these views. I mean, I knew Utah had some gorgeous red rock, but I had no idea we had this.
Under optimal weather conditions, Canyonlands has some of the clearest air in the mountain west, however when the wind blows pollution from Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver and Salt Lake into the canyons it hangs over the cliffs in a dusty haze until a strong enough wind blows it back out.
The next morning we took a slight detour down a very steep and somewhat treacherous Mineral Road/Horsethief Trail. This road winds down the steep canyon walls to the Green River below. There were a lot of mountain bikers, several trucks and SUV’s, and we managed to catch the tail end of someone base jumping–with parachute–off the bluff.
J-Mo and I meandered along the river for a while, stopping to take pictures (me) and try and gauge where, exactly, we were heading (him).
Just around this curve is an unofficial entrance to Canyonlands. The thing is, it is a 100+ mile look on rough road to get to a place where you can crawl back up to the plateau. We opted to backtrack and were soon enough back on the rim of the canyon and heading towards the entrance station.
This is across the street from the Island in the Sky Visitor Center. The views are just incredible, I seriously cannot believe no one sat me down years ago and regaled me of awesome stories of Canyonlands. So, I am telling you now. GO THERE! Yes, Arches is awesome, Moab is fab, Dead Horse Point is a must-see…and Canyonlands, at a whopping 4 miles down the road from Dead Horse, should absolutely be on your list of destinations in red rock country.
Mesa Arch is one of the few arch formations in the park, it’s a quick little walk from the road and has an incredible view through it’s opening.
Gorgeous. Amazing. Breathtaking. Please, go to Canyonlands if you have the chance. You won’t regret it.
After a day of wandering around, driving around, hiking around, and generally staying in the north end of the park, we decided to head to our next camp spot in Moab. As we were leaving the park, I asked J-Mo if we could go check out Gooseneck Overlook. Looking at the map, it seemed to be somewhat opposite the view seen from Dead Horse Point. I warned him that we would need to traverse an unpaved 4-wheel-drive road. He laughed and rolled his eyes, he eats unpaved 4-wheel-drive roads for breakfast. I was perfectly trusting in his driving skillz…until we came across this:
That, my friends, is Shafer Trail Road, well, at least the top half of it. The trail-road is only about a car and a half wide with a sheer cliff stretching upwards on one side, and a sheer drop-off on the other. There is no passing, there was oncoming traffic (not much, but still), it is careful, careful business with a lot of hairpin turns, sketchy edges, and white knuckles for me for almost an hour. The road, let me show you it:
This is basically the Going-to-the-Sun road…but with red rocks instead of granite peaks and pine trees…and it’s not paved…or maintained…and only the very ballsy drivers and badass mountain bikers attempt it. You zig and zag down that very steep, sheer slab of red rock for 1,700 vertical feet. And then you still have another couple of miles before you get to Gooseneck Bend Overlook. If you can survive the zig-zags without passing out, you are in luck, because the view is absolutely worth it.
After taking another dozen (okay, hundred) photos, you need to decide if you are going to continue on the rough, rutted road to Moab, or if you are going to climb back up the plateau to the paved road back to Moab. It depends on how your nerves are doing, I guess, and how much adventure you seek.
(Yes, the Visitors Center is right up on top of that cliff. Go on, I double-dog dare you to crawl back up those switchbacks.)
For more pictures, see my Flickr set here.
Several years ago the Utah State Capitol Building and surrounding grounds were given a massive overhaul and refresher to celebrate 100 years of statehood. As part of that project the gravel walkway/running path that surrounds the Capitol and it’s surrounding buildings was lined with hundreds of flowering cherry trees. Rocky Mountain spring is tenuous at best with snow and rain storms interspersed with sunshine, bright blue skies, and t-shirt weather. Last year I missed the blossoms due to a huge windstorm that destroyed them a day or two after they exploded in fluffy pink-ish white wonder. This year J-Mo and I timed it exactly right. The day after taking these shots the combination of wind and rain left the blossoms in tatters.
Click any image to see full size version, or check out the rest of the Flickr set.
The Festival of Colors is a Hindu celebration of the beginning of spring. Traditionally, there is a bonfire, a lot of music, food, and thousands of people throwing colored powder on each other. In Spanish Fork, a small town south of Provo, is the Utah Krishna temple and over the last several years their Holi Festival has grown from a few thousand people to more than 50,000 people celebrating over two days. In fact, it is the largest Holi festival in the western hemisphere. Chew on that for a minute.
Yeah. I was shocked too. But hey, if Utahans are coming out by the tens of thousands to celebrate spring, Bollywood style, then I was not going to miss it. I was not disappointed. Every two hours there is a count down and then the air is full of powdered color. It takes about 3 minutes before you can properly inhale. I opted to watch the first throw, not willing to take my fancy-pants camera into the fray. I am quite pleased with this decision.
In 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…
J-Mo and I went through 15 bags of colored maize powder, throwing it at each other and perfect strangers. It was awesome. Also? It took more than a wink and a smile to get that green and blue out of my eyebrows.
Happy Spring! You can check out an awesome video from last year here, or the rest of my Flickr set here.
Right after Thanksgiving J-Mo and I went to Bryce Canyon National Park in Southern Utah, and I don’t think I really mentioned it here, let alone wrote about it properly. And by “write” I mean “share some of the most gorgeous pictures I’ve ever taken.” J-Mo and I were only in Bryce for two days, and one of those days I had absolutely debilitating cramps, which meant me curling up in the fetal position at the lovely Stone Canyon Inn (highly recommended!) and taking a lengthy nap. Even with that damper, J-Mo and I managed to see a lot of the canyon, driving the entire length and wandering around on a few short hikes. If you go, I highly recommend the following: stay at Stone Canyon in Tropic, UT, you won’t be disappointed and Dixie, the owner, will make you a fantastic breakfast and give you her best tips on hiking. Don’t shy away from Clarke’s restaurant, also in Tropic. Yes, it is crowded between a grocery store and a motel/hotel of the same name, but the prices are low and the food is surprisingly good. Do NOT eat at Ruby’s Inn, the biggest hotel in Bryce Canyon. Their buffet is basically a pared-down version of Sizzler, and perhaps even less tasty (if Sizzler could ever be defined as “tasty”). Don’t do it. You’re welcome.
I only took about 500 pictures, I’ve picked my favorites to post here.
Scenic Byway 12, my first view of the gorgeous red rock near Bryce and a teensy little taste of what was in store for me the next two days.
Scenic Byway 12 goes through several man-made arches, carved right out of the sandstone. J-Mo took a dozen photos of me here, mostly because I was absolutely freezing–despite the sunny skies–and making all sorts of really awesome faces.
The entrance of Bryce Canyon, goodness, I adore that handsome boy there on the right. (I promise I’ll stop gushing about him–at least for a moment–and gush about the gorgeous scenery instead.)
Our first stop was Sunset Point, one of the more famous lookouts in the park. We arrived at about 4:30 and the sun was dropping in the west, illuminating the hoodoo’s and flooding the canyon in the most gorgeous light. I haven’t edited any of these photos except for a crop here and there, Bryce Canyon is one of those places where photos absolutely cannot do the place justice.
Sunset Point, after hiking west from the parking lot to the canyon rim.
The sun was so low that it actually shone through the red rock, making it look like it was on fire. I took a hundred photos (ok, maybe twenty) trying to capture the effect, I doubt I did, but hey, I tried. For you. Because I’m a good blogger like that. (This is the part where you ignore/forget that I am almost two months late in posting said photos.)
Sigh. I want to go back already. Although, perhaps when it’s not quite so cold, the wind at the canyon rim is absolutely murder.
The rock formations in Bryce Canyon are called hoodoos (or fairy chimneys, which I think is a much better name). They only appear in a few places in the world, and nowhere else in North America. They are the weathered remnants of large finns of sandstone, and in Bryce they are these towering formations with hundreds of alleys and trails weaving in and out of them. Many of the trails were closed for the winter, and many of the trails are never open because it is easy to get lost in such a place where everything looks the same and you cannot see any way out.
Awwwww.
Before the sun was completely gone, J-Mo and I wanted to see Inspiration Point, so off we went, deeper into the canyon.
Inspiration point was absolutely breathtaking. The wind was bitter cold at this point, but J-Mo and I hiked around a little anyway.
There I am, probably the happiest I’ve ever been in my whole life, smiling at my sweetheart. (I know! I said I wouldn’t gush about him anymore! I lied, okay!?)
Getting fancy with the waning light, the more I look at this pic the more I love it.
This pic has already been posted here, but it’s one of my favorites of us and definitely the best from the weekend.
Filed under: Utah: Life Elevated
This morning I woke to my windows being rattled and the wind in the giant trees on my block making a terrific noise. We had hurricane-force winds today, the high was 102 mph and many places along my stretch of the Wasatch Mountains had gusts in the 80-90 mph range. Garbage cans have been blown blocks away from their homes, trampolines have mysteriously disappeared, semi trucks have rolled on the freeway, the commuter train is closed down due to debris on the tracks, entire roofs of homes have been ripped to pieces and siding and metal flashing has been flying around the neighborhoods, enormous trees are uprooted (and have been crashing into parked vehicles) all over the valley and I’m pretty sure I saw Dorothy and Toto fly by at some point. Thousands are without power and we have a snow storm blowing in tomorrow morning.
Extreme weather, folks, we has it.
Utahns are a hardy bunch, and we tend to take the optimistic side of many scenarios. Some attribute this to our “focus on the silver lining” Mormon attitudes and some attribute it to the large numbers of folks with anti-depressant medication. But, in the face of a lot of damaged property, some are making the best of their situations:
If you are in need of a fresh cut 32-foot Christmas tree, or a 50-60 foot one, you’re in luck! You figure out a way to haul it, they’ll give it to you for free!
The other good thing? These kinds of winds will completely eliminate the thick, brownish, practically toxic air that tends to congregate over my fair valley in the winter. Fresh air! Free Christmas trees! What more can you ask for a Thursday?!
In early October a pretty wicked cold front hit Utah and as I drove south to Cedar City for the Shakespeare Competition on what would have been a nice, easy drive through gorgeous canyons with changing leaves turned into a white-knuckle blizzard with crawling freeway speeds and white-out conditions.
Because I am a ridiculously dedicated* blogger, I carefully–and safely–documented it for you. (*Ha! Riiiiight, sure I am. Pay no attention to the weeks and weeks of paltry posting.) Don’t worry, this wasn’t the scariest part of the drive, not even close. Imagine this plus two more inches of snow and about 100 feet less visibility…that’s when the white knuckles came out. Timestamp: October 6, 2011, approximately 6:00 pm.
<<Insert weekend of bossing around teenagers in iambic pentameter.>>
After the competition was over, I had planned on staying an extra day in Southern Utah to do a little exploring, and with only a little bit of cajoling, J-Mo met me down there. Immediately following the awards ceremony on Saturday evening, all I wanted to do was find a hotel that was not inhabited by buses full of teenagers and sleep for a week a responsibly healthy, 9-hour, uninterrupted night. Some people say they can’t sleep in hotel beds, I usually sleep just as well, if not better than when I am at home. This weekend was no exception. Besides, there’s nothing like a weekend full of parking lot rehearsals until 1:00 am with a bunch of teenagers in SEVENTEEN DEGREE weather to make you sleep for 13 hours straight. (Cold snap, I shake my fist at you! *Shake, shake*) The next morning after brunch at a fabulous local diner, Dede’s, J-Mo went off to explore some of the gorgeous vistas in the surrounding mountains.
Tiny little problem: the road to Cedar Breaks was closed because of a massive avalanche/landslide due to the storm. I was a little bummed, I’ve always wanted to see that particular view. Instead J-Mo and I took the first turnoff we found with a very vague sign leading to Kolob Reservoir. The road looked like it climbed up the mountain and probably had some good fall foilage, plus perhaps a pretty lake. So off we went.
Excellent choice, we drove for miles and miles, up and down mountains, through canyons and snow fields and cattle ground and forests of aspens. The leaves were beautiful, the snow was much deeper than I had anticipated, up to 8 inches in some places! And this was two or three days after the storm.
October! This is October. Gorgeous with the green and yellow leaves, the snow…it was beautiful. After a lengthy drive on wrecked dirt roads we finally made it to our destination.
Kolob Reservoir (yes, we hie’d), it was full of fishermen and surrounded by campers. The lake was much larger than I had thought it would be and much less snowy.
After meandering around the lake for a while, J-Mo and I decided that instead of heading back the way we came, we’d see where this road went. There were Honda Civic’s in the parking lot, surely it wasn’t going to be as rough as the last two hours of road. So, he hung a left towards what we hoped would be St. George. After a few miles we passed a dirt road turn-off and when I turned around to read the old, wooden sign detailing where the road led to, all I really caught was “West Rim Trail.”
“West Rim Trail? Isn’t that in Zion?“
Who knows, but it was reason enough to check it out. J-Mo immediately flipped around and off we went, bumping down the dirt road. A few miles later we came across Lava Point Look Out, we stopped and walked the 200 foot trail to the edge of the plateau, and were greeted with this:
You should definitely click on these next few landscape shots to get the full effect. You’re welcome.
That, my friends, is the western edge of Zion National Park and a view I didn’t even know existed. Remember a few months ago when J-Mo and I hiked the crazy-high cliff, Angel’s Landing? Yeah, that precipice is hidden behind the furthest ridge of those white plateaus. This view was spectacular. Actually, spectacular hardly seems to cut it but I seem to be suffering again from the inability to properly describe something that shakes your soul and turns your brain inside out. It’s like the first time you looked at those optical illusion posters that looked like TV fuzz and suddenly, WHAM! Suddenly all you see is a family of hedgehogs having a tea party. Totally didn’t expect that. Kind of don’t have the words to explain it. (Ok, this vista wasn’t exactly a snacking family of miniature rodents, but even so, it was a gorgeous surprise.)
Firstly, on the left side of that photo the canyon that makes up Zion National Park converges into The Narrows. The scope from this look out was incredible, I couldn’t stop staring, wishing my camera could better capture the incredible view.
(Secondly, I swear J-Mo and I are not so cutesy that we purchased and then wore matchy-match hoodies on purpose. They were bought at least 6 months apart, are different brands, from different stores, and I had completely forgotten he had his when I bought mine. Just so we’re clear. The fact that we both wore them the same weekend? Well, that is just how it played out, I suppose.)
After a short while we decided to get back on the road, if we were as far south as Zion National Park we had quite the drive to get back home that evening. We didn’t have a map–and I had sadly left my Zion guidebook at home–so we just got back on the road and hoped for the best. Again, we were not disappointed. The road we took wove in and out of Zion National Park for probably 30 miles. J-Mo was patient with my more and more frequent squeals and picture pit-stops. But, you guys, the views! Like families of tea partying hedgehogs!
This was the first towering red rock cliff we came across, but it definitely was not the last as we wound down the plateau near Kolob Canyon.
I think sometimes I take this kind of gorgeousness for granted, it isn’t until I happen upon it on accident that I can truly recognize the incredible beauty of Utah.
Long before Mormon settlers arrived in this area, Native American tribes held these places sacred. Upon discovering these breathtaking canyons and plateaus, the Mormons named them after the heavens and the place where God resides. Sometimes I forget that minor detail, but this part of the world really is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and I’m lucky enough to have it in my backyard. Note to self: travel south more often. Preferably not in a snowstorm.
See the full Flickr set here.
It’s time for me to write a bonafide guidebook for Salt Lake. I’m not saying that I know the most or even the most unique things about my hometown, but as of late I have had the opportunity to show several people around this big, Little City, and I have kind of fallen in-love with Salt Lake all over again. (Don’t worry, a page of recommendations in Utah from shopping to eating to hiking to touring is in the works.)
Several years ago I gave a mini tour to OPH and another to Hola, Isabel while they had, respectively, a work trip and an extended layover in Salt Lake. When Janssen wanted to tour the Salt Lake library, I jumped at the chance to go with her. This started what has turned into a bit of an obsession with showing off my town.
A few months ago, Kristin spent a few days in Salt Lake on her several weeks-long road trip around the western United States before heading to southern Utah. I loved giving Kristin and her charming husband, SVV, a mini-tour around downtown Salt Lake.
When RA came to Salt Lake for a work trip she had exactly 3 hours to see Salt Lake. I hauled her up a mountain and gave her a whirlwind tour of Temple Square. I wished I’d had more time to show off my town, but under the circumstances I was just thrilled to be able to show her around a bit.
A few weeks ago, I got another chance to strap on my Tour Guide boots and show off downtown Salt Lake City. Jessica from What I Wore spent a lovely few weeks exploring the Wild, Wild West (my affectionate term for Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado) and had only one morning in Salt Lake. I volunteered to show her and her husband around Temple Square for an hour and give her more historic and architectural details than she could ever be able to digest and remember.
Oh, and What I Wore is a daily fashion blog. Not only am I explaining some of the more intricate, delicate and sometimes seemingly “peculiar” aspects of Salt Lake City and her residents–aspects that are very near and dear to me–in a way that can be easily understood and remembered, but I also needed to look cute. No pressure, Heidi. None at all.
Gulp.
My fretting was for naught, like all the bloggers that came before her–OPH, Isabel, Janssen, RA and Kristin–Jessica was perfectly nice, charming, and receptive to everything I had to say. I told her about why Salt Lake City’s streets are so wide (founder Brigham Young wanted them wide enough that a team of oxen and a covered wagon could make a full circle. Yes, folks, pioneer U-turns are the reason for our spacious streets and enormous city blocks, 7 to a mile) and about some of architectural details on Temple Square, and about why there were so many people in suits and dresses milling about on a Saturday morning. I probably gave her information overload, but hey, sometimes that’s just what happens when you give me an hour or two to fill you in on all the details of my hometown.
Overall, it was a lovely morning, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. So, if any of you are planning a visit to Salt Lake, let me know and I’ll show you around on the almost official Heidikins Tour.
**Photo courtesy of Jessica from What I Wore.
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but winter has descended on my fair state. Snow and sleet and bitter temperatures have been the norm for October thus far, and I have a wicked-awesome cold to top it all off. I’m behind on my blogging, but while I’m curled up with hot chocolate and a thick blanket I decided to post the last hurrah of the summer, the Utah State Fair.
J-Mo and I visited on a somewhat overcast day, and we did it all. The rides! The midway! The fried foods! The overpriced EVERYTHING! The photography exhibit! By the end of the afternoon all I really wanted to do was take a nap, but it was a great way to spend a Saturday.
Yes, sometimes I try and get “artsy” with my photos, just go with me on this one, okay? Okay. Thanks.
The view from the top of the Ferris Wheel. I am clearly not as young as I once was, as I much preferred the slow-moving, somewhat romantical wheel to the Zipper and it’s tumultuous spinning cage of death.
I begged J-Mo to wear his cowboy hat, he obliged and I was rewarded with The Smolder. I’m sure he’s thrilled that I’m posting this here, but ya know, if you’re gonna smolder at a girl with a lens you must be prepared for the consequences. Also? Yum.
Then there are the fried foods; deep fried snickers, a bacon stuffed Twinkie, a regular Twinkie, Oreos, PBJ, cheesecake. The above (and below) are deep fried Oreo’s and, admittedly, they were my favorite part about the fair. The mix of battered and chocolate and oozy insides was just heaven.
While the $5-dollar deep fried oreo’s were a total win, the $5 dollar corn on the cob was, sadly, a fail. An hour or so later J-Mo and I found another food stand that had actual BBQ’d corn on the cob for $2.50. Tragic, really, as I would have splurged on three or four of them.
Pennsylvania Dutch funnel cake, deep-fried deliciousness with vanilla pudding, chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Sounds divine, no? Honestly, the Oreo’s were better.
Until next year, when (hopefully) my waistline has recovered.
Two years ago I visited the Salt Flats and absolutely fell in love. In fact, for 18 months my blog header has been me cartwheeling across the flats. At the time I last visited, the flats were completely dry, a vast expanse of white crust glittering in the sun like it was flecked with diamonds.
(August 2009)
After a year of tremendous snow and rainfall for this desert state, many things are flooded. The Spiral Jetty is mostly submerged, and the Salt Flats are covered in several inches of standing water. At first I was pretty disappointed by this fact, but it turns out that the reflections in that shallow pool can make me just as giddy as the white, glittering flat.
When I was first driving out towards the giant puddle, I was worried that if I got out of my car I would be attacked by bugs; lots of big, nasty ones hatching and breeding in the standing water. Nope, not a single one. Apparently the water is far too salty for mosquitos (win!).
There were quite a few people in this little corner of the world, and I was particularly delighted to see a group of girls armed with bunches of balloons. Makes me wish I’d thought of that.
Thank you, girls, whoever you are, for bringing a smile to my face!
No cartwheels this time, but that doesn’t make me any less obsessed with the Bonneville Salt Flats. I seriously wonder if they will be dry enough in August for Speed Week. Speed Week is when all the daredevils from around the world bring their machines (cars, motorcycles, whatever else they can configure with wheels) to the Salt Flats to test how fast they go. It’d be a little inconvenient with all that gloopy wet mess, you know?
If you happen to make your way out that way, may I give you an excellent recommendation? Well, two recommendations.
1. If you plan on skipping around in that salty water with bare legs, you should rethink shaving them that morning. While there are no mosquitoes, the feeling of super-saturated salt water splashing into your freshly shaved gams is more irritating and wince-inducing than a dozen bites on your calves. You’re welcome.
2. Pease stop for breakfast, lunch, or dinner at the Salt Flats Cafe. It is this fantastic little joint on the north side of I-80 off Exit 4, attached to the Sinclair Gas Station. They don’t have a sign bigger than the one painted on their window, so you’ll just have to trust me on this. Go to the scary-looking gas station and you’ll see it, you won’t be disappointed. Pinky promise. The Cafe has Mexican and American fare, and their prices are really low; I got plate brimming with french toast, eggs and bacon for $5 dollars.The walls are covered in pictures from Speed Week, many of them autographed, the staff is pleasant and our waiter had a wicked-awesome memory. The place is clean and it’s better food than anything you’ll find in Wendover. So remember this: Salt Flats Cafe, exit 4, north side, Sinclair-adjacent. You’re welcome.
(Full Disclosure: I actually visited the flats twice in two days, once while heading West towards Wendover at sunset, which are the pics in the last half of this post. And then the next morning before heading south on yet another adventure, which are the pics in the first half of this post. Hence the dramatic differences in light and sky and color.)
Yes. This. HappySigh.
The Tree of Utah, a huge but strange sculpture in the middle of the desert. It is 87 feet tall and was built by Swedish artist Karl Momen in the mid-1980′s. He donated it to the state after its completion, returned to Sweden, and hasn’t been back since. The strange thing about this particular piece of public art is it is illegal to stop or pull over on I-80 to view the thing. There are signs all over stating “Emergency Stopping Only,” and “Fine Imposed for Loitering”–both of which I “didn’t see” as I pulled over, stopped, and loitered–making it near impossible to really get a good look at the sculpture, or appreciate it. Most people use it only as a marker; 25 miles to Wendover or 95 miles to Salt Lake.
In contrast, a few miles down the road is a lovely little rest stop to view the Salt Flats.
See? A bit on the mod/Jetsons side, but quite comfortable. A few benches, a little shade, a restroom and a couple of vending machines. They even have a water pump to wash your feet off after you prance around in the salt. That is good planning for the middle of nowhere, you know?
I couldn’t resist. (wink)
I’m not entirely sure what I find so soothing about the Salt Flats, I don’t know if it’s the enormity of it; or the strange, other-worldly quality; or the fact that it is 100 miles away from a city of any significant size (Wendover doesn’t count, it’s just a handful of trailer-homes, casinos and fast food places). But watching the sun creep towards the horizon as I drove west settled all the fluttery places in my soul. I found myself calmed, and the scared, stressed feelings in my heart went back to the dark places from whence they came. Does that sound cheesy? Maybe. But that’s what happened. Whether that was due to some magical power of the flats, or finally giving myself a chance to unwind after a crazy week, or perhaps even excitement for my upcoming weekend adventures, I don’t know. But I associate that feeling of calm with the solitude of those wide open spaces, craggy mountains, and sky that goes forever.
Full Flickr set here.
I have lived in Utah for exactly 28 years, 3 months and 25 days. Until last weekend (28 years, 3 months and 23 days) I had never visited the Spiral Jetty, a piece of earth-art located in the Great Salt Lake. I had always had a vauge idea that visiting such an oddity would be a good idea, but a few months ago I read this essay about the Jetty and fell in-love with the idea of seeing the spiraling art formation in person. And then I read the essay Looking for Spiral Jetty, and while I don’t necessarily agree with all of the author’s points, it only made me want to see it myself even more. (Thanks to Mel for sending the link along in the first place!) I vowed that as soon as the ice and snow melted a bit I’d head Northwest to see it. Saturday was the first really nice day Salt Lake has had this year, and I made good use of it! I was not disappointed, in fact, I was practically giddy as the Jetty emerged from behind the ridge.
(Yes, I’m squinting. It was really bright, okay? And after months of no sunshine a cloudless day can turn me completely beady-eyed.)
The Spiral Jetty was created by Robert Smithson in 1970, is 1,500 feet long and the coils are 15 feet wide, stretching into the reddish water of the lake. Depending on the water level of the lake, it may or may not be submerged, the black rocks crusted in salt and gleaming white in the sun. On Saturday it was mostly under water, with just a few rocky points peeping above the surface, denoting where the spirals curved inward.
Hiking a little way up the hill offered some excellent views of the buried formation. It seems like a massive undertaking when you are standing on the thing, and when you see it from a distance it seems so much smaller than I’d imagined. I didn’t walk the length of the coiling path, I walked until I was more than ankle deep in salt water, took a bunch of photos, and then walked back.
The Jetty is made of black basalt rock and salty earth. Over the years the rocks have become completely encrusted in salt and glitter like icey geodes in the sun. (Can you tell I’m obsessed?)
My favorite photo of the day, because apparently I have a thing for attempting long-lost feats of gymnastic skill on salty surfaces. Once upon a time, when I was 11 years old, I was quite skilled at standing on my hands and even walking on my hands. I could go for quite a while, hundreds of steps without falling. But now? Um, not so much. Perhaps this means I should get back into a yoga class? (Probably.)
The water near the Jetty is a reddish color, I think due to decaying brine shrimp, a miniscule little bony thing native to the Great Salt Lake. The colors–red, blue, lavender, black and white–are gorgeous and meld into each other in waves and ripples. It is stunning. The rest of the area, Rozel Point, has some equally impressive and beautiful views. Colors were muted, the sand and decaying pier are covered in layers of salt, and due to being situated on a natural oil ooze there are little puddles of shiny black slick oozing up from the sand. It’s a fascinating contrast.
(Editor’s Note: For the last few weeks I’ve been taking a photography class to learn how to use my fancy new SLR camera. I’m still a total beginner, and I keep getting Aperture and ISO mixed up and have a little cheat-sheet packed in my camera bag to keep me straight. But I am quite pleased with how these pics turned out. For the rest of my pictures of the Spiral Jetty and Rozel Point click here.)
If You Go:
- Print out driving directions here. (The gravel road is well maintained, you don’t really need high clearance or 4WD.)
- Give yourself a good chunk of the day, it is 2-hours from Salt Lake City to the Jetty, and you’ll probably want to stay a little while, absorbing the scene.
- Bring a camera.
- Pack sunscreen. And bug spray (seriously, bring bug spray).
- The Jetty is sitting on top of some natural oil seeps, and if you aren’t super careful (or even if you are super careful) you can easily get some tar-like black gunk on your shoes, or your hand, or whatever. Baby wipes (or, in my case, Armor-all Auto Wipes) and a bit of elbow grease should take those right off.
- You will pass the Golden Spike National Historic Site, it’s worth stopping to use the restrooms and see the old-timey trains.
Edited to Add:
6/8/2011: The Great Salt Lake has already risen more than 5 feet this year due to enormous snowfall and excessive spring rain. This explains the submerged Jetty. (Click here for a comparison between this year and last year)
6/8/2011: There is going to be somewhat of a kerfuffle over the ownership/administration of the Jetty in the coming months, check it out.
7/21/2011: Negotiations between Utah and New York officials begin today on the fate of the Jetty. (That link includes a photo that shows the Spiral Jetty is mostly submerged in water. Kind of crazy.)
