Salt Lake City

August 5th - 7th

We left Ely, driving north to I-80, then east towards Salt Lake City.  Neither Dale nor I had been there, and thought it was a great opportunity to visit this city.  Our drive took us through more of the Great Basin- wide open sagebrush desert, distant mountains, brown and dry in appearance.  As we neared I-80, we saw what appeared to be a lake in the distance.  It turned out to be the Great Salt Lake Flats, an area where ancient Lake Bonneville stretched across eastern Nevada and into Utah.  When it dried up, it left behind large areas of salt.  Great Salt Lake is actually the remnant of the ancient lake.  The salt flats are used for many things- mining salt, testing areas for automobiles, and test areas for the military.  There are two bases in this area.  Driving through the flats, we noted many "mirages" both on the road ahead of us and on the flats themselves. It became difficult to tell when there was really water on top of the flats and when it was a mirage.

On the outskirts of the city, we stopped at the exit for Great Salt Lake State Park and Marina, thinking it would be a good place for a picnic lunch.  The park was locked up, and appeared to have been deserted for some time.  The marina next door was open and active, meaning there were boats in the slips and some folks around, but even here, all the buildings were locked up.  It made the area appear rather desolate.  There were picnic tables with a great view of the lake, so we had our lunch and took some photos.  We had intended to try to get into the water, but the lake looked scummy, with many brine flies and shrimp floating on the top.  We decided looking was sufficient.

We arrived in the city early enough to do some touring, so we decided to drive out to Park City, which we had heard was really beautiful.  On the way, we stopped at the Olympic Park to see the museum.  Salt Lake was the site of the 2002 Winter Olympics, so it was fun to see some of the medals and mementos from those games.  We opted out of the zip line or the bobsled ride....

To our dismay, when we arrived in Park City, they were having a major Art Show, one of the biggest in the west.  No one was allowed downtown without parking out of town and being driven in on buses.  We simply wanted to walk the street, find a nice little restaurant, and relax.  Since it was already late, we decided to stop at a restaurant just outside of town.  A little anti-climactic.

The next day, we toured Temple Square, which is the location of the well-known Mormon Salt Lake Temple.  The grounds of the temple are beautiful with lots of flowers.  Their visitor center told much of the history of the Mormon religion in this area, which was interesting.  The Mormons also have a large Family History Library, which is all computerized.  Visitors can sit at computers and look up their family history.  Dale and tried to find a few of ours, but it was difficult to determine in a short time if you had the right person.  Anyway, it was fun to look.

We visited the Salt Lake Visitor Center to see what they recommended we see in the remainder of our visit. He recommended a trip to Cottonwood Canyon, one of the more beautiful canyons in the area.  Snow Bird Ski area is located here.  Their facilities were open for touring and so were the restaurants.  It was a beautiful, cool spot to eat outside and people-watch.  Following lunch, we went to see the Bingham Canyon Mine, located just outside the city.  This is an open pit mine, more than three quarters of a mile deep and almost 2 and 1/2 miles wide- one of the largest in the US.  It is actually visible from space.  It is still in operation, and has yielded more than 19 million tons of copper, as well as gold, silver and other metals.  You can stand on the edge of the pit and see the "tiny" trucks working far below.  Really amazing to see.  Their smelting operation is located several miles away.  We had seen the chimney for the plant, which at 1215 feet high, is the highest structure west of the Mississippi.  Obviously, the reputation of open pit mining is not good, resulting in a lot of environmental damage.  This company does appear to be very aware of that image, and have gone to great lengths to clean up the process as much as possible, capturing sulfurous gas from the process and turning it into sulfuric acid, which they sell.  Once a mine is played out, they replace soil and replant native plants and grasses to restore the area.

Great Salt Lake State Marina

The Great Salt Lake

Dale and I at the Lake

Distant view of the Great Lake Salt Flats

Bingham Canyon Copper Mine

Near view of the Great Lake Salt Flats

Cottonwood Canyon

Salt Lake Temple

Utah State Capitol buiding

Tuesday morning we again headed west on I-80.  After some discussion on our route, we decided we would never be any closer to Crater Lake National Park, which we had missed on our last trip due to wildfires closing the road.  It would take us about 12 hours, but we felt it would be worth it. Again, the drive was primarily through sagebrush desert, which got a little monotonous.  We did have a little excitement as we neared the border to Oregon, spotting a wildfire billowing smoke on a nearby mountain.  A helicopter with a snorkel used to suck up water to fight the fire was just landing in a field nearby.  Just before the Oregon border, we drove through a wildlife preserve.  The preserve protects wild donkeys, elk, and wild horses.  We were thrilled to see several donkeys, but no elk or horses.  We found out later that there was a great deal of concern with the wildfire impacting the preserve.

We were disappointed when we reached the Oregon border- I think we thought everything would turn magically green with lots of big trees...  Well, as we mentioned, the Great Basin and its sagebrush desert continue into the southeast corner of the state.  We drove about 10 hours the first day- due to the sparse availability of services along the way, we either had to stop after about 5 hours, or go the 10- and spent the night in Lakeview Oregon.  By that time, the terrain had turned green and trees were in evidence.  It was a nice feeling to see them.  We got one of the last hotel rooms in the area- apparently other wildfires in the area had driven campers out of the nearby campgrounds to fill up the motels.  We were just happy they had one left!