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Published: April 11th 2022
A childhood dream fulfilled!
Floating in the Great Salt LakeWhile our motel last night left a bit to be desired, we slept fairly well, but were eager to get out of there and were in the car by 8:00 am. We got coffee and yogurt with blueberries and granola at a woman-owned shop in town, and headed out on Highway 6 towards our first stop in the town of Price.
We followed the Book Cliffs Escarpment as it bends north. It is the longest continuous escarpment in the world, and supposedly looks like a book lying open.
In Price, we visited the USU Eastern Prehistoric Museum, which opened at 9:00. We arrived at 9:01! It has one of the largest collections of different dinosaur bones and skeletons in the USA.
After Price, we continued up Price Canyon, past small towns and some ranches. At the beginning of the mountains, there is a landmark called the Castle Gate that looks exactly like a castle from a distance. The mountains were beautiful and the peaks once again snow covered as we crossed the pass and descended towards the Salt Lake City area.
We charged up south of SLC, and then drove to Antelope Island, where I could fulfill
a childhood dream of floating in the Great Salt Lake! We didn't plan any of these of these side trips ahead of time. I just search for things on the web as we drive and Bill is great about exploring whatever idea I come up with (up to a point!).
Antelope Island has natural scenic beauty and holds populations of pronghorn,
bighorn sheep,
American bison,
porcupine,
badger,
coyote,
bobcat,
mule deer, and millions of waterfowl. The bison were introduced to the island in 1893, and the
Antelope Island bison herd has proven to be a valuable genetic pool for bison breeding and conservation purposes. The bison do well, because much of the island is covered by dry, native grassland. Wikipedia
We drove to a beach area, but had to walk quite a distance to the lake's edge, as it has receded quite a bit in the past years. (2021 was the lowest year on record). The sea is shallow, but I did walk out far enough to be able float on my back! The water was a bit stinky, but fairly clear. The bottom was very muddy. The walk to the beach was first on rocks, punctuated by wildflowers, then sand, then thin rock
More of the Book Cliffs
The black line you can see faintly is coal made from the mud once at the bottom of the lake...
The Great Salt Lake is a remnant of a much larger prehistoric lake called
Lake Bonneville. At its greatest extent, Lake Bonneville spanned 22,400 square miles, nearly as large as present-day
Lake Michigan, and roughly ten times the area of the Great Salt Lake today. Bonneville reached 923 ft at its deepest point,
[ and covered much of present-day Utah and small portions of
Idaho and
Nevada during the
ice ages of the
Pleistocene Epoch. Lake Bonneville existed until about 16,800 years ago, when a large portion of the lake was released through the
Red Rock Pass in
Idaho, resulting in
cataclysmic floods. With the warming climate, the remaining lake began to dry, leaving the Great Salt Lake,
Utah Lake,
Sevier Lake, and
Rush Lake behind. Wikipedia
After my swim, we drove a bit and came upon two bison by the road. They are such magnificent creatures! It is so sad to remember that US government policy was once to kill every bison and starve the tribes into surrendering their land to colonizers. There were only 500 left at the one time. There are now between 500-700 on
the Antelope Island.
We drove several miles back onto the mainland and had a short visit with a former student and her family, before heading north to Idaho, where we are spending the night in Burley and hoping that that the snow predicted to arrive tonight doesn't stick around too long, as we hope to make it to Oregon tomorrow.
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