.jpg)
After a fun adventure at Golden Spike we continued on to our actual destination, The Spiral Jetty. I have been out here before, but I enjoyed it enough that I was willing to return. Plus Landis’ mom had been mentioning that she would like to come out and see it, so I decided it was the perfect out of the way Memorial Day Weekend adventure.
From Golden Spike continue past it towards the Auto Tour West route which is a well maintained dirt road. My little ford did fine last time we were here, but we were in a truck today and managed to make much better time. If you are in a small sedan just take your time and it’ll be fine. There are little white signs before every road split so it is pretty easy to find. Here are really detailed instructions I received from the friends of the artists website.
4. From the Visitor Center, drive 5.6 miles west on the main gravel road to a fork in the road. Continue left, heading west. *There are small white signs directing you the ENTIRE way to Spiral Jetty.
5. Cross a cattle guard. Call this cattle guard #1. Including this one, you cross four cattle guards before you reach Rozel Point and Spiral Jetty.
6. Drive 1.3 miles south to a second fork in the road. Turn right onto the southwest fork, and proceed 1.7 miles to cattle guard #2.
7. Continue southeast 1.2 miles to cattle guard #3.
8. Continue straight 2.8 miles south-southwest to cattle guard #4 and an iron-pipe gate.
9. Drive south for another 2.7 miles around the east side of Rozel Point, you will see the north arm of Great Salt Lake and an old oil jetty (not Spiral Jetty) left by drilling explorations that ended in the 1980s.
10. The road curves turning north and ends at a cul-de-sac parking lot directly next to Spiral Jetty.
Be advised, The Golden Spike Visitor Center is the last restroom, last cell service, etc. You are out in the middle of nowhere. Be sure to have emergency supplies, plenty of water, etc. Twice now with no issues, but please be prepared for the worse. Now on to our adventures!
The road really isn’t that bad. The last 2 miles or so seemed worse than the rest of it, but in the truck we were making a pretty fine pace. (DBP Album)
Some pretty green hills above. (DBP Album)
The road again, and a view of the lake below. (DBP Album)
And we have arrived! Aw man, it is dry. And there are quite a few people here. Still not as bad as some other places would have been this weekend.
Here is an image from the last time we were here in 2011. According to the USGS survey the water levels are only a foot less than last time we were here, and that is definitely enough to move the lake levels quite some distance from the jetty. It is best viewed when water levels are below 4195 feet. Acceding to the website today they were at 4194.4 feet. Last time we were here it was at 4195.5 Seriously one foot will make or break your experience here. No Matter we will still go explore it.
Some shrubs and rocks.
Baby jettys.
And we start. There really is no point of walking on the actual jetty. the dry lake bed is much easier, but I insist upon it anyway.
Dry lake beds.
The jetty, more crowded that I am used to.
Quick panoramic.
The lake was about 30 feet out from the furthermost edge of it. Also, look at how far out the waders are, and it is still only ankle deep. The Great Salt Lake is truly a bizarre shallow being.
I like the texture in the salt. You know, I have been out to the Salt Flats but only in the wet season so I have never walked on a salt flat before now. I have to say it is truly a bizarre experience. It’s kind of like walking on ice, and it seems like you might break through at any moment, but it is definitely solid, and not slippery. It’s just really weird.
I kind of wished I had decided to go wading out there, looks like you can get pretty far out without getting too wet.
Salty flatland.
From the end of the spiral.
Looking at the end. Like I said, it’s cool dry, but better when the water level is higher.
And back up to the parking lot. We decided not to climb up the hills to get an aerial view today.
The next destination was Straight Jetty which I am now dubbing Oil Jetty. You will see why pretty quickly. Have you ever wondered what oil looks like when it bubbles to the surface? Well, I am about to show you quite a few examples.
I don’t think I got an actual image of the jetty, but here is a random pier that parallels it.
In researching things to do in the area I read that there is oil bubbling up near this jetty, which is why I decided to go check it out. I honestly thought this was it and was kind of disappointed.
And then we found another mound that was dripping.
UPDATE November 2015: Due to a news story, and a follow-up story I have learned this is actually tar. These are tar pits, or tar seeps.
Some random poles.
Random structure near the end.
Another oil mound. It is definitely starting to smell like oil.
Okay it is coming up everywhere out here. We started joking about how have we not drilled out here yet? (turns out after some further research they have tried, but the fluctuating lake levels, and the fact that it is not the best quality have turned out to be not very cost effective.)
Salty footprint.
It was about here that another person taking pictures not far from us crossed paths and asked if we knew what was going on, was there an oil spill here? I told her that I was pretty sure it was bubbling up. But I thought it was just one small section, not this giant swath of land.
It still kind of boggles my mind. I mean, when I think about it, obviously this is what led humans to decided to drill for it, but seeing it just bubbling out of the ground is really, really fascinating.
Coming out of the building.
Which some idiots decided to build a fire pit inside of. Maybe the oil wasn’t as present here as it is now, but really do people not get the extreme hazard here?
Kind of a fun old structure to play around in.
Crap. Stopped paying attention to where I was stepping for one second and.. doom. I would like to say this is the only time it happened… we’ll see what I can do, but I might need to toss these boots.
More oil.
The Promontory Mountains, and some oil mounds.
Back to the old building.
I don’t know why, but I am just fascinated with the oil mounds. Like I said, I knew they had to exist, but it is pretty neat to actually see it.
I was hearing some weird noises I couldn’t identify, until I saw some bubbles.
I like the way this one came out.
They kind of look like little volcanoes. I actually started becoming a little unsure if I should be walking around above all of this. Is it like hot springs, is the ground unstable? Honestly, I don’t know. We survived without incident however.
Another mound, and I did actually get a shot of Oil Jetty in the background here.
Some salt pools.
Salt formations.
Salt flats.
Random buoy I really like the random artwork on it.
The mountains above.
Old metal drums and the Promontory Mountains.
Another campsite here on “shore”. Due to fluctuating lake levels this is shore during high levels, otherwise it could be a little ways out.
Straight Jetty (or Oil Jetty as I have dubbed) and I believe Gunnison and Dolphin Islands in the background.
Promontory mountains on our way back to Golden Spike. (DBP)
Watching a raptor hunt on the way back. (DBP)
Dirt road. It really isn’t so bad.
Looking at the dirt we are kicking up.
Well that was quite the adventure! I did not anticipate seeing so many unique things here. I would say our adventure was a success! You can see more of our day trip here. There are surprisingly a lot of interesting things to do around here, and I think we have barely scratched the surface.
Both adventures today get a perfect 10. One is artistic and neat, the other is geologically fascinating. Yes, there is a long confusing dirt road, with no cell service, no restrooms, no.. anything. But they are still both worth the adventure.
As for difficulty, both technically are drive up and see (after adventuring down a dirt road) but to access the Spiral Jetty you have to venture down a steep boulder strewn path. Straight Jetty was get out and walk though. Ending on a DR3
No comments:
Post a Comment