The Great Salt Lake Nature Center: Upland Trail

The Great Salt Lake Nature Center is a great place for bird watching. There are also 3 great trails to walk around and take in the sights. We have done the Farmington Creek Trail and the Glovers Pond Trail so far, so today we explored the Upland Trail. It was a little hard to find, and a little wet in places, but otherwise it was a nice adventure.

View from Goose Egg Island.

A Coopers Hawk.

Quick Details:

Length: .75 miles (including the .25 from the gate to the visitor center) plus another optional quarter mile to Goose Egg Island. 2 miles total round trip.
Difficulty: DR2. Easy Peasey
Elevation Gain: N/A even climbing the small Egg Island didn’t register much.
Restroom: Yes. there is a pit toilette at the visitor center.
Dogs? Seasonal. Dogs are allowed, on leash between September 16th and February 29th. They are not allowed March 1st - September 15th.
Other Info: You can print a trail map located here (external link).

To get here, take i15 toward Farmington. Take exit 322. Take the first right and follow it around the curve to the frontage rd. Turn right onto Glovers ln. Drive 1.6 miles to 1325 w, and there is the small parking lot on the left before the gate. If the visitor center is open the gate will be as well and you can drive right up to it. If not, you can park here and still hike around by going through the access opening.

The first thing we noticed is the Great Blue Heron Breeding Colony now has some occupants.That is kind of neat to see.

From a different angle.

With Glovers Pond.

These guys remind me of something out of a Jim Hensen movie.

Red Winged Blackbird.

The Herons again.

I cropped it a little for better detail.

Some crows and the snowy mountains.

The trail is really faint and hard to find at first. looking at the map I had (and luckily brought with me today) I found it comes off of the Glovers Pond trail. So I went down that way looking for an offshoot. We did find a split, but It added a little backtracking as it takes you back next to where the visitor center will be, but I just wanted to ensure I was on it. It kind of disappeared again and we doubted we were on a trail for about … 50 feet or so, until we saw this. Okay, it’s faint, but we are on the trail.

Parts of it were filled with water due to snow melt and recent rains, we considered turning back, but we made it through okay.

Davis Canyon. You can see Indian Annie Rock towards the bottom left there.

More crows.

Another flooded part. This was the worst of it, we managed around it though.

Looking towards Goose Egg Island.

A hawk of some sort. Still a little too far away to see well.

Still far away.

Faint trail.

I think this is Lost Pond.

This pond isn’t on the map, but that’s Antelope Island back there.

The trail is a little more obvious back here. That is Farmington Creek we are about to cross as well.

Wow! Shot of the day! I think this is a Coopers Hawk. Man, I wish I was closer.

Something stirred up a bunch of birds.

After the trail reaches the Main Dike Road (now crossing into the neighboring Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area) there is an overflow parking lot for Goose Egg Island. Interesting to learn the Island is man made. It is where they piled up all of the mud from the bad spring of 1983 that caused a bunch of mud slides in Farmington (and flooding in SLC, and the complete destruction of the town Thistle). The Great Salt lake rose to record high levels and extended out to here, thus the mud mound was actually an island at one point.

Goose Egg Island.

Another hawk soaring above.

Climbing up the small Goose Egg Island i found this nice sitting area.

Closer.

The view includes Be Lomond, The weird golf ball water tower, Glovers Pond, and eventually the Visitor Center.

Looking out towards the Main Dike Road. We walked along that one day. It looks pretty busy today.

There are a couple picnic tables here. Seems like a great spot for one.

Looking out over the ponds in the Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area.

Looking out towards Antelope Island.

Well that was fun, but we decided it was time to head on ack.

Walking along the Main Dyke Road.

Saw movement off in the distance… just some geese.

And back to the Upland Trail.

The trail seems more obvious back here.

More geese.

Antelope Island again.

I noticed this heron coming in for a landing.

great Blue Herons are kind of derpy looking birds, but they are still neat. They are really big birds too with a wingspan of 6 feet.

They fly with their neck tucked into an S shape with their long legs hanging out behind them.

Where the visitor center was, and will probably return when completed.

The Great Blue Heron Breeding Colony was where it was at today! So, yea, lots of pictures of that.

Cropped and lightened to show the birds a little better.

There are quite a few bird boxes around the area.

Goose Egg Island.

The beginning of a nice sunset.

Visitor center getting remodeled.

Mountains reflected in the canal.

Caught another one come in for a landing. I thought the sequence was fun so I shared a couple images from it.

Goose on a nesting platform.

The breeding colony is filling fast I count 7 in this shot. They normally nest in colonies which can be as large as 100.

Goose coming in for a landing.

The sunset making the clouds to the east pink.

Glovers Pond.

So, I just noticed this but uh… where is this gooses other foot? I guess that is why it is hanging out in the nesting platform?

Glovers Pond again.

Breeding colony again.

And in my last shot it appears the 2 in the middle might be interacting with each other.

And a pair of geese.

Well, we saw way less hawks today, still a few, but not nearly as many as I saw last time, but we saw way more Great Blue Herons than I have ever seen before so that was neat! With hindsight being 20/20 I kind of wish I had done these 3 trails in a different order. Just for a quick example, I wish today we had done Glovers Pond to see the herons better. But, that is the nature of it, you don’t really know where the wildlife will be, it’s all a gamble. Either way, 3 trips here in about a month and I still love coming out here and seeing the wildlife. Like I mentioned earlier, the Upland Trail was a bit hard to find (this may be fixed when the visitor center is back up). and it was a little wet, but it was super easy and enjoyable. 8 out of 10 squirrels.

As for difficulty, It’s not paved but it is super flat and easy. The small elevation to Goose Egg Island was about 15 feet or so. DR2.

Dogs are allowed, on leash between September 16th and February 29th. They are not allowed March 1st - September 15th.

September 16th - February 29th

March 1st - September 15th