The Great Salt Lake

 

I always get restless this time of year, it starts feeling warm, and I want to go out and hike, but there's still snow up in the mountains. So I try to find naturey things to do lower in the valley.

Supposedly, somewhere on the shores of The Great Salt Lake sits a random green sphere. This was what brought me out to the lake. Unfortunately, I never did find this sphere but I still got in a good approximately 2 mile hike.

As I said I was looking for this sphere which I kind of knew the general area it should be, a little south of the Saltaire. There is a frontage rd. next to i80 that gives you opportunity to get to the lake… ish. it is a rather small, shoulder less road that has those little binocular signs indicating a scenic area, right next to signs saying no parking next 2 miles. ??? The first pullout available was rather crowded. I would have liked to take photos here, but apparently this is a rather popular photographic area as there were at least 12 people taking pictures. So we moved on to the next one. There was a small dirt road pullout that indicated it was some sort of nature research trail. Again, it was fenced off, but was easy to get through.

This is the first site I wanted to see. An old abandoned train and unknown building. I will return to this.

One of the interesting things about the Great Salt Lake is that its water levels fluctuate drastically. We are currently in a low levels cycle. It was a mile from where we parked to the shore, yet where we parked is is obvious that that was shoreline during high levels.

It took me a while to determine what I was looking at, but at this point I decided it was once an old pier?

It was a little spongy here, so we decided to head back towards the what appears to be man created raised area.

I love that there are signs of river beds

Yep still convinced this was once a pier.

And then we found this… it seems there was a pumping station of some sort?

 

The unknown structure narrowed and heightened.

UPDATE 3/18/11: A friend informs me this was one a railroad trestle that crossed the lake called the Lucin Cutoff.

Another interesting thing about The Great Salt Lake is that, even though it is a rather large lake, it is really rather shallow. Averaging at about 13 feet deep. Due to this it’s shores are kind of… skewompous.

Did you know that the Great Salt Lake is the 4th largest terminal lake? A terminal lake has inlets, but no outlets. Water only decreases due to evaporation, which is why it is so salty. Supposedly, a human can float on the surface, although I have never tried this.

   End of the line, with a salty foam.

 

Landis found a walking stick! Which apparently was good enough that he kept it.

 

I decided that the man made raised path must have originally been a marina, during high waters anyway.

Random letter?

Upon returning to the car we noticed the throng of photographers had left the train, so even though I had lost prime lighting I decided to head over there as well.

“Temple Of The Birds” Totally unofficial title of this unknown building but I think it fits quite well. Judging by what I saw on my hike out to the shore, I think this was originally some sort of pumping station. It is now home to more graffiti than building, but it is still rather interesting.

I hate graffiti. I really do, however, I found most of the graffiti at this location to be rather interesting.

All and all, even though I never found what I was looking for, I had a good time, and I enjoyed my first spring hike of the year.

My goal this year is to hit some of the more out of the way little known places. So look forward to that, and feel free to poke me if I fail at this goal.

Final result: 9 out of 10 Squirrels. Only losing 1 squirrel due to having to crawl through a fence. (and maybe a slight disappointment on not finding my “Easter egg”.) Other than that, it was a very easy hike, great one to do during the early spring time when you want to do some nature. Plus there is some cool stuff to see.

 

Photo Of The Week 3/7/11 – 3/13/11

 

Crazy spring snowstorm. The snow clung to the tree’s, and even though I prefer to not have man made objects in my photos, this one came out beautifully.

Photo Of The Week 2/21/11 – 2/27/11

Ice Chandelier

The day after a cold snap I was in Ogden and decided to walk down to the Ogden River and caught this masterpiece from mother nature. It is absolutely stunning! The branch was close enough to the rapids to start accumulating ice and it created something close to a chandelier. Just astounding! (2nd image is a digital zoom of the first)

Ph0to Of The Week 1/28/11 – 2/6/11

Floating Island Floating, but not the way that created it’s namesake.

The Wendover Area

 

My friends invited me out on a trip to what we all refer to as Wendover for a couple days of gambling and hanging out. I knew I did not want to spend 3 days in front of a slot machine, or blackjack table so I did a little research on some things to do during the day. And, well it’s me. I cannot take a vacation without taking a few pictures. :)

Pulling a few pictures from my “Drive-by Photography Album” I’d like to share some of the images I took doing somewhere between 65 and 75 (no I was not the driver.)

A particularly blustery day, The wind appeared to be blowing the snow off the mountain peaks.

The wind also appeared to be blowing something off of the Great Salt Lake. At first we thought the lake might be steaming (as in maybe there is a hot spot in it?) But we later decided it must be the fine beach sand on the shores.

A view from a rest stop before the landscape really flattens out.

The Tree Of Contemplation – AKA The Tree Of Life, AKA The Utah Tree. The first and Last are new to me, I always heard it was called the Tree Of Life. It’s frustrating, I really wanted to get out and take a proper picture of this, but they put up a sign just before it saying only emergency vehicles can pull over here. Why have they not built a pull out for this amazing piece of artwork?

The wind creates waves on the submerged salt flats. (more on this later) it’s actually kind of cool.

Wendover, UT, and its other (better) half West Wendover, NV are about 4 miles from the salt flats. We arrived to the hotel, did what you do in gamblin cities and had a great time. (I was actually doing quite good for once! woo hoo!)

The following day, after having the Rainforest Buffet for breakfast (the deal ends at 1, it’s WENDOVER people are just getting up at this time!) We stopped in to the visitors center to ask a few questions about the sights we were interested in. Unfortunately, the site I really wanted to see at the best route has a 5 mile dirt road. At the most convenient route: 8 inches of mud the whole way. Not to mention I severely underestimated my window of sun movement. Sigh. There is always June. So we headed out towards the Salt Flats.

Random channel on the northern tip. Smells like hot springs, but I think that's the salt and other minerals. Although it does have a nice pretty blue.

The drive down to the Salt Flats or the Bonneville Speedway is rather disturbing. The road seems to disappear into a lake.

The Salt Flats this time of year, turn in to a rather salty shallow swamp. Although, the combination of shallow water, and the rather light shaded bottom, create a rather perfect mirrored effect.

  Panoramic

The tradition of sneaking a picture of Landis held true hehe. However, I rather like this shot.

The salt coats EVERYTHING here.

Couldn’t resist taking a stereotypical car ad shot of my car. I think it looks quite nice.

mmmm Salty.

Unbeknownst Landis inspires me.

Back up north the water recedes and you get an interesting zebra effect. Rather stunning.

Wendover Will daytime

Wendover Will Nighttime. From the cell phone. I was rather paranoid with my camera in Wendover, it lived in the trunk during the night. Wendover Will used to reside on the south end of town, right on the border, pointing to the State Line Casino. Urban Legend had it that Utah freaked out and demanded the smoking cowboy removed from the border. I discovered that was not the case. The now non-existent state line casino went under new management and they donated the now Wendover iconned sign to the city, so they put it up where they could. I was told it now points at something remarkable, we never did stop but driving by I did not see anything remarkable. meh.

Rainbow Casino

Red Garter

Flat expanse of Desert

Considering Wendover is in the middle of nowhere I still managed to take a few awesome pictures. I will return in the dry season for some better shots.

  Inspired by a fellow photographer.

I am used to the whole horizon haze, but it is weird to see a reflection off of it. Wow.

All in all, I think this was the most fun I ever had in Wendover. Got to do some site seeing, did really well gambling, and had an amazing time with some of my best friends.

Photo Of The Week 1/24/11 – 1/30/11

 

After much deliberation, I have decided to change my week designation from Sun – Sat to Mon – Sun. This is due to the fact that most of my better images seem to land on the weekend, more often than not Sunday. I noticed that I tended to sit on an image for a week and forget about it, which resulted in less posting. So, with new vigor here we go:

Shrouded Mountains

Mueller Park – Winter Hike and Some around town shots.

 

Today I woke up and just marveled at the fog. It was the perfect density, i.e. thick enough that it was pretty and slightly creepy, but not thick enough that I was scared for my life. I decided hey, this would be great to get some cool foggy woods shots! So I got dressed and headed up the hill towards Mueller Park.

As I drove higher and higher up the hill, the fog started getting thicker and thicker and I was getting more excited. Then poof. Sunlight. I had driven above the fog line. Darn.

I did manage to get these cool above the clouds shots.

Somewhat disappointed I wouldn’t get any cool foggy woods shots I almost turned back towards home, then decided eh, I'm here why not go for a hike?

 

I decided to take the hike the opposite way as last time I was here for a few reasons. 1 Didn’t know if the 2nd trail would have been used enough for me to figure out where I need to go. 2. I wasn’t sure how far up I wanted to go.

One thing I found interesting, the forest smells amazing in the wintertime. Something about the crisp cold air mingling with pine needles it is awesome.

 
Normally you can see the valley, the lake and Antelope island from here, but uh… fog/smog it is now a big fluffy pillow.

After hiking around and going back into the fog I stopped at few places and took some good foggy pictures. I probably would have done a lot more, but I feel kind of weird pulling over and getting out with the camera… I mean, it’s Bountiful not Yellowstone the locals aren’t really accustomed to that behavior.

Trees

This is the stream going through Mueller park, but further down next to where a mill used to stand. I always wanted to stop here and finally did today, was not very impressed.

The Original Mill Stones… this is what they preserved of the mill.

After this the fog started making me nervous to be driving in, so I headed home and called it a day. It was kind of nice going out and hiking though, I don’t think I have ever hiked in the wintertime before.

Mueller Park in the Wintertime: 9 Squirrels out of 10. It is frequented enough that the snow is packed down enough to make it easy to hike, but the snow scares off enough people that it is not crowded.