Adventures in Utah: The Spiral Jetty

During my vacation in Utah I decided to make the trek out to Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty". Smithson was one of the originators of conceptual "Earth Art". You can read more about it on his official web site.

Getting to the Jetty was half the fun. It took us an hour to get over about 9 miles of bumpy roads in my mom's Toyota. We had to walk the last 1/4 mile in the hot sun because the road was too rocky.

This is what the terrain looked like...



My mom and brother got into a fight over the water bottle. The sun was beating down pretty hard on us.



Often the Jetty is covered over by the Salt Lake. Because SLC is in a drought, we were able to see it. There was absolutely no one around, and the lake was perfectly still. The black rocks were crusted with salt crystal and contrasted with the pink color of the Lake.













I spotted this alien-looking shape and upon closer examination realized it was just a small branch covered in salt.







The bottom of the lake was composed completely of Salt. My brother and I ventured out into the lake, and it only went to our mid-calves. We probably could have walked right out to the mountains in the distance. And it is true that you can float--on your back or your stomach. I have never been in such a still body of water. 2 cranes swam up to examine my brother and I. That was the only sign of life. There were small patches of salt floating all along the surface that glowed in the sunlight.



The lake bottom was so salty that the crystals scraped my knee when I tried to rest it on the bottom. You can also see that my leg was covered in Salt when I got out. As was the rest of my body.



Walking back to the car I found this bug preserved in the salt on the beach.



I was sad to leave the Jetty behind knowing that the landscape constantly evolves with the weather and will never be like it was on this day. Especially since it took so much work to get to. I hadn't been out of the city in 7 months prior to this trip. So this experience reminded me that there are so many peculiar places on earth that I haven't seen. This seems obvious, but it's something you forget in the day to day of city-dwellin'. I never fathomed that such a surreal place could exist. Because I live in the city, where no space is left unused, I couldn't believe that this natural wonder simply exists and serves no obvious purpose. Weird!

I definitely need to venture out of the city more often.