Crossing the Flats

While we could see mountains far ahead, all around us was flat and colorless

Looking more like water than ground, distant rocks apeared to be islands. Were we looking at the far off lake or was it an illusion? I thought of the frontier travelers. I thought of Jedediah Smith returning from California in 1827. What he had heard from the Native Americans could not have prepared him for this land. 

The Donner-Reed Party crossing these flats in 1848 were definitely not prepared. The shortcut, named the Hastings cutoff, had been promoted by Lansford Hastings  but was used very little after the Donner's much publicized troubles.  

For eighty miles they trudged across the hostile land, its surface a crust which trapped wagons and made even walking hard. Water evaporated very quickly, here, during the hot summer. Then, during winter, the surface is often covered with a thin layer of rising ground water. This time of wet followed by rapid evaporation makes a thick crust through which heavy wagons easily break. The group lost most of their cattle and oxen, abandoned much of their stuff and had to carry their children.

The Donner-Reed party lost most of a "season" crossing the salt flats. It was late in the season when they finally reached the Sierra Mountains at Truckee Lake (now renamed Donner Lake). It was there that their troubles became much worse.

These ill-fated pioneers could not have imagined that a hundred years later folks would be speeding across the flats in race cars.

Named for Captain Benjamin L.E.Bonneville by by Joseph Reddeford Walker, whom Bonneville had employed to survey and map the area the Bonneville Flats is so flat that you can see the Earth's curvature.  By 1896 it was recognized as a place for car races. It is now the place to go to beat any land speed record. 

Jeff and I were far from breaking any  record as we fought the strong cross-winds of the flats this day.  With other tourists we laughed at the wind as we stood on the beach, a beach that bordered a sea of dry salt, not water.

We felt relief as we spotted the Town of Windover at the edge of the Flats. We assumed the town's name was descriptive.  

For us that was far from true.

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Salt Flats

Like these bikers and the pioneers of who settled the west coast of the United States, we headed across the great salt flats of Utah.

But unlike them we were comfortably inside a large metal vehicle. We had protection from the biting wind that the distant white cloud told us was coming.

Due to an extremely fluctuating Lake level the shoreline of the shallow Great Salt Lake is almost deserted.  A building could be built right on the waterline one year then be hundreds of feet from the shore the next. The white in the photo, below is a line of hard mineral deposit that must be crossed to reach the lake.

Saltair is a resort that has been rebuilt and re-imagined several times through the years. The first version was in 1893.

photo used from wikipedia
At that time, a railroad was specifically built to take travelers to the resort.  Some of the wooden pilings were still visible as we drove by.
Today Saltair III is a concert venue but it has had its share of troubles.  When first built in 1981 flooding occurred shortly after it opened. The lake receded after several years allowing Saltair to reopen.  The problem was that the lake kept receding until it was far from the venue which rested against Interstate 80. Very few events are held there anymore. The water you see below is a small wet area formed from building the interstate exit.

Another drawback to people enjoying life along the lake shore is that there is sometimes a funky odor left from the bodies of stranded water-life, left as the lake recedes.

For now the lake entertains boaters and fishermen and supports plenty of waterfowl.

For now, we left the lake and kept our car pointed toward the high peaks in the west.

Those mountains meant Nevada to us, our last state to cross before being reunited with our children.  But first we had to cross the Salt Flats. 

Oh, have I mentioned that it was getting very windy?

This was just the beginning of what was going to turn out to be a very long day.