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Mike's Salt Lake Expedition
Memorial Day Weekend, 2009
We left on our expedition early Saturday morning. Our original route took us to Brigham City and westward to the railroad owned causeway that spans the lake. Promintory point was our destination. By taking the causeway, we could have saved nearly 70 miles on our trip. To our unfortunate discovery, the causeway was closed to public access, forcing us to drive back to I-15, up to Farmington, and over to the Golden Spike monument. We spent a good hour here, watching the trains leave and touring the museum.
Our next stop was the famous 1970’s Spiral Jetty earthwork. Along the way, we noticed what appeared to be old ruins of a pier. Later investigation turned out that those ruins were old oil drilling rigs from many decades before the Jetty was built. The Jetty was sitting perfectly in the water. We journed through the Jetty, performing a jig in the middle in hopes for sunny weather. Unfortunately, the weather was quite nasty, so we decided to stay in at the Western Inn (Good continental breakfast) back in Farmington. On our way back, we stopped at ATK to gawk at the massive space shuttle rocket and display. I can never believe how huge those engines are.
Early Sunday morning, we headed back past Golden Spike, across the Salt Wells Flat, and over to Locomotive Springs. Dispite the swarms of mosquitoes, this area is quite an oasis in the desert. Large fresh water springs fill deep pools that are thriving with fresh water life. One pond was absolutely loaded with smaller fish, while in another I saw several fish likely weighing in close to 10-15lbs.
We continued on to the ghost town of Kelton. Kelton was a rail support town, built to support the industry that was driving the Pacific railway across Utah. A cemetary and a few foundations still exist. We continued to the western edge of the lake and began our southward trek. The trail from Kelton was very rugged and muddy. Some flat stretches were deep enough in mud that we just managed to crawl hundreds of feet at just over a mile an hour. A full stop would have meant getting stuck for sure. No cell coverage for close to 40 miles.
It took us almost 4 hours to make the 50 mile drive from Kelton to the West Desert Pumping Stations (Hogup Pumps). There was not much to see on this side. A lot of sand, mud, salt, and sage. It was a constant fight and struggle keeping all 4 Big-O XT Mud tires from sinking into the long, deep stretches of mud. This is the last place I'd want to get stuck. After packing every cavity with sticky, salty mud, we made it to the Hogup Pumps. These $60 million pumps were an intersting site to see in such a deserted place. After peeking around a bit, we decided to take the causeway across the lake and over to Lakeside. When we reached Lakeside, the roads were riddled with No Trespassing and Private Property signs. According to my maps, they were the only way though. So ignoring the signs, we drove off the causeway and into the LakeSide area. We eventually ran into military signs that informed to keep on the road, which were a good sign that we were ok to be where we were. Being Memorial Day, we did not see much activity though here. In fact, everything seemed abandoned.
Our last stop was the old abandoned cement factory. Unfortunately, there were a lot of construction looking trucks parked behind the locked gates, which made it appear we were not welcome to cross the fence like so many others have done and take some photographs. Sadly, we turned around and headed home. Overall, it was an interesting trip. Some some weird, alien things. Recommend everyone do it once. Especially the Spiral Jetty area.
View the entire photo gallery here:
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