The Spiral Jetty
September 17, 2005
Two and a half hours and ten miles of dirt road led us to one of
northern Utah’s
more peculiar art installations. Robert Smithson
built this slightly aberrant earthwork in 1970 and Heather and I always talked
of making the pilgrimage. With rumors
that the incessant drought was ending we worried that the Great Salt Lake would
once again rise, and cover this odd creation.
Utah Atlas in hand we navigated our way north, through Brigham City, on
to Thiokol, speeding though Golden Spike, and lumbering our way through
deteriorating dirt roads. We couldn’t
have left an hour later as we caught the Jetty just before sunset. The area was stunning, littered with black
basalt boulders from the Rozel Hills, the remains of one of Utah’s vintage oil wells, and the dregs of
three decades of crusades. We found the
Jetty in exceptional shape, jutting insolently into the shallow belly of the Great Salt Lake.
We crept downhill and respectfully wound our way to core of the
brute. The September evening was clear
and visibility stretched from Hogup to Lakeside and maybe even Stansbury’s
Dome. I stretched to see the dunes of Dolphin Island, but the blue of the distance
melded the far hills into one. We milked
our cameras and ate our belated dinner as the sun sank and night arrived. We left in the dark. Ten more miles of washboard and one broken
tailpipe later, we were again eating the yellow lines of black pavement passing
the Golden joining of east and west. It was a great trip with excellent company on
a random Saturday afternoon. Highly
recommended. Directions at www.spiraljetty.org.
Sunset from
Rozel Point.
Heather walking
the rounds on one odd peninsula.
Arie collecting
salt for future wounds.
Looking west
across the lake towards Dolphin
Island and the Hogups.
Heather the cutie
enjoying the dwindling sunset.
Someone finally
arrived to take a group photo for us.
Walking the
inner rings searching for my Supia.
The saline stuff
that makes the lake
Great.
Heather’s
silhouette and the Great Sea of Salt.
www.greysaltlake.com
© 2004-7
Arie Leeflang Collection