The Great Salt Lake

Last week, I traveled with Jenn to Utah, to get to know one more state in these United States. Among other things we did there, we toured the Great Salt Lake, a particularly curious body of water in northern Utah, and it turned out to be quite interesting indeed!

So, the Great Salk Lake, as the name implies, is a lake filled with salt water, but not regular salt water: whereas the ocean water typically has 3.5% of salinity, the Great Salt Lake has around 25% of salinity. In fact, the only other body of water that is saltier is the Dead Sea. Differently than the Dead Sea, though, the Great Salt Lake does have life in it: its most famous inhabitant is the brine shrimp, a tiny little crustacean that is all over the lake. Additionally, there are also the brine flies, a tiny little fly of which there are millions of them around the lake. I could check that myself when I approached a rock at the shore of the lake: at a distance, I thought that the rock was black, but as I got closer all the "black" started flying, given that it was some thousands of brine flies sitting on the rock. In fact, bodies of dead brine flies form clusters at the margins of the lake, as I saw myself.

Jenn and I took a boat tour on the lake, leaving from the south shore. It was a beautiful and quite warm day. The lake waters were light green and very calm, and eventually we stopped in the middle of the lake to "swim". Given the density of the salt water, you can float without any effort, which is very relaxing. However, you have to be very careful with your face: any lake water in your eyes will be very "noticeable", to say the least!

After floating around for a bit, we navigated to a sand bar in the middle of the lake. The sand at the bottom of the lake is very soft, and your feet sink all the way to your ankles. Once again, the sand bar looked black until you get close, at which point large clouds of brine flies start flying away from you. Some seagulls are there too, gorging themselves on the clusters of dead brine flies.

We swam some more and then returned to the marina at the Salt Lake State Park. It was there that we discovered another unique characteristic of the Great Salt Lake: given that it was a hot day, we got dry pretty fast, and our skin got covered in salt. That made wearing regular clothes like having sand paper on your body! I felt extremely grateful when I could take a long satisfying shower once we were back to our hotel. All in all, it was a beautiful and unique place, and I feel very blessed having the opportunity to visit it in person.