…the largest saltwater lake

• What: Great Salt Lake

• Where: Northern Utah, Great Basin Region

• When: Roughly 16,800 years ago

• Why: It's the leftover puddle of the much bigger Lake Bonneville

  
  

The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake – in the western hemisphere, anyway. (The largest saltwater lake in the world is actually the Caspian Sea. Which is weird, as the name literally has the word ‘sea’ in it, but another blogger can unravel that one.)

But the Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake on our half of the planet, and that’s worth noting. It’s also:

• the largest lake in North America without an outlet to the ocean.

• a pretty neat leftover of Lake Bonneville - the Ice Age glacial lake that once covered much of Utah and Nevada.

• called “America’s Dead Sea.”

• a place where whales couldn’t possibly survive because of the high concentration of salt – and yet legend says an eccentric scientist started a colony of them in the late 1800s.

• the former home of Pink Floyd the flamingo (an escaped Tracy Aviary resident who hung out at the GSL, eating brine shrimp, hanging out with gulls and swans, maybe enjoying a groovy festival or two).

• the current home to many a ghost, such as grave-robber Jean Baptiste and murder victim Saltair Sally (unrelated stories, but both occasionally sighted).  

• the potential home of Old Briney, Utah’s version of Nessie.

It’s no surprise there are so many stories about such a unique and central piece of the state’s history and geography.

You can visit the Great Salt Lake via guided tour on Antelope Island, where you’ll likely spot some bison and birds and, you guessed it, antelope. Or you can tour by boat, where you might catch the sunset and a demo of people not sinking in the super salty water. If you’re short on time or cash, there are scenic spots aplenty.