Spiral Jetty

The Great Salt Lake and Bonneville Salt Flats create one of the most amazing and surreal landscapes on the planet. It is no wonder that many movies are shot in area, such as Independence Day, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, and The World’s Fastest Indian. The area’s starkness, isolation, and other-worldly geology also provide the perfect canvas for world-renowned works of art that boldly dare to match the scale of the surrounding landscape.

On the north shore of the Great Salt Lake, Robert Smithson created the Spiral Jetty in 1970. Smithson built the Spiral Jetty—a 1,500 foot-long, 15-foot wide, coil that extends into the Great Salt Lake—with water, salt, and 6,000 tons of earth and volcanic basalt rocks. Smithson picked the area because of the blood-red color of the water, which is caused by the bacteria and algae that grow in this extremely saline part of the lake (which was cut off from fresh water sources in 1959 by construction of a Southern Pacific Railroad line that bisects the Great Salt Lake) and because of an abandoned pier and abandoned industrial structures.

Because of the Great Salt Lake’s fluctuating water levels the Spiral Jetty, the structure was submerged in 1972 and—except for one brief period—remained submerged (and somewhat out of the public’s mind) for the next two decades. With a prolonged drought, the Spiral Jetty is now dry.

The Spiral Jetty is 2 ½ hours north of Salt Lake City (65 miles on I-15 to exit 365 toward Corrine, west for 42 miles on Route 13/Highway 83 past Golden Spike National Historic Site).