The Great Salt Lake Float

Thursday July 21, 2011
Antelope Island State Park
Badger Bridge Campground Site 12

Had some trouble on the run this morning.
I’d thought I’d do the trail that leaves from
the campground called Lakeside Trail
which is 2.7 miles one way and sounded
a perfect round trip for me.

But when I got there,
the trail was overgrown with bushes and
grasses and in places hardly wide enough for
you to put one foot in front of the other.
But I thought,
Oh well, it will get better.

And then it did widen up some but
when it did I found that
being the first person on it in the
morning meant I would have to clear
all the spider webs built from one side
of the trail to the other.

I hated to disrupt all their hard work but…

Oh well I thought, I’ll just walk through this part
get a stick to use to “move” the webs to the side
and when the trail gets even wider, they won’t be able to
build over it.

I went about a half mile,
it never got wider. Webs were very two feet.
I needed to be running not walking and moving webs
while it was still cool enough to run.
I turned around and ran back through the now webless route
to the campground road.
 

The best thing about this route were the
4 Magpies I saw while relocating
spider webs.

OK, on to plan B.

Run the road over to the beach area.
I did and saw 2 jackrabbits along the way.
LOVE those ears.
Things are looking better.

Got to the beach pavilion.
Ran down the walk to the beach
and into a swarm of sand flies
scooting off in clouds before
my every step.  They don’t bite
but still…………

I continued on running down along the beach
toward the campground causing havoc among
the sand fly community and my shoes
began to pick up sand on the bottoms.
Pretty soon I’m running on 2-3”  platforms
of sand.

So I run back away from the beach to dryer
sand which of course is much harder to run in.
By now I’m pretty fed up.

I got back to the campground but
OF COURSE there is no path up
through the bushes and grasses and rocks.

By the time I got back to the campground road
I decided I don’t care how far I’ve been, how
high or low my heart rate went or how many calories
I’ve burned, I’m running once around this loop and
THAT’S IT!

I got back just as David was going out.
I told him about my adventures so he could
chose a different path and told him I
thought he was nuts to be going out now. 
It’s too late and too hot to be starting out
for a run.

But he did and
he was gone for over an hour. 
I thought he probably must have had heat stroke when he
finally came up smiling and talking about how
great that was.
From a guy who hates to run.

But apparently he benefitted from my experience.

He ran along the road

over to the beach and beyond.
He saw one of my magpies

 

and one of my jackrabbits

 

 

and checked out the trail head for a hike he
thought he might want to hike later.

 

All while listening to my music on my ipod mini.
Oh well….guess I’ll try his route on Saturday.

After a late breakfast, we decided to put up
the screen house.  This is something I used
in my backyard when the insects got to be too much
for sitting outside.  But it clearly needs to be replaced
by something much simpler to erect for “on the road” use.
I’m glad I brought it so that now I know how much trouble
it is to put up.

Once we got that set to use I wanted to go to the lake
for some swimming.  David wasn’t so sure.
But he’s a good sport.  So we went.

Back to the beach, first time this summer.
HOO RAY!!!

It’s a VERY WIDE beach.

David says this isn’t “real” sand, more like semi-dry cement
with rocks.

 

The lake is is only 33 feet at its deepest
and is very shallow for a LONG way out.
You can’t really that from here since he’s zoomed in on me.
But keep your eye on that little white island
(bird rookery) I’m walking toward.

The water is bath tub warm.
Finally, up to my hips.  :-)
See the island?

 

Time to float-see the island?

Finally I after he had agonizingly followed me out into the water
complaining about the stones on the bottom
both flat and round, I convinced David to give the
float a try.

Don’t I take much better pictures of folks floating than he does??

 

The water’s salt content is so high even
anti-salt lake curmudgeons will float easily.  :-)

One float and that was enough for him.

Oh well….

At least one person in the group
had a GREAT time getting cooled
off in the Great Salt Lake on this 95 degree day.

and stomped her feet about having to go back to shore.

Maybe if he puts on his water shoes
to protect his poor feet, I
can get him to come back tomorrow!

:-)))))))