Spiral Jetty & Rozel Point
A night out at the Jetty
Hammock hanging and light painting
The Spiral Jetty at Rozel Point on The Great Salt Lake is oddly enough one of my favorite places to visit. I have been coming out here a few times a year for the last several years and each time I notice something I have never seen before.
History is not really something I am typically a student of, but I find it absolutely amazing what you see on your journey out to the Jetty. First of all, to get out here you need to make the drive out to Thiokol ATK where they built and tested the rocket boosters for the space shuttle. Then you make a turn to the west and head up a hill going to The Golden Spike National Historic Site. As you approach the summit of this hill there is a parking lot on the north side of the road. There is a trail here called "The Big Fill" trail. This trail is on the exact path that the original Transcontinental Railroad was built on. Although the train tracks are no longer there, there are signs and images along the way that depict the times and hardships of building the railroad in the 1860's. As you are walking on this trail, you can see both the railroad as well as Thiokol down below and the juxtaposition of the Transcontinental Railroad and space travel is something I find very cool.
As you continue heading west over this hill, the road will eventually turn south and lead you to the Golden Spike visitor center. This is also a cool little place to experience the history of the railroad, and if you get a chance I would recommend going out when they have their Winter Festival although it has regular opperating hours throughout the year. I have gone to the 2017 and 2018 Winter Festivals and fortunately the weather was pretty good for both. If I remember correctly there is also a summer festival but the colder temperatures in the winter make for more dramatic steam... at least that is what I recall reading. I will leave a link to The Golden Spike National Historic Park website so you can check for the dates of the festivals as well as the other times they actually "drive" the replica steam locomotives.
Immediately after passing the visitor center, the paved road turns to dirt/gravel road. It’s somewhere around 10 miles from the Golden Spike visitor center to Rozel Point and The Spiral Jetty. There are 2 forks in the road that need to be navigated correctly, but there are signs that are labelled “Spiral Jetty” that point the way. The first fork you turn left, and the next one you go right. While this is a dirt road, I do not believe having a 4X4 is necessary unless you are out in a big snowstorm. I have taken a few different cars and even a mini van once with no issues. Obviously, anything can happen out on a dirt road, just make sure you have full tank of gas, a spare tire, and jack and take your time over the wash-boards and you should be good. The road gets bumpier the closer you get to the Jetty and there are a few larger boulders to navigate around as well, but like I said, I have taken cars down here before with no issues. It is also clearly marked that there is private property on both sides of the road. Be respectful to these land owners and stay on the main road. Also of note, cell service is very very poor to non existent, so be careful while you are out here.
As you approach the Spiral Jetty, you will first see several areas that are the last remnants of the oil manufacturing structures at Rozel Point. I am not an expert on what the purpose was for these remnants, but from what I have read was that back in the 1980’s they stopped the oil production due to it being too difficult and expensive. For the most part, everything has been cleaned up, but if you walk around along the shore and out to these remnants, you will see bits and pieces of rusty metal and other artifacts. Occasionally, you can smell the crude oil as it is still very slowly seeping up through the surface. Along the south west side of the biggest structure is where I notice the most evidence of crude oil seeping up. It’s a very, very dense black and raised area on the ground and feels solid. For the most part, we just walk over this area as it really doesn’t stick to your shoes. Be aware though, if you place something on this tar it will slowly sink. My friend placed his empty duffel bag below his hammock, and when we left the next day he literally had to pull it up out of the tar. And that is one more benefit of sleeping in a hammock vs sleeping in a tent! We did not smell any crude oil on this trip at all, but on previous trips, we have noticed a strong “gas” odor. I find this area to be more interesting than the Spiral Jetty that is no further than 1/4 mile from this point. I even filmed a music video out here 2 years ago for a friend because I find this place to be very unique. I will include a link to that video below as it does show some segments of the road as well as a lot of these “structures.”
The road ends at the parking lot to the Spiral Jetty. It’s a fairly large and mostly flat gravel parking lot that sits up on a hillside looking down at the Jetty to the west. You will be able to clearly see the Spiral Jetty directly from the parking lot. To get down to the Jetty you will need to work your way down through a short but steep and rocky hillside. To the east of the parking lot there are a couple of old rock foundations. I don’t know the history of these foundations, but it’s kind of cool to walk around those. There is also a small monument that has a plaque on it describing the origins of the Jetty. If you keep heading east past this podium there is a trail that will take you to the top of the hill to get a better view. This isn’t that difficult of a hike, but it is pretty steep and will take a few minutes to climb.
I am not 100% sure that camping is allowed at the Spiral Jetty but there are no signs that say it is not allowed. I can read on the internet countless stories of people camping and a few times I have been out there, I have seen tents both up on the parking lot and down on the dry shore of the lake. Last year I even saw 3 or 4 RV’s at the parking lot and they looked like they had been there for a few days. We decided for this trip that we would take advantage of these old wooden structures and hang our hammocks up for the night and do some astro-photography and light painting. A lot of times when we go hammock camping we don’t do campfires and that was the case this night, but we did carry out a folding table and Coleman stove. While we were cooking our dinner a car drove past us and continued to the parking lot where they set up their camp for the night, so unfortunately we did not have the whole place to ourselves. We set up our hammocks at sunset and by the time we got around to eating dinner it was well after dark. We spent the next few hours light painting and watching the Big Dipper rise from the east, but unfortunately a thin layer of clouds rolled in and we retreated to our hammocks wrapped in the warmth of our down under-quilts.
The next morning we woke up to one of the most amazing sunrises I have seen in a long time. At first the sky was heavily saturated with pink, magenta and purple. A few moments later right before the sun was about to crest over the mountains to the east, the sky was bright yellow and orange and it appeared like it was on fire. We had sausage and scrambled eggs for breakfast and then spent the next few hours exploring the area. We walked over to the Spiral Jetty where our “friends” had just packed up their camp and were leaving. We hiked to the top of the hill to the east to take in the view from up high. We spent the the last hour walking out into the lake. I have walked out into the water before and knew that it does not get very deep at all. This time we decided that we wanted to see how far we could walk out into the lake so each of us had waders that we put on. As the water eventually started to get deeper, it became harder to walk. This area of The Salt Lake has a very high level of salt concentration and you can tell as you will easily float. As you are walking, it almost feels like there is a string tied to your knee and somebody is pulling your leg up, and the deeper the water got, the harder it was to stay balanced. To make things more difficult the floor of the lake is very inconsistent. In most places the lake bed was pretty firm, but there were areas where the ground felt very soft and once you put your weight down, you would sink an additional 1 to 4 inches… but you never really knew before you put weight down if you were on solid footing. We decided to have a contest to see who could go out the farthest. Between the salt water making you float and the inconsistent floor of the lake it became a huge challenge not to fall down. Apparently I have the shortest legs of the bunch and I was the first to throw up the white flag in shame and turn back because water was starting to flood over into my waders. I would estimate that we had walked out into the lake at least 1/4 of a mile.
Overall, this is a very cool place to visit. We have come here with our kids and we all enjoy walking around the shore of the lake and the sunsets always seem to be amazing. This was our first sunrise and it blew my mind. For late February, the temperatures were not that bad and we basically had the entire place to ourselves. I highly recommend coming out to this area if you have the time. Because it is so remote, it will take up a good chunk of a day, especially if you are not already in this area. Come prepared because there is NOTHING out here. Bring sunscreen and a first aid kit, and a plenty of water and food….. Oh ya… please pack out your trash and help make it enjoyable for the next visitors!
If you made it this far, thank you for your time. I plan to do more of these trip report blogs to document all of the places I have traveled to. I will probably also go into more detail on all of our hammock camping gear, as well as how we pack them all into our motorcycles. This trip was not on our motorcycles so I will get to that soon.
Below is a map that I hope can be useful and a link to the Golden Spike website. …. Thank you!
Matt