A Salt Filled Day in Utah: Frary Peak, floating the Great Salt Lake, & Bonneville Salt Flats

Whoa, this is so cool. Blown away again. It's definitely not going to be what we expected, but it'll definitely be memorable. Even worse than I thought it would be. If you missed our last vlog, we're exploring the Salt Lake City area for the first time, and today we're going to be exploring probably the most famous feature of the area, the Great Salt Lake, and driving an hour and a half west to the Bonneville Salt Flats. It is sure to be a very salty day. Our first adventure of the day is hiking to Prairie Peak, which is on Antelope Island, which is an island on the Great Salt Lake. Supposed to have some awesome views of the lake from the top, and a really good chance to see some wildlife, like buffalo. So the hike is 7 miles round trip and 2,335 feet of elevation gain. It's actually the highest point on Antelope Island, so I guess we're getting another high point like we said we wouldn't do on our last vlog, or a couple vlogs ago. One important thing to know about this island is that it's $15 a car to get in, and then the gates to get in do not open until 6am, so they shut off the island at night unless you're camping. So we ended up camping here last night because we wanted to start earlier than 6am, because it's actually like a 20 minute drive from the entrance to the trailhead. So if you want to start the trail early like we're doing, we recommend camping the night before. That is where we're going. A mile into the hike and we're catching our first glimpse of the Great Salt Lake, and this view is so beautiful. It's kind of like a deserty beach vibe. This island has such a different terrain than the other areas we were in in Salt Lake. It's very brown and dry, and the mountain that we're climbing up right now, it's kind of grassy, but it has like rocks jutting out of it, and it reminds us a little bit of like a less green version of the Isle of Skye, which may be kind of a weird comparison, but just all the rockiness. Oh cool, I see like a deer up there. That's awesome, our first wildlife. Just like the rockiness and the grass, it's just really, really cool and different. Apparently on Antelope Island, between April and June, there are these little gnats called no-see-ums, because you can't see them unless you look really hard. There's one in front of me maybe. But apparently they're biting and they're very obnoxious, so it's best to keep moving. We keep seeing like clouds of gnats following us, so yeah, we're going to keep moving. The crescent right here at the end of my finger was our campsite for last night. White Rock Bay Campground. Campsites are awesome. They're nice and spread out. You have like this covered canopy, like picnic area. It's got a fire pit in it. Awesome stay. We're here right now, and that's the top. It looks like we're at 2.6 miles, and we have less than a mile to go and about 500 feet of elevation gain. We're almost there. So we had heard that at some point the trail splits off into two directions, and the way on the left is more rocky and then the right way is easier. So this is where it happens. It's right before the summit. The summit's right up there. This way, as you can see, it's very rocky, and then this way right here, you go down and then you go like around, then I guess you get up top somehow. So since rock climbing is not my jam, we're going to go to the right, which is what most people suggested to do anyway. We're so close, but it looks like we still have a little bit to go. We're almost there. The final steps, I think. We keep thinking we're almost there, and then we're not. But I think we're almost. I think we're there. We made it. Yes. We did it. We're the only ones up here. I think there's only maybe three other cars in the parking lot that we can see. So we have this whole thing to ourselves for probably a while. This is amazing. Wow. 360 degrees. This hike was absolutely amazing. I don't know if we just got lucky, but it's not sunny at all, and we heard that this hike is brutal when it's sunny because there's no cover at all. So we got a cloudy day. The temperature is perfect. We got the summit all to ourselves. The scenery is just crazy. I don't do a lot of research before the hikes, and so I get surprised every time. So this one really blew my mind. This one was awesome. But we're going to head down, and we're going to put the camera away. So the next time you see us, we're going to be somewhere way down there. And by the way, it took us about two and a half-ish hours to get up to the top, and that was with quite a few stops for filming and all that. But for real this time, we're on our way down. Okay, before we get to our next destination, we're going to drop some knowledge on you. So the Great Salt Lake is the largest salt lake in the Western Hemisphere and also the largest lake west of the Mississippi. It's almost 1,700 square miles. And if you're curious about the salt levels, it's 4.5 to 4.9 billion tons of salt. That's a lot of salt. So the lake's salinity varies between 5%, which is about what seawater is, to 27%. Just to give you guys some reference, the Dead Sea is 33.7%, so it's less than that. And as the lake gets higher, the water level's higher, the water's less salty because it's the same amount of salt regardless of how much water's there. And so when the lake gets lower, the water's saltier, and apparently it's easier to float. And we're about to go test that. Oh, yeah. I don't know if you could hear the noise, but we're walking on this dried-out, I guess the dried-out lake bed right now. And unlike walking on the beach where it's nice and fluffy and sandy, it's very crunchy, and we think it's because of the salt that's in here with the sand. But I'm super excited to go get in the Great Salt Lake. We've heard a few things about it, though. We've heard it smells, which we can kind of confirm is a little true. It's starting to smell a little weird out here. And we also hear that there are brine shrimp in the water, which might not be fun, and then also flies around, which also doesn't sound super fun. But we hear it's something that you just got to do once. It's kind of a bucket list item we didn't know we had until like two days ago. Yeah, I'm kind of meh on it, but I was also kind of meh on the hike, and the hike blew me away. So if I can float, that's crazy. We don't know when we'll make it to the Dead Sea, so we figured we got to try it here. They weren't kidding about those flies either. They're attacking us. The smell's definitely gotten stronger as we've gotten closer to the lake. I'm still excited, though. We'll see how it goes. It is colder than I thought it would be. I wonder how far we have to go out. Yeah, this is going to be a pretty quick plunge. It's really clear, I will say. So far, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's getting warmer. You think so? Or did you pee? All right, we're about knee high now. I'd say we're getting close to where we could maybe float. Do I just sit back? I guess. It's cold. I don't... Looks like you are. I think I'm floating. Yeah, you're floating. Feels salty. Oh, cool. Whoa, this is so cool. Blown away again. Dude, I'm not doing anything. I'm just floating here. I want to use my arms to keep myself up, but you don't have to. Yeah, at first I was trying to do it, but you don't really need to. This is cool. I'm twisting a little. Isn't that so cool? It's definitely not a come and lay out at the beach and enjoy the waves kind of experience, but, I mean, it's definitely something you got to do once, right? I'm so glad we did it. It was really cool. Me too. All right, we are all rinsed off, kind of. We still kind of feel sticky and some salt in our hair still, but we are off to our next salty adventure, which is the Bombville Salt Flats. And I lied earlier in the vlog when I said it was an hour and a half away. It's actually two and a half hours away. Oops. You might be able to hear all the noise in the van. We're currently driving through probably the worst wind we've ever driven through in the van. Yeah, this is stressful driving. I'm basically, I feel like a NASCAR driver. I don't know if they turn left or right, but I'm having to, like, shove the steering wheel to the right the entire time. It's like I'm wrestling with the van. Like the high top, you just feel every little wind anyways, but this is a constant, like, gust and it's stressful. There are times that, like, we move and it's scary. And the van has, like, a wind assist in it to help, but it's still scary, especially if you go by a semi. There's a lot of semis and large vehicles that are pulled over. It's getting a little clearer out now, but it's been kind of, like, whiteout condition. So we have no idea if we'll see anything at the Salt Flats besides the salt. And basically the wind assist, basically, it just feels like it's slamming on the brakes for you and it makes it even worse. It's scary. I'm sure it's helpful, but it's scary too. So yeah, we have 20 minutes to go. We're going to hope things get better because this is not the best drive ever. We somehow made it. I don't know. Sometimes I think, like, if we put wings on the van, it would be a smoother ride and we'd get there faster. I think it would have worked this time. But, yeah, we're here, but it's still ridiculously windy, so I don't know how this is really going to happen. Yeah, we had this grand idea of getting here, driving the van out on the Salt Flats because you can drive out on them. A car is actually driving off of them right now. Yeah. But we feel a little nervous about that. They say don't do it if it's – only do it if it's dry. And we're not totally sure how dry they are because it did rain where we were last night. So we're going to skip the driving out part. And we had this, like, awesome idea to fly the drone and get all these cool shots. And I see everyone's clothes, like, flying in the wind, so I'm not sure how long we'll actually be here. The van right now is shaking, and we're actually, like, under this – Covered thing. Covered thing, concrete cover. So this will be interesting. Yeah, it's going to be interesting. It's definitely not going to be what we expected, but it'll definitely be memorable. Oh, my gosh. I can't even open the door. This is even worse than I thought it would be. That was crazy. That was so crazy. My mouth is dry. My eyes hurt. I was getting, like, stabbed with salt. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, the Salt Flats does not feel good. That was amazing. Like, that was so much fun. I think it was more fun with the wind. Oh, yeah, for sure. Because, yeah, if there wasn't the crazy wind, it'd still be awesome, but – It'd be a little bit more boring because there's, like, nothing to do besides look at it. Yeah. But that made it more fun. Yeah, so we kind of have a change of plans. I think we're going to do this thing. There's tons of cars out there, minivans and stuff. It's not like us, but still, I think it's doable. It's not wet at all. We're going to try it. We're going to try to drive on the Salt Flats. Still a little nervous about this. Getting from this pavement, gravelly area to the Salt Flat is going to be – I think it'll be all right, but that's the thing that scares me the most. But – We don't want to bottom out like we did yesterday in a parking lot. We did it! Hey, we're on it! This is cool. So, a few fun facts about the Bonneville Salt Flats. It's 30,000 acres, and it's 12 miles long and 5 miles wide. And it's really flat out here. And every year, I think in the summertime, they have this big race out here. And people bring out all their race cars, and they just fly down that. That would have been really cool to see. You can see tons of donuts. People have done donuts out here and tons of crazy stuff. So, it looks like a – If you have a really cool sports car, this would be a really fun place to give it a whirl. So, the Bonneville Salt Flats are actually created from Lake Bonneville, which used to be right here. And the Great Salt Lake is actually a leftover of Lake Bonneville. And the lake eventually shrunk down, and then, like, salt came up. It's probably not the most technical way to explain it. And now, we have all these salt flats. If that wasn't scientifically correct, I'm sorry. That was awesome. Once again, blown away. Almost blown away for real this time. Yeah. The wind was actually moving us. It was that strong. Yeah. I'm so glad we did this, though. This was super cool. When we were driving here, to be honest, we were really tired. We'd been getting up really early to go hike and stuff. And we're hungry, and we just were stressed about the wind. Yeah. And we're kind of like, ugh. But, man, this put a big smile on my face. This was amazing. To be honest, coming into today, I was excited. But, like, Catherine mentioned earlier, we've been getting up at 3.30 yesterday and 4.15 today. So, I guess I was just really tired and wasn't super, super excited for the day. I knew this stuff was going to be cool. I didn't know every single activity was going to be this cool. I was, like I said, just, like, mind blown on all of it. It was just so much fun. Yeah. Everything we did today was just incredible. It was all kind of unique in its own way. Yeah. And it was just probably one of the coolest days we've ever had in the van. It's actually been one of the best days in a while. Yeah. It was really great. Well, in a while, for sure. But in the van, yeah. Yeah. It was amazing. So, if you come to Salt Lake City, you have to have yourself a salty little day. Because even though I taste salt in my mouth right now, and I have covered in salt, and I feel so gross, and I need to shower really badly, it was absolutely amazing. It was epic. And so much freaking fun.