spiral jetty great salt lake

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

The jetty is interesting in of itself, for me at least, due to its remoteness.

Did you take any photos of it? Please post if you did.

Thanks,

Cave Girl

Just of my S.O. - I edited her out:



As you can see the lake has receded quite a bit. If that thing keeps receding the air in the SLC is going to be bad, really bad. Good thing I’m moving!

- Doc

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Honor,

That was awesome. The dispensary we’d visit in Port Hueneme (when we’d see my kid stationed the naval base there) was called Skunkmasters:

https://skunkmasters805.com/

Skunkmasters. Heh. They were like your dispensary. Armed guards. Clean. And no indication what we should buy because it was a head shop with an advisor.

When I went home to Spokane in 2018 I was surprised to find they had cannabis stores everywhere. We went to Royals Cannabis, which had menus kind of like what you wished your shop had:

https://www.google.com/search?q=spokane ... 5N9dtL8Z6U

I haven’t been inside the one here she frequents since there’s a drive-through. She just orders, pays, and we pick it up. Easy peasy. It’s called Dragonfly and markets itself as a wellness center or whatever:

https://www.google.com/search?q=spokane ... 5N9dtL8Z6U

And finally we’ve visited one at Wendover last month when we were showing our house and had to be out of town for a few days:

https://deeprootsharvest.com/west-wendover/

20.1% tax rate, by the way.

Weed is pretty expensive, but so is my cigar habit so my wife gets a pass. I have to say, I’ll take weed over alcohol any day. The worst I’ve seen my wife act while high is jokesy or forgetful. 100% better than the nightmare fuel that was alcohol - we’ve been sober for ~4 years now, and we’ll never go back.

- Doc

[Jersey Girl]

Did you take any photos of it? Please post if you did.

Thanks,

Cave Girl

Just of my S.O. - I edited her out:



As you can see the lake has receded quite a bit. If that thing keeps receding the air in the SLC is going to be bad, really bad. Good thing I’m moving!

- Doc

Omg that has receded! Thanks for posting it. I hope you are moving to the middle of nowhere!

p.s. In other news...I have not seen even one bee this year.

[huckelberry]

As you can see the lake has receded quite a bit. If that thing keeps receding the air in the SLC is going to be bad, really bad. Good thing I’m moving!

- Doc

Omg that has receded! Thanks for posting it. I hope you are moving to the middle of nowhere!

p.s. In other news...I have not seen even one bee this year.

I am a bit puzzled. The lake gets bigger and then over some years it gets smaller. Saltair had swimming then it was high and dry. In the eighties flying into SLC I joked to myself that the city might have to build dikes to hold back the water.

Well things are on a drier cycle and it is noted people are using more water so amount into the lake decreases. The lake might get smaller yet. Doc I do not understand your concern about the air quality in the city tied to lake levels. How might that work?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Doc I do not understand your concern about the air quality in the city tied to lake levels. How might that work?

Well. These are the heavy metals that are present all over the dried portions of the GSL:

Google says: arsenic, cobalt, antimony, lithium, manganese, vanadium and zirconium, copper and lanthanum. High concentrations of these and other metals occurred in areas associated with discharges connected with industry, wastewater treatment, and agriculture.

From various articles and a few papers I read it’s this:

Water cover da ground. Wind blow. No dust.

Water dry up. Wind blow. So much da dust.

So much da dust. In da lung. On da snow.

Lung go cough cough, snow go bye bye.

More da cough cough, more da people die. More da snow go, less da water. Lake go bye bye. More da dust. More da cough cough.

Now da people fight, remember long ago times, in da past when times were good. Now gone. Only bad man roam in trucks. More da fight and da cry. Times are bad. One day a man come. He drive mustang, have dog, and have boom stick. He take us to da water. Da good water far from here.

- Doc

[huckelberry]

Doc, your answer seems filtered through a movie but is a pretty clear answer anyway.

I do not know a lot of details as I have never lived in Utah. My impression was it was lake Utah that go the industrial waste. No that must be shallow though. I remember all the oil refineries just north around the bend from SLC. Those would have no connect to lake Utah.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Well. The GSL is a terminal basin. It gets all of the pollution from the entire watershed. Everything is flowing down, and I mean everything, and ending up in the lake, either through the Bear, Weber, or Jordan rivers or pollution that’s been discharged directly into the lake by companies like Kennecott and US Magnesium. Don’t forget that Utah lake is insanely polluted, catches all the crap down south, and eventually discharges its contents through the Jordan river, too. I’m not even talking about all that crap that gets washed into these waterways through sewer systems, runoff, and particulates through snow and rain and wind. Beyond that, the ever prescient Mormorons with their powers of discernment and stewardship treated all of these waterways like total garbage up until recently. Pouring vast amounts of oil and poisons into these places for about a hundred years. Just total brainlets.

So. Right now you have ~2,000,000 people and their cumulative runoff finding its way into our basin. This has been going on for a very long time with little to no oversight, and very little accountability. Bad juju, man. When that lake recedes that 100 years of neglect and abuse will be visited back on the heads of all those Wasatch front Utahns. Lots of wind storms. Lots of ozone production. Lots of particulates. All of that will end up in their lungs and mixed into the snowpack during the Winter, which speeds up melt and runoff. If the snowpack doesn’t stick around it creates a feedback loop that’s akin to global warming/greenhouse gases. More heat. Less water. I’m not sure what would break that feedback loop once it gets started.

- Doc

[Morley]

Wow. I leave for a couple of weeks and come back to a whole Spiral Jetty/Legal Pot thread. Who says there's not a god?

I think Cam hit on it when he writes about the interesting journey to the Jetty. Robert Smithson wanted the drive to the destination, and the surroundings once one got there, to be a major part of the experience. But then, he also wanted the Jetty to gradually disappear as it eroded back into its environment. This last part, for better or worse, probably isn't going to be allowed to happen.

One of the land art pieces I'd like to see is (are?) the Sun Tunnels created by Smithson's wife, Nancy Holt. However, I keep finding something easier to do than the required meandering around and through Utah's West Desert. And since I don't know anyone who has actually made the trip, it's hard to know whether or not they're really worth the effort.

.

[huckelberry]

I think Cam hit on it when he writes about the interesting journey to the Jetty. Robert Smithson wanted the drive to the destination, and the surroundings once one got there, to be a major part of the experience. But then, he also wanted the Jetty to gradually disappear as it eroded back into its environment. This last part, for better or worse, probably isn't going to be allowed to happen.

Morley, I had pictured in my mind that the natural changes would be part of the art work. You make an interesting point about the drive out to the location being part of the experience. Blixa who has not posted for some time now once reported camping some night or nights there and saw connection to the whole experience.

I am puzzling over my own limited knowledge of the area. I find myself wondering what erosion forces could possibly erase the jetty in our or or childrens lifetime. It could get buried I suppose. I then realize I am imagining no or few waves as the only times I have seen the lake there were no waves. It is big, does it get significant wave action to erode? My ignorance wonders if the salt weight limits waves? second thought it could make waves more erosive.

[huckelberry]

I should be chided about not doing the easy research on my erosion question. I find now that the lake can develop significant wave action and that of course would result in erosion of the jetty. I think it will last quite a while but eventually break apart. Those changes will be part of the thing. Grandchildren can visit fragments.