Bonneville Salt Flats

About this place

The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in north-western Utah, about 18 km in a straight line east of the town of Wendover on the Nevada border. A remnant of Lake Bonneville, which covered the region in the Ice Age, they are the largest of the many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. The flats are about 19 km long and 8 km wide, with a salt crust almost 1.5 m thick at the centre, and they hold an estimated 147 million tons of salt, about 90 per cent of it the same mineral as table salt. They are named after Benjamin Bonneville, who explored the region in the 1830s; the first land speed record was set here in 1914, and racers still come to the Bonneville Speedway every year. The ground is a dazzling flat white crust stretching to distant mountains, and after rain a thin layer of water turns it into a vast mirror reflecting the sky and the peaks. At sunrise and sunset the salt glows in soft colours, and from the rest area on the interstate highway the view runs almost to the horizon. The flats are public land and free to visit. Driving on the salt is risky when it is wet, as the crust can turn soft, so check conditions first, and bring sunglasses, sunscreen and water, as the glare and heat are intense in summer.