A Baja Utah Sailing Adventure Sept 2014
It was a dark and stormy night. No really. It was. I know writers
use that cliché to build suspense, and adventure writers use the dramatic flashback
to some dark and stormy night to allow their hero (usually them...) to reminisce
about what craziness had brought them to that dangerous situation on that dark and
stormy night. But this trip started on a dark and stormy night
from the git go.
For several years I have loved Baja Mexico and have made several
trips down there to sail. The wonderful wilderness, majestic desert mountains, the
sea and sea life, certainly the wonderful
people and great food make it a paradise.
With a trip to Baja on the agenda again this year with my new sailing kayak
Vagabunda, I was looking for a good long shakedown trip here nearby, about 2 weeks
or so, to make sure all my skills and gear would be up to the rigors of Baja. I
thought about Lake Powell, certainly beautiful, but not a good sailing lake. Lake Meade? A reasonable option but with the low water level
the "bathtub ring" makes it a pretty dreary place. Then I realized I have my very own Baja right here
in my own front yard. The Great Salt Lake! I had pretty much been ignoring “GSL”
for 40 years for not very good reasons. Too salty, I thought, too buggy, too stinky,
too shallow, with all the shoreline surrounded by miles of sucking mud flats. Boy,
was I wrong, and I lost out on many years of great adventure I could have had out
here.
GSL is one of the largest "dead seas" in the world.
River water for hundreds of miles around
drain into this lake with no outlet to die a salty death. The GSL is about three times as salty as the ocean,
and nothing much can live in the briny water except a tiny brine shrimp that is
harvested by very tough guys out on the lake for months every autumn, and brine flies (no relation to the shrimp),
both of which feed on a few species of algae that also live there. These, in turn, are food for millions of migratory
birds that pass through here on the Pacific Flyway on their way to the Arctic every
spring. The lake is a remnant of ancient
Lake Bonneville that once covered several western states about 1000 feet deep.
You can still see the old line of the shore up on the face of the surrounding hills.
At its modern peak, in the early 1980s, the
lake was about 100 miles long and 50 wide. Now, with the water level shrinking
from years of overuse and drought, and vast sections carved off by dykes,
levees, causeways, and evaporation ponds for extracting minerals, the current lake
is about 30 miles long and 15 wide.
There are several islands in the lake, Antelope, Stansbury, Carrington, Hat,
Gunnison, Fremont, to name a few. Most
of these are technically not islands anymore, as the shrinking water level has
left them connected to the mainland by big sand flats that allow you to walk,
even drive, out to almost all of them.
There never has been any significant sort of recreation or real
estate development on the lake. For 100 years the Saltair resort on the south
shore has struggled to make a go of it. They built a big dance hall with giant golden
St Petersbergesque onion dome towers. Sort of an odd choice if you ask me. They once had amusement park rides back in
the day, and held pretty big concerts. Old timers recall seeing the Beach Boys
there. The place has burned down a few times, and got flooded out in the high water
days in the 80s. I recall seeing pictures of a guy in a boat rowing across the dance
floor! It has been restored again and open
as a concert venue.
The state has built 2 marinas, but low water has forced closure of the one at
Antelope Island, and the one on the south shore can now only handle shallower draft
boats. The bulk of any other development has been industrial. The west side of
the lake has become the domain of the mineral extraction folks, mostly via giant
evaporation ponds.
When I was a kid my family moved to Utah from Oregon. I had
loved small boats even back then and just restored an old homebuilt flat-water kayak
I got from a buddy. The first thing I noticed when I looked at the map of Utah was
this giant lake right next to town! This was going to be great. I didn’t drive
yet but it was so close to my home I planned to build a little trailer for the kayak
and tow it to the lake with my bike. But
when we got here, I fell in love with the mountains, climbing and hiking and skiing
became my passions for the next 35 years, and the lake and the kayak were
forgotten. I think my dad hauled it to
the dump when I was away at college.
When I got into sailing a few years ago, I met several folks
with sailboats out on GSL. The few times I went out with them were fun, but there
didn't seem to be anywhere cool to go, and everybody just seemed to go out, sailed
around in circles, watched the depth gauge and made sharp U turns when they hit
shallow water again and again and again, have a glass of wine watching the sunset,
and motor back in.
Not that any of that was
bad, not just the sort of sailing exploring adventures I had in mind.
Then I met Josh Church recently and he said he
had been out on many multi day cruises on the lake, anchoring out over-night, having
a great time. It was true that there were vast sections that were too shallow for
his 4 foot deep keel, and he had to anchor a few miles off shore of some islands,
but he was out having a great time in a truly wilderness setting.
Talking to Josh I realized that the GSL would be
perfect for my kayak. I could hop from island to island, sail in water as little
as 6" deep, pull up on shore, camp in wonderful secluded desert
wilderness.
Just like Baja.
OK, sure. It is missing the sea life, the whales,
the dolphins, the pelicans, the wonderful "south of the border"
charm, people, music and food, but it is still an amazing place to enjoy a
grand wild adventure, loving the desert, the seclusion, the magnificent mountain
vistas across sparkling water.
The Saturday I had planned
to leave was one of the nastiest on record with cold rain and fierce winds. I
stayed in bed and started out the next day under partly cloudy skies and
moderate winds from the east, perfect for heading west as I was. My sailing kayak performed perfectly. I made
13 miles that day, one of the longest of the whole trip. I did run into some
shallows and had to walk the boat through a "rock garden" of tufa knobs
for a while. (Tufa is a soft rock that precipitates out of the water and settles on the bottom.) I camped on the south
end of Stansbury Island on a sandy spit. That night a big bad thunderstorm came
over and thrashed on me for about 2 hours. I have spent a lot of time out
camping in small tents in bad storms, but never in conditions like that before.
The wind was blowing my tent over so I sat on that side of the tent with my
arms up holding the wall from collapsing. I felt like that raw army recruit who
was always screwing up at basic training and his drill sergeant made him run
around all day holding his gun up in the air. (Of course he goes on to save the
platoon with his strength and valor). But I wasn’t in a war zone, it just
sounded that way. Lightning bolts and simul-thunder crashed around me for
hours. Flash-crash-boom. The rain
pounded down in waves, like a fire hose turned on patriots demonstrating in a town
square. I was thinking perhaps I should put
on some pants in case the tent blew out and I had to scurry to another fox hole,
but it took both hands to keep the tent up, so I just sat there bare-bummed and
whimpering shamelessly. I can see the family reunion scene many years from now.
"Grandma Kenzie, was great grandpa Kyle brave when the worst storm of the century
paddled his bum out on the Great Lake?" "No Julito" she replied, "He wasn't
wearing any pants, and we all know that you can't be brave if you are not wearing
any pants. He just sat there in that tent whimpering shamelessly" (Julito wanted to be brave, and he never again went to bed without wearing
Gore-Tex pants. No amount of pleading or threatening or bribing with Otter Pops
could change him. Bearded psychotherapists
with round spectacles would study his behavior and mumble among themselves and shake
their heads. Years later he mentioned
this odd fact about himself in his Match.com profile and he met a spunky kayak
sailor named Wind-Song who understood him perfectly and they proceeded to complete
the second ever sailing kayak circumnavigation of the Great Salt Lake, and went
on to solve the mystery of why pelicans stopped nesting on Hat Island.)
My boat is a sailing kayak rig, basically cobbled together out
of spare parts. The hull is a very good two person touring kayak with a foot operated
rudder. I added home-made outriggers for added stability, a lee board, mast and
sail, and I sewed a spray skirt out of cast-off boat cover material I found in a
dumpster back in California. I have been
working on her for 2 seasons now, sailing almost every week from April to
October, upgrading to some store-bought parts, making little improvements continuously
here and there and she really is turning out to be a fine little craft. She is
rugged, reliable, sails well, and I can paddle when I need to. I admit I am an unenthusiastic paddler. I know
many people love it and wax poetic about "the song of the paddle", but
I am a sailor, and for me every paddle stroke is a song yodeling my failure to get
to where I am going under sail. But certainly
paddling is better than needing a motor!
The next day I sailed up to the north end of Stansbury and
camped near what I think is the one and only beach-front cabin on the entire
lake. It seemed abandoned and didn’t look like anyone had been there in a long
time. The graded track into it was overgrown with weeds and brush. The cabin
was of modern construction, with vinyl siding, metal roof, huge 2 story glass
wall facing the lake. Inside was beautiful wide pine plank paneling and vaulted
ceiling, really a treasure. Too bad
whoever owns it doesn’t seem to be using it. The inside was a mess, a window
was broken out, and there was a huge hawk nest on the second story deck!
I had arranged with my friend Josh to report in with him by
cell phone every few days. He had told me that he has coverage across most the whole
lake. He must have Verizon. I have T-Mobile. Big difference I am learning. I had cell coverage this morning and had checked
in with him after the big storm, but no signal up this far. Hmmm. There is small brine shrimp harvest marina on
the north tip of the island and I could see people there but I didn’t bother
them. Nothing to worry about yet.
Tuesday I woke up early to a drizzle and the forecast on my NOAA
Weather radio called for scattered thunderstorms all day so I rolled over and
went back to sleep. I woke up about 9 with bright sun and clear skies so I
packed up fast and launched for Carrington Island 5 miles away. By the time I was
moving, the sky had quickly clouded over again and a frisky wind piped up out
of the west and I made the crossing in a little over an hour! Vagabunda was screaming on that beam
reach. I walked around the island for a
while, climbing up to the summit and seeing an awesome camp site on the north
end, a mile away. Up over the summit I noticed
the ground was pock-marked with big craters and odd looking rusty metal bits
scattered about. The craters were old, all grown over, and I wondered if some
treasure hunter had dug about looking for lost Aztec gold or something. Just
then 2 fighter jets from Hill Field went screaming overhead heading for the
west desert practice bombing ranges. I then recalled someone saying this used
to a bombing target and these craters were direct hits, and the metal shards
were metal bomb-casing shrapnel. So glad
to know they could hit an island. (I heard Iraq air force veterans boast they
now can put a bomb down Saddam Hussain’s chimney. If they only knew which
chimney...). I walked back to the boat
and another thunderstorm looked like it was coming in so I wrapped up in a tarp
under a bush and waited for all hell to break loose again like the other night.
It never did but I had fallen asleep and enjoyed a sweet little nap and woke to
warmer sunny conditions. I launched the boat again and headed to that nice spot
around the corner and put in a snug little camp. Because most of the land I was camping on this
trip was loose sand or gravel, I made it a practice to back up all the tent
pegs with rocks. At this camp, every rock I lifted up was crawling with lizards
that darted off to safer rocks. I wonder how many lizards I saw more than once!
They must have thought the world was coming to an end.
The next morning, Wednesday, was clear but cold. I noticed a
group of guys driving around on ATVs and doing some sort of work on the beach. I
walked over, introduced myself, asked if they phones with cell service. He said
yes, and I could use it to call Josh and
report in. Since that first morning 3 days ago I had not had
any coverage. Even up on top of the ridges I had hiked up. Nothing. Then as I walked
away from these guys my phone chirped and I had coverage just long enough to receive
a text message from a friend hoping all was well. By the time I tried to respond
the signal was lost, mood was spoiled and no signal ever again until Thursday evening
on Fremont island. I used to have a Spot messenger that lets you use satellites
to let everyone back home know all is well. I guess I should get one again. Or just
not tell anyone I am going so they don't worry!
The brine shrimp guys were just out scouting for good places,
the season doesn't open until tomorrow so I invited them over for coffee. Several
came over to my camp and we had fun comparing projects. All of them were immigrants,
from Thailand,, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq. They lived at these company shrimper camps
out there, made $10 hour with food and lodging included. They all said it was hard
work but all seemed very happy with it all. Some had been coming out for years. I later
found out that they had spread the word around the lake that some crazy guy in
a kayak was out there.
I wanted to go on up to Hat island, only 3 miles north, and the wind was blowing from the north so I just
paddled. It was a slog but of short
distress. I got into a big area of those
tufa heads and after trying to paddle through them and going aground several times,
again I just got out and waded, leading the boat like a tame little burro. It was
so nice to have my entire camp just follow along with hardly any effort at all.
So much easier than backpacking! After a
while I started to get cold and my feet were numb so I called it done, pulled
the boat into a rocky little cove about 1:00 and took up life on dry land
again.
Hat Island is a tiny pile of rocks out in the middle of the
lake where pelicans nest in the spring. It was totally deserted now. No
evidence of any mass nesting now, except for millions of bird bones scattered
all over the place. So many in fact it
seemed incredible that any birds had survived to nest next year! But I guess
they do. Thousands every year. Odd that
there were no carcasses of partially decomposed birds, just millions of bones. With the island now connected to the mainland
by the sand bar I imagine coyotes, foxes and rats have a feast out there when the
birds are on nest. In fact I wonder how much longer the birds will use that place
to nest? Seems not so ideal anymore.
The forecast looked favorable for tomorrow, Thursday, to be good
for a crossing over to Promontory Point. That will be 13 miles of open water with
the potential for big wind and waves to happen, with nowhere in the middle to hop
out to safety so I was prepared to wait days if I had to for conditions to be right
but tomorrow looked good. The storm was moving out, high pressure was building,
and winds from the west (I was heading east). I wanted an early start so I set my
alarm for 5:30 and had everything as ready as possible for a quick getaway in the
morning. I admit when the alarm went off that early I rethought my strategy and
dozed on for another 30 minutes, then scampered to get packed and out to the boat.
It all worked out and I was on the water by 7:30 and it was just light enough to
see without needing a headlamp. The winds were brisk out of the west as predicted
and I was headed northeast so it was perfect. I was going pretty fast, average about
4 miles per hour. I was making good time; the sky was clear and sunny by midway
across. After a few hours with winds that
were pretty strong, and because of the long fetch (the distance the wind can blow
across the water to make the waves) the waves were getting pretty big, about
3-4 feet. Pretty serious conditions, but
they were mostly swells, not breaking waves. They were come in on my hind right
quarter and the boat mostly just bobbed nicely as the waves rolled on under
harmlessly. A few, though, seemed to
roll back onto me from the down-wave side of the boat and would slosh back up
over the spray skirt. The skirt was working perfectly and the water would just
roll off with no problems. Even with all that I only had a few sponges worth to
swab out when I got to the other side. I
was very pleased with how the boat handled those bigger conditions, but I was a
bit worried what would have happened if it had gotten worse, with stronger wind
and bigger waves. That is the thing about gaining experience. All you can do is
just keep pushing the edge a little further each time, sometimes on purpose,
sometimes just because it happens, and you hope you make it. Each time you do,
you learn something and gain confidence in your skills and gear until at some
point you get in over the limit and it all gets very nasty. But all was fine today.
The travel distance to Fremont Island was about the same as
to Promontory, and since I was a few days behind in trying to meet up with my
friends at Antelope Island, and since there was nothing really very exciting for
me at Promontory anyway, I set the course for Fremont and landed there instead,
after a 4 hour crossing. I was tired and hungry since in those big conditions I
couldn't take any time or attention to rest or eat while underway. I don’t know
what sort of passages and conditions I will run into in the future but I can't
imagine having to do many other crossings that would be much bigger that this
one, so I was pretty pleased that it all went so well. I sat on the beach, and drank the one beer I
had brought along just to celebrate completing this crossing
I hiked up to the top of the ridge on Fremont and got cell
signal so I called anyone who would be worrying and checked in with them all. That
was nice. As I hiked along I found the
skull of a big desert bighorn sheep. The horn curl was a full circle plus a
bit. I wandered about, exploring a bit, then
set up camp down by the beach.
The next day, Friday, I sailed and paddled the 8 miles on
over to Antelope island where my friends from the Wasatch Mountain Club would
be arriving for a 3 day car camp. The
low water forced me to beach the boat almost a mile from the Bridger Bay campground.
That made for a long foot slog with all my gear. I asked a ranger where I could
get water and he pointed to the visitor center about 2 miles along the beach
across the bay. I almost cried. I had been there before and had seemed to
recall there being a water spigot at this campground but no. A fellow just then
was walking out of a giant motor home heard us talking and asked "How much
do you need? I have plenty here in my rig , you can have all you want.". Schweeet! It turned out he was there with the Wasatch
Mountain Club, John was his name, and the nicest guy ever. I was a bit surprised at his RV because I was
not used to mountain clubbers showing up in RVs bigger than my house. They have
tended to be a small tent crowd. As I
got to know him though, I learned that he has recently organized 5 day backpacking
trips into the Uintas and the Grand Canyon, as well as just doing a 200 mile self-support
bike trip in Yellowstone. Certainly he
is no slacker. Since he was not using the
tent spot at his site he offered to let me use it, which turned out to be the best
site in the park, on nice soft sand right in the shade of the only tree in the
park.
The rest of the folks started showing up that evening and we
had a nice time. We hiked Frary Peak on Saturday, and huge potluck dinner party.
After a week of eating trail mix and dried beans and rice, I really tucked in to
the fresh salads, the barbequed turkey, and French fries. Those folks really know
how to have a backcountry potluck dinner! Thanks to John and Julie and everyone
for such a fine spread.
The next morning, Sunday, was my planned departure day but I
delayed long enough to let a few folks play with my boat, and joined in on another
awesome potluck brunch with pancakes, eggs, bacon, potatoes. Thanks to Robert
and Turtle! Incredible food once again.
I launched about 11 AM. The forecast was for moderate winds from
the south, which sounded bad because I was headed south and pretty much expected
to beat into it all day and have to paddle much of the distance. However, by the
time I got going, there was a light breeze out of the north and I just ghosted along
downwind as easy as could be and had completed 8 miles by 4 PM and called that done,
half way along the shore of Antelope island. I set up camp on a bluff near some huge rock outcrops,
looking up a vast broad grassy valley. It was one of the nicest most picturesque
camp sites I think I have ever had anywhere!
My camping strategy on this sort of trip is pretty much like
I was backpacking. I use a small tent, tiny cook stove, eat dried food. Since I didn't have any hope of finding fresh
water along the way I started out carrying about 11 gallons, planning on using about a gallon a day, and hoped
to be able to top up if I found some along the way. Since I used John's water at the club camp I still
had plenty.
The next day, Monday, was dead calm, so paddled 5 miles to the
south tip of Antelope Island and camped. It was a hot day, but I found a big rock outcrop
with a huge crevice in the shade where I am sitting right now typing this. Talk about an office with a view! I am so lucky.
They say that sailing is the art of riding storms
around. We had a great storm last week,
with wonderful winds. But this week, with a high pressure system building over
the area, the forecasts were “Sunny, hot, light winds becoming calm”. Not too happy for a sailor. I started out on the final leg of my journey
under dead calm conditions, and had resigned myself to paddling the entire 6
miles. No problem. I can do that. Just
grit my teeth and turn up the music on my iPod. And paddle on. After a few minutes, though, a fresh breeze
filled in from behind me and I flew across the next 3 miles in less than an
hour with no paddling. I did have to
paddle in the last 3 miles, but it was a delightful day.
As I paddled in and pulled on to the marina launch ramp
where my car was parked, a stern looking park ranger walked down and asked me “Are you Kyle? We have been worrying about
you. We found your car left here for days with no word to the harbor master, we
looked inside and saw that we were dealing with a kayaker, and proceeded to
organize a rescue!” Fortunately, they
had somehow connected with my friend Josh, who I had been communicating with,
and they realized that I was fine and had no need of rescue. I guess I should have left a note on the windshield
telling them what my plan was.
So to my original “complaints” about GSL? There were very few bugs, at least at this
time of year, and mostly only around the marina and the Antelope island
causeway, and these were non-biting brine flies. Everywhere else was almost bug free. Stink?
None, just good salty air. Too
salty? The only effect of that I saw was
that the cuffs of my clothes crusted up rock hard, (but then rinsed “clean”
again every day.) My zippers did seem be
pretty unhappy with it. I had to rinse
them daily to keep them sliding. Too
shallow? Maybe for a sailboat with a deep keel, and yes I did have to walk my
boat through the shallows to dry land, but it was no big deal. And I never did see any mud, sucking or
otherwise. The lake bottom and beaches
were either hard sand or tufa rock flats, very good walking everywhere.
So was
it as good as Baja? Well, true, there is no spectacular sea
life, no whales, no dolphins. But I had a grand wilderness adventure, I met wonderful,
kind, warm, generous people, I enjoyed great food, I watched the most spectacular sunsets over
sparkling water with majestic mountains everywhere I looked. No, it’s not Baja, but I can look around, breath in a big whiff of salty air, squint my eyes a bit, take a few shots of
tequila, and maybe not be able tell any
difference. Muy Bueno!
