A few years ago we decided to visit Utah’s National Parks (the state has 5, but, at the time, we only knew of 4, so we missed that 5th one).

As we had come from Sacramento via Hwy 80, we entered the Utah at Salt Lake City, so we decided to check that city out.

We did not know too much about the place other than it is where the Mormon Temple is located. Additionally, we also wanted to see the actual great salt lake, after which the city is named. This lake is where the great salt lake land-speed records were established and wanted to see where these were occurred.

So we found a nice campground at the KOA, which turned out to be in the middle of town. It was also a camping place with the fastest WiFi speeds we had ever experienced when at a camping. It was a massive 101 Mbs (we usually were happy if we got anything faster than 7 or 8 Mbs).

Without a real plan to explore the city, we made the local “Tourist Information Center” our first port of call, because that is what one does in a new place. Turned out it was a beautiful historical building and (bonus) it is situated right across from the Capitol Building, the seat of Utah’s government.

After now knowing what else to see, we first checked out the capitol building before heading off to find the Mormon Temple.

The Mormon Temple

This is the 6th temple completed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the most recognized LDS Church building in the world. The site for the temple was selected by LDS Church President Brigham Young just days after the first wave of Mormon Pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley, in July 1847. The official groundbreaking for the temple took place on February 14, 1853. 

We are not mormon, but both knew people who were and they spoke very highly of this temple, hence our interest to see for ourselves. Upon arrival, we were stunned to see how beautiful the building is. Simply SUPERB, as shown in the following pictures..

What surprised us was that we were not allowed in! Unless you are a registered Mormon, you cannot step inside the building, we found it somewhat strange for a church, which normally is open to all. Very disappointing.

The Great Salt Lake land-speed records

As stated earlier, we definitely wanted to see the Great Salt Lake. As Travel and Landscape photographers, unique places like that are of extreme interest to us, especially because salt lakes are not a common thing to find.

And we were not disappointed!

Words kinda fail me! Statements like; “Amazing”, “Awesome”, “Immense”… somehow don’t come close to the actual emotions and overwhelming sense of awe that wells up in you when you stand there looking out over this immense, flat, salt expanse. This brief video shows how large it is.

The place is also famous for the world land-speed records that have been set here. The attraction, of course, is the immaculately flat surface, which makes it (somewhat) safer to drive at these high speeds.

There is a plaque there commemorating these events but the speeds are listed are in “Miles per hour”. The internationally recognized “World Record” is typically measured in Kilometers/hour. So the 666.407 miles/hour listed on the plaque below is equal to 1014.656 Km/hour and was the FIRST EVER record set that was higher than 1000 Km/hr! That was back in 1970!

This record has since been broken several times, but not at these salt flats. The current standing record (an amazing 1223.657 Km/hour!) was established at a similar speed-event in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada (north of Reno). The same Black Rock Desert that is known for the annual Burning Man festival.

There are still speed events going on at the salt flats, but there are growing environmental concerns about the salt. The thickness of the salt crust is a critical factor in the racing use of the salt flats. Recent studies sho shown a reduction in this thickness, especially in the northwest area where racing occurs, and the events of 2015 and 2022 were even cancelled due to the poor condition of the salt.

With all that, we were really very happy to see these salt flats up-close. We even got to walk on them. A great experience.