This otherworldly landscape 110 miles west of Salt Lake City formed at the end of the last Ice Age as salty ancient Lake Bonneville, which covered one-third of Utah and was 1,000 feet deep, began to recede 32,000 years ago.
The salt flats are located along I-80 near West Wendover, NV occupying a 12-by-5 mile stretch of 300,000 acres or 46 square miles.
ITINERARY
Walk
Drive
Race
You can easily access the best way to experience the flats from either direction you’re traveling on I-80, and you’ll want to map to “Bonneville Salt Flats International Raceway, Bonneville Speedway Road, Wendover, UT 84083”, which will be exit 4 traveling from either direction and puts you on N Bonneville Speedway Rd.
Like only a rare few places on earth, a salt crust up to 5 feet thick forms a perfectly flat, pristine, blindingly white crust as far as the eye can see.
Unlike the crowded rest areas directly on I-80 with advertised viewing spots, this location will drive you a few miles into the salt flats on a paved road that ends at this sign, where you can then drive right onto the salt to explore.
Like any desert conditions, temperatures can exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and drop below 0 in the winter, and on hot days heat waves rise from the salty soil and create mirages.
On the National Register of Historic Places, these are one of Earth’s most unique landscapes, comprised of 90% sodium chloride, or table salt.
The salt flats are open year round to the public for recreational purposes.
The barren and flat terrain is as hard as concrete during the summer.
It’s estimated there are 147 million tons of salt here, making it almost impossible for vegetation to grow with only sparse vegetation on hillsides.
The salt flats are an international hub for racing with speed records set here, including a land speed record of 630 mph 1970, and Speed Week takes place each August here at the Bonneville International Speedway.
Excavations at a nearby cave indicate humans have occupied this harsh climate for over 10,000 years.
Someone in our party wanted to race the rental car.
Unfortunately, this was all this engine had in it.
The flats are named after Captain Benjamin Bonneville who owned a fur trapping company operating in the area, and whose expeditions in the 1830’s proved the area was part of an ancient basin, with traces of the shorelines and their differing levels of the receding lake etched into the mountains surrounding the salt flats.
During the cooler months of the year when the ground water floods the salt flats several inches deep, the mirror they create is painstakingly beautiful, and it’s a reason to come back. Go.
