Saltair

It's Friday night, and a long line of punk kids snakes from the front door, fills the wide sidewalk, and extends well into the parking lot. Black seems to be the color du jour. Black pants, black shirts, and black hair. Some have pink hair and others purple. Here and there are clouds that bellow into the air. Some from cigarettes and others from vape pens.

We are at Saltair on the south shore of the Great Salt Lake. The kids are in line for a double concert: Pierce the Veil and Sleeping with Sirens. Until recently, I hadn't heard of either of them. I still don't care for their music. That is why my son and his friend are in line and I'm not. I conceived the idea that I could bring my camera and wander around taking pictures. I also threw a mattress and sleeping bag into the back of the vehicle for later. I brought a book and journal. Enough to keep me occupied for six hours on a cold January evening.

First of all, let me say that there is nothing else around here. No gas stations, no stores, no hotels. Nothing. Across the freeway is a refinery for the Kennecott Copper Mine. That's it. There aren't even bathrooms outside the building . . . which has me worried. Just a parking lot, the edifice of Saltair, and the Great Salt Lake, which at this corner of the lake doesn't exist. The nearest body of water is at least a couple hundred yards from shore. All that's here is mud.

The sky is overcast, the air is humid and cold, and light rain sprinkles from time to time. No beautiful sunset, no seagulls playing on the shore, and from where my car is parked, I am practically trapped inside the parking lot. This evening might be more of a challenge than I anticipated.

The original Saltair was completed in 1893. The pictures I see of the original building look nothing like Utah, but more like a scene from India. The palace stood on a platform in the midst of the lake, supported by 2,500 pilings. The pavilion was 100 feet high, and people could dance on what was advertized as the world's largest dance floor. The roof had several onion-shaped domes that gave the appearance of a mosque. Some photographs even offer a resemblance of a miniature St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.

The Mormon Church built Saltair. At this time they were trying to put polygamy behind them and bring the church more into the mainstream. One of the objectives with Saltair was to create a “Coney Island of the West” to demonstrate that Utah was not a strange place. Another objective was to create “a wholesome place of recreation” for its members. I don't think that they had Pierce the Veil and teenagers puffing with vape pens in mind when they made that goal.

During Saltair's golden years from 1893 to 1924, it saw mechanical rides, Ferris wheels, roller coasters, swimming, and dancing. During these years, Saltair saw more than a million visitors.

In April of 1925, a fire broke out and destroyed most of the building. The years that followed were up and down with more fires, flooding, low lake-levels, war-time non-use, and finally, abandonment. In 1970, the original structure burned down for good.

In 1982, Saltair III, which is the one where I now am, was built. Less than a year after it opened, this new palace was ¼ mile from the Great Salt Lake due to drought conditions and a receding shore line. The following year there was a bumper crop of water in Utah and the pavilion of Saltair III was under five feet of water!

Saltair III, I've decided, is no Saltair I. It is a bland, rectangular-shaped building with a few of the onion domes on top, but none as spectacular as the originals. It is built on the shore, instead of on pilings that reach into the distance of the lake. And worst of all, an ugly parking lot surrounds the building. I came with the idea that I would take photographs during the concert, but it is difficult to create a good angle without blacktop and cars in the background. That's alright. The lighting is poor anyway, and the lake level is incredibly low. Nothing is lining up for a good photograph.

I wander down at the shore of the lake where the bulrushes grow. There is a narrow strip of dry sand between the bulrushes and lake mud and I maneuver between the two to find an angle where the bulrushes block out the parking lot. Surprisingly, the lake-stink isn't present now. I notice other concert-goers wandering by the shore also.

Above the rocky south bank, there is a quiet road that runs from Saltair to the Great Salt Lake Marina, two miles away. Between that road and the freeway is a pond of water, surrounded by more bulrushes and a few small trees.  Beyond the pond and beyond the freeway are the Oquirrh mountains and the Kennecott smokestack.

I wander around for about forty-five minutes before I decide that it's time to take a break and retire to my vehicle and read a book. Like I stated, we more or less have a front-row parking spot, and now that all the kids are in the building and the concert has started, I'm not far from having a front-row concert seat also. The music is blaring beyond the walls, and I can see the strobe lights through the large glass windows. I am able to make out many of the words they sing. I can even hear the girls scream. It will be a fun six hours.

I read in my vehicle and watch the occasional pinprick of rain land on the windshield. Every drop of daylight has now vanished and I know that I want to get out one more time and take some night photos with my tripod. The slight, but constant mist from the sky makes me hesitant. Finally, I decide to man-up, and begin my second tour of the premises.

I commence by wandering around the muddy shore of the lake. I don't know if the lake level was recently higher, but all the earth within the basin of the lake is wet, and I don't dare walk there. Instead, I skirt around the edges, near the bulrushes, and try to work my way behind the Saltair building. The mud is becoming greater and there are large puddles of standing water. In addition to that, the rear lights of Saltair are not even illuminated. I decide that I have no picture worth taking.

Alternatively, I turn to the empty lake bed and see a possible photograph. The muddy wallow is full of divots and ruts, and the light coming from the parking lot accents the interesting texture. I set up my tripod and take a shot with the shutter open for ten seconds. I am pleasantly surprised with a result that looks like the landscape of the moon.

I return to the pavement of the parking lot and walk to the opposite side of the building in search of that quintessential night shot that I had conceived in my mind. I envisioned a photograph like the many I took of the monuments in southern Spain at night. But I can't find it. The first problem is the parking lot lights: too bright and too close to the subject. The second problem is the subject itself: Saltair III is certainly no Alhambra Palace. Half the dome lights are snuffed out, and the building is just . . . lackluster.

I find myself back on the quiet road that runs from Saltair to the Great Salt Lake Marina. The January air is taking its toll on my body. The tips of my ears and fingers are turning numb. A small drop of snot is at my nose and I am having to constantly wipe it away.

It is the smokestack that really draws my attention. On the other side of the freeway, placed in the foreground of the Oquirrh Mountains, the Garfield smokestack stands as majestically as the Washington Monument . . . only it's twice as tall! This very tall cement chimney stands 1,215 feet high. That makes it by far the highest man-made structure in Utah and the loftiest freestanding structure west of the Mississippi. It is just thirty-five feet lower than the Empire State Building and is the 31^st tallest freestanding structure in the world!

The smelter belongs to Kennecott Copper, who also owns the Bingham Canyon Mine, the largest man-made excavation in the world. Kennecott knows how to do things BIG.

The reflection of the lights shimmy on the little pond between the desolate road where I stand and the freeway. I watch the smoke or steam as it bellows from another location next to the Garfield smelter. I set up my tripod on the road and experiment with different shots. An orange hue projects onto the clouds that are closer to the Salt Lake Valley. The willows in front of the pond silhouette against the water.

My time outside, in the chill of night, is ready to end. A man can only stand such discomfort for a time. I wander back to my vehicle and crawl into my sleeping bag that I have rolled out on top of a thick foam mattress. I push plugs into my ears and pull a long stocking cap over my eyes. I can still hear the bass of the music thumping in the background, but it is now mellow enough that I can close my eyes and snooze for just a while longer.

References

Allen, C.D. "Saltair, a Unique Resort." UC Denver. 1993. Web. 25 Feb. 2015

Arave, Lynn. "Holy Smokes: Kennecott Smelter, Utah's Tallest Man-made Structure, to turn 35." Deseret            News. 16 Nov. 2006. Web. 25 Feb. 2015

McCormick, John S. "Saltair." Utah History to Go. 2014. Web. 25 Feb. 2015