Great Salt Lake
Lake · Syracuse, Utah
The largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the eighth-largest terminal lake in the world, filling the bottom of a basin west of Salt Lake City with water several times saltier than the ocean. It is also in serious trouble: it fell to its lowest recorded area in 2021, roughly 950 square miles against about 3,300 in 1987, and a 2023 Brigham Young University study estimated it could dry up by 2028 without policy change. What you see depends heavily on when you come, and the shoreline is not where the maps say it is.
Antelope Island State Park, Syracuse, Utah, United States
The lake itself has no admission, but ⚠ ANTELOPE ISLAND STATE PARK IS THE PRACTICAL AND SENSIBLE ACCESS — reached by causeway from Syracuse, with a Utah state park day-use fee per vehicle, typically about $10-$20. It has a visitor centre, showers, beach access, camping, trails and a free-roaming bison herd. ⚠ CHECK CURRENT LAKE CONDITIONS BEFORE TRAVELLING: the lake reached its lowest recorded area in 2021 and its lowest recorded elevation in December 2022, the shoreline has retreated a long way in places, and BOAT RAMPS HAVE CLOSED IN RECENT YEARS as the level has fallen. What a photograph shows may no longer exist. ⚠ BISON ROAM FREELY AT ANTELOPE ISLAND and are dangerous — stay in your vehicle when they are near the road. There is no shade and no fresh water on the shoreline. Rinse off afterwards; the salt dries to a crust.