Paddling the Great Salt Lake

With all of the biking that I do during the week, I often find myself wishing for a weekend activity that would keep me active while allowing my lower body to rest a little. It occurred to me several weekends ago that kayaking would be that perfect activity. I still get to be outdoors, I still get to be active, but it puts no strain on my lower body at all.

So, on Saturday, Rosey and I, rented a couple of kayaks from the Wasatch Touring company and headed out onto the Great Salt Lake. The kayaks were reasonably priced at $25/day. If I end up doing this very often, I'd probably want to just buy my own, but in the mean time that's not so bad.

We put in at the Great Salt Lake Marina just a mile down the road from Saltair. I've only been kayaking once before in my life when I was visiting Hawaii for Christmas a couple of years back. Fortunately for me, Rosey is a seasoned kayaking veteran and was able to give me a number of tips on paddling technique and maneuvering. By the end of the day I still wasn't nearly as proficient as she was, but I was at least able to keep the boat going mostly straight :)

We set our sights on Stanisbury island, one of the larger islands in the Great Salt Lake. It was just off in the distance and looked like it would make for a good afternoon of paddling. Well, looks can be deceiving. After 2 hours and a little over 5 miles of paddling, Stanisbury island still looked about as far away as when we started :) When I got home and looked it up on the map, I discovered that it was about 15 miles from the Marina to the island. Oops.

Even without reaching the island it was fun to be out on the water. Our paddle out was through unusually calm water... almost glasslike. We had a few more waves on the way back.

I never really appreciated how salty the Great Salt Lake was until I paddled it. About 30 minutes into our trip we were both covered in a crust of salt from all the water that splashed up onto us. Of course, I was far worse off than Rosey, since my paddling technique was so sloppy that I tended to get water everywhere and over everything :) By the time that we got back to the marina, all of our clothes were stiff from the salt, and Rosey's hair was like a helmet (my hair was spared by a baseball cap that I was wearing).

I'm not sure that I'm reading to go out and buy two new kayaks yet, but I certainly had fun and you can be assured that this won't be the last time that we go kayaking this summer. Next time, I think that we may go for the closers and less saline waters of Utah Lake.