Sooner or later, most residents along the Wasatch Front have to face "the request" - the one that makes us shudder.
It goes something like this: "Would you please take me to the lake?"We shudder because we don't know how to answer; how to gently say no. The request usually comes from a relative or a friend who is visiting from out of state. They know that Salt Lake City is named for the lake. They know that it is a unique inland body of water to rival the Dead Sea.
What they don't know is that the Great Salt Lake is like a temperamental movie star who happens to live in your back yard. Everyone wants to come see him, but you feel an obligation to explain first that he's drunk, hasn't bathed in several days and has soiled himself.
I didn't do a very good job when the question came up last week. The best I could manage for my father-in-law, visiting from Bellevue, Wash., was the standard reply: "No, you really don't want to go there."
It didn't work. Soon we had piled everyone into the van and headed toward the south shore. When we got there and opened the doors, the stench was overwhelming. My 9-year-old daughter, already queasy from the drive, got sick - all over my 5-year-old son who happened to be walking in front of her.
Frankly, he hardly noticed. The rest of the experience was already unpleasantness enough. The shore behind the new Saltair was muddy and shallow. Brine flies swarmed like giant black dust clouds as we walked. A couple from Colorado stood by the shore, noses crinkled, and asked us why the lake was so disgusting.
It was a difficult question to answer, even though the smell could be explained easily enough (organic materials accumulate beneath the lake and smell bad when exposed or in shallow water).
The Great Salt Lake is Utah's great enigma. Through the years, it has tantalized recreationists, but it has made life miserable for anyone trying to exploit it for recreational purposes. The original Saltair thrived for many years as an amusement park. It even survived a disastrous fire in 1924. But inevitably the lake took over. First it receded so far the park had to construct a rail line to take bathers to the water. Then it rose to wipe out the rail line and take away all the sand that had been brought in to make the beach more pleasant. Then it receded again.
Finally, Saltair went out of business and was consumed by fire. Then came Saltair III, which ended up submerged beneath the floods of the mid-1980s. A new, much more modest Saltair is in place now, but it is used mainly for concerts and other special events. It hardly satisfies the many tourists who happen to enter the valley along I-80 and want to visit the lake.
About 10 years ago, Salt Lake County initiated a project known as "bring back the beach." The southern shoreline was dredged in an effort to sculpt attractive beaches. Small bath houses were constructed.
Humans are full of grand designs for the south shore. But the lake will have none of it. Now the huts stand as lonely shacks on empty beaches that are far from the receding water. It is as if the lake were sticking out its tongue, defying government to launch a new project - one called, say, "bring back the water."
All this doesn't mean Utah should give up on its largest natural tourist attraction. Antelope Island offers a different sort of Great Salt Lake experience. It has clean beaches. The smell is no worse than at an ocean, and the island itself sports a historic ranch and a free-roaming buffalo herd.
At least, that's what I've heard. I haven't visited the island because the only road to it is near Syracuse, in Davis County, and that makes the drive from Salt Lake County too long to bother with.
The state has begun studying whether to build a southern causeway along a natural ridge between the shore and Antelope Island. Most likely, it would be a toll road that could pay for its own construction and repairs. In anticipation of the causeway, the Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau is planning to erect a visitors' center near I-80 and 7200 West, the point at which the toll road would begin. It's a good idea.
Of course, I have to point out the obvious. The lake will one day do its best to destroy the causeway, as well as any other manmade attempts to make it pleasant for tourists. But the project should proceed anyway.
Jeri Cartwright, spokeswoman for the convention and visitors bureau, said people have been known to come into the bureau's main downtown office after being beaten down by locals. They say, "I want to see the lake, and please don't try to tell me I really don't."
As long as that desire persists, the state should accommodate it in a way that will allow people to return home and say nice things to their friends.