“There is perhaps little else as fascinating as the human compulsion towards religions.” – Old Sean
A Slap of Salt Lake
Oh man. So. Mormonism.
Salt Lake City is the capital of Utah, the home of the Mormon religion, and a massive number of unique and fantastic outdoor parks, sights and beautiful, dramatic countryside.
Salt Lake City itself is a stunning, idyllic little city with proud buildings, green hills, legions of flowers and fantastic skies.
But man. Mate. Mormonism.
Krone, Evan and I arrived in Salt Lake City the previous night, getting a very late start after punching through yet another sudden winter storm the previous night. Breakfast was a dense bowl of Pho from a great little restaurant known as Pho 28.
After breakfast, we drove over to the city center, Salt Lake’s famous Temple Square. With parking scarce, we ended up moving uphill to the north and parked at the Capitol Building instead.
The capitol building is huge, even by state capitol standards. Stunningly floral trees ring the circular plaza of green grass, pink blossoms fluttering gently in the breeze.
Statues of famous Mormons and military regiments are on display in the nooks of the plaza and cast bronze bee hives celebrate the virtues of hard work. Overlooking the hill, an American flag rises boldly in the wind, with construction improving the city in the distance. In lawn chairs, several young women were standing up for the environment with cardboard signs.
In short, it was a beautiful patch of land.
The Mormon Stronghold
Walking down the hill, we discovered this was the merest beginning of Salt Lake City.
We wound through City Park where fountains and water trickled merrily, despite the recent cold snap. Wandering back into the city brought us to the supremely elegant temple square. Juniper bushes tumbled down from elevated stone bowls while tulips of every variety bend slightly in the wind, giving an inaudible impression of ringing.
The Salt Lake Utah Temple rose boldly from lower earth, under construction but already gorgeous. The Seagull Monument in front of another small church caught the light boldly, and more flowers dotted the earth.
To the immediate south, towering bank buildings dominated the skyline, and a man dressed as Santa Clause waved a sign begging any passersby to protect children of the Latter Day Saints.
Bell-shaped flowers of a deep violet grew freely under household trees and the houses themselves were massive, well-manicured feats of architecture.
The stunningly wrought Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Conference Center remained an impressive, brutalist icon along the next few streets and walking back up the hill towards our car had us pass a garbage truck which somehow had brakes that squeaked musically.
Musically.
Religious Impressions
But all that being said, Salt Lake City quickly struck me as uncomfortable.
Wandering the city in pairs are numerous well-dressed conservative young women who say “hello” and “good day” when you pass them. Pinned on their shoulders are flags of different countries and while all these young woman are uniformly pleasant, I’m a cynic in most ways that matter.
I flagged a pair of girls down and they were only too happy to educate me on the flags. Each flag symbolized a language the young lady could speak, and therefore, help a person unfamiliar with English navigate the city.
But as the conversation continued, the reason young woman were wandering about saying hello to young men on the street became fairly clear.
In WWI, there was a order comprised of young women in the UK called the Order of the White Feather. These woman were tasked with roaming the streets and, upon spotting a man that didn’t have a patch signifying they were in the army, they would stride up, jeering and plant a white feather on him, signifying cowardice (a reference to folk lore around cockfighters that a bird with a white feather in its tail was a coward). There is, obviously, nothing more jarring and motivating than a young woman prodding a young man into action, however underhanded the technique.
This tactic of patrolling woman seemed the carrot rather than the stick, but the intent was clear. Mormonism is an aggressively expanding religion, as it has been since it’s inception. A good method for getting young men into church doors for Mormon induction comes from a few gentle words of encouragement from some ladies. Which these woman certainly implied, several times.
All of this, the carefully cultivated idyllic nature of Salt Lake City, the hoards of flowers, the religious iconography throughout the city, the woman gently suggesting visitations is calibrated to rope people into the Church.
And, as I’m loathe to admit, probably effectively. Especially for young Mormons traveling to Salt Lake City as a sort of Mecca pilgrimage.
But I’ve been traveling for a long time, nearly a third of my life at this point. And when people approach with a goal, the American in me flickers to coiled, weary and suspicious. I hate being conned. I hate social cons most of all, preying on a person’s good faith to manipulate them into action.
Self Education
When we finally returned to the car, Evan, champion that he, is suggested we listen to a podcast on Mormonism, hopefully purging the odd lingering seduction the city.
And tiny gods below, Mormonism.
Now, to be clear, I have several friends who are Mormon, whom I like very well. I’ve had Mormon families shelter me, Mormon business owners provide me with work and Mormon neighbors help me on numerous occasions. A person who is Mormon is still a fine person by my measure.
But Mormonism is, by definition, a cult. According the admittedly long winded, comedic but entirely well-researched episodes found on The Last Podcast on the Left, Mormonism had extremely dicey beginnings.
The founder, Joseph Smith, lifted much of his inspiration for the Book of Latter Day Saints directly from the wildly free religious era of early America. He was a grave robber, a storyteller and con artist rising from a family of occult ritualists.
His inheritor, Brigham Young was a much harsher militant man that staunchly defended child brides, polygamy, while washing his hands of the race issues that plagued a Pre-Civil-War US.
To be frank, Mormonism is a uniquely US religion, and shares more with Scientology than anything else I’ve read. Mormonism has done grand things, building communities, funding it’s own city, and practicing the better parts of Christian doctrine. But it’s still a wild, outlandish and shaky historical and ethical foundation.
The whole experience freaked me out a bit. To be clear, what’s written above is an opinion, certainly. And not an expert one by any means. But oof.
The Salt Lake Herself
Our brush with a deeper experience of Mormonism aside, Krone, Evan and I wandered further outside the city, stopping at the Great Salt Lake Park near the Great Saltair to peer at the massive body of salty water.
Impressively, the salt lake has a salinity of roughly 33%, compared to ocean water’s 4%. I naturally licked some of the salt water and it was basically the same as pouring sodium chloride onto my tongue. Stronger, perhaps, as liquid is a great distributor. The lake was beautiful, as were the surrounding mountains, but there were a few dead birds scattered about that puzzled us.
We loitered around here for a time, looking at dense salt piles, ignoring the strong, brackish smell and stacking meditation stones on the coast, but our time here was short.
There was something much grander that I desperately wanted to see.
On my prior drive through Utah, I had hoped to see the Bonneville Speedway, a long stretch of flat land where the world’s land speed records are set thanks to the impossibly hard salt-packed ground. I did see these Salt Flats, but only at night, and not enough to play around and walk on them.
As such, I dragged Evan and Krone further out, entering one of the longest, straightest and flattest stretches of highway I had ever used a gas pedal on.
And I grew up in Nebraska.
Speed Upon Salt Flats
We drove across the Salt Flats until spotting a very odd pillar with giant cement tennis balls bulging out. Veering off to the side, we found a plaque that introduced this as an art installation known as “The Tree of Utah.”
It was an interesting feature on an otherwise perfectly empty patch of land. The salt was thin here, so our feet scrabbled slightly in the mud beneath.
Pushing on, we finally reached the true Salt Flats. People milled about the perfectly flat land, and the racquetball I brought bounced off the hard-packed ground noisily.
It’s nearly impossible to pry salt free from the ground with hands or feet alone. The wind was fortunately mild, and sound traveled freely in all directions. In the distance, people jogged or drove vehicles on the mineral tundra.
Mountains appeared to be the only barrier to the perfectly white phenomena. Near the highway, there remained a small puddle rendered an impossibly light, clear blue where huge chunks of semi-dissolved salt slumped on the bottom. Krone, Evan and I played catch, jogged, took photos and licked the ground.
It was everything I ever hoped.
After-Salt Sightseeing
However, time was short and the lack of opportunities to turn around resulted us in losing a lot more time than I had anticipated. We drove back towards Salt Lake City, with a very brief stop at The Bingham Copper Mine.
The site had appeared in the movie The Fundamentals of Caring, and I had been hoping to peer quickly over the edge, but the only way to see the deepest pit in America is through a tour. So we shrugged and got back on the road.
Our goal of the night was to camp near Arches National Park. We were nearing the last legs of our road trip and I was eager to see one of the premier hiking locations in the United States. However, I miscalculated the days of the week when we arrived at our campsite. And our backup option. And our second backup option. And third. And so on.
It was a Friday evening and campsites were crammed full for this popular destination. In the end, we were forced to sleep in the car in front of a hotel in Moab.
I may have responded…. Crankily to that choice. But tomorrow, we’ll get to wake up and check out Arches National Park and later in the day, perhaps Mesa Verde if we have time.
So until then,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written April 23rd, 2021
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The GoPro Hero Black is my go to Action camera. I’m not comfortable bringing my cell phone to many wet and rugged locations, so the GoPro does most of my photographic heavy-lifting. The only things I bring in my GoPro kit are the camera, a spare battery and the forehead mount. I upgrade my GoPro once every two years. It was particularly excellent to have during my aquatic tour of Belize.
