Great Salt Lake Desert The 1846 Donner Party's difficulties in making the crossing contributed to their becoming snowbound in the Sierra Nevada. Howard Stansbury explored the desert in 1849. In 1956, I-80 replaced the Wendover Cut-off across the desert, including a straight east-west section for ~ between the Cedar Mountains to the east and Wendover on the Utah/Nevada border. Following a railway completed across the desert's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1910, the flats were first used as a speedway in 1914. The world records for highest land speeds are regularly broken here. The Great Salt Lake Desert experiences a desert climate with hot summers
Salt Lake County, Utah 48.91%, making Salt Lake County a majority non-Mormon county. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (8.1%) is water. It is the fifth-smallest county in Utah by area. The county borders on the Great Salt Lake and is intersected by the Jordan River. The western portion of the county descends toward the valley of the lake, but perhaps the most dominating physical feature in Salt Lake County are the Wasatch Mountains in the eastern portion of the county, famous for both summer and winter activities. The mountains are