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
Harkers Canyon (Salt Lake County, Utah) Harkers Canyon (Salt Lake County, Utah) Harkers Canyon is located west-southwest of downtown Salt Lake City, in Salt Lake County, Utah, USA. The canyon empties into the Salt Lake Valley from its origin in the Oquirrh Mountains. The canyon is oriented primarily from southwest to northeast, with the middle third of the canyon descending from west to east. Harkers Canyon and surrounding land are owned and managed by the Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation and has been mined for copper. Although most extraction occurred in Bingham Canyon to the south, Harkers Canyon has been the site of copper mining by the