We drove further up the road and met up with Jones. I’ve always found Jones to be an interesting man, what I would call a policy shaker of sorts, and his job, is to protect the antiquities that no longer have a voice of their own. He was raised by a National Park Ranger in places like Dinosaur National Monument, California’s Sequoia National Park, and Mount Rainier. He spent over 20 years strumming his mandolin in a bluegrass band called the Lab Dogs.

But about 100 million years ago, this part of Utah looked very different. A shallow sea covered the region, creating coastal environments where oysters thrived. Today, their fossilized shells reveal a fascinating chapter in Utah’s ancient history.

We'd spent the morning driving across southern Idaho's high desert, where miles of open country stretch beneath an endless sky. Sagebrush rolled past the windows in muted shades of green and silver, and the horizon seemed to breathe in slow motion.

The road narrowed. The horizon widened. Billboards, traffic, and the constant noise of modern life faded into the distance. In their place stood clusters of sagebrush scattered across the valley floor and, rising from the landscape like ancient guardians, enormous granite formations glowing beneath the Idaho sky.

The smell was unmistakable: rotten eggs, sulfur heavy and sticky in the air. We pulled off the narrow track, dust settling behind us like a curtain, and Dan popped the hood. Everything looked normal, yet the odor lingered. That’s when Tara pointed off to the right, where the ground cracked open like a secret waiting to be told.

Great Salt Lake Ariel Photo of Saltair Update: Great Saltair It’s remarkable, much like the lake itself, the story of Great Saltair seems to be shaped by forces bigger than any of us. Over the past ten years, since this article was originally written in 2013 for Summer of Salt: An Exploration of Great Salt Lake , the Great Saltair hasn’t been a quiet relic; it’s lived, breathed, rattled its walls with basslines, and even whispered secrets to the curious. Once you knew Saltair