The West Desert

Western Utah is a series of dry valleys separated by dry mountain ranges. What little rain falls collects in salt lakes, unable to drain to the sea. Even the ground is covered with a white crust of salt. The only plant that seems able to survive in this environment is greasewood, a shrub capable of piercing truck tires.


This area seems like the last place water-loving amphibians could survive. Yet we had traveled to the Snake and Tule Valleys to survey populations of Columbia spotted frogs. Thousands of years ago, the area was not desert, but an arm of Lake Bonneville. As the lake receded (today, the Great Salt Lake is what remains) frogs which once lived on the shore disappeared. But in a few places, springs created marshes, refuges where isolated populations of these frogs could survive.

We traversed the moon mud, deeper than hip-waders pools, and ice to count egg masses laid by spotted frogs. Occasionally we'd see a spotted frog or leopard frog, or tiny least chub, a rare fish.


We camped at Gandy Warm spring, which has a lovely underwater cave that extends 40 feet back into a limestone mountain. For dinner, we cooked in dutch ovens, consuming meals that alledgedly served 12 people between three of us.


Gandy itself is a town that consists of Old Man Bates's house, Really Old Man Bates's house, and the Warm Creek Ranch. It is the only settlement for quite a ways, as another dot on the map, labeled "Smithville" turns out to simply be one cottonwood tree. This is the beautiful thing about the West Desert - with no houses and only gravel roads, there are places very few people ever see, and there are no city lights to block the stars at night.