6/27 Lakepoint Ponds - SilverArrow & Glide

[Kenny]

I have been driving by these ponds for years. Thought I would give them a try...

You can access them by taking a right on Hardy Road immediately when exiting the Tooele exit. I parked on the road and hiked a 1/4 mile. The hike is not bad, but you need to wear booties since there is some swampy land to walk through. The first 2 southern ponds are dried up, but I would say they are not hard enough yet for landboarding. They still feel squishy underneath. There are two vertical, man-made ponds that are full of water directly upwind of the launch. There is another triangular pond that is adjacent to the freeway and several more ponds to the west that I did not explore.

I tested the first pond for depth. It is about a foot deep with weeds and red-brown algae growing on top with bird feather and flies scattered on the surface. I put my foot in and sank another foot into some of the foulest smelly pond mud I have ever seen. I figured nasty, but rideable. I put up the SA and hopped into the filth. Had enough power to immediately ride upwind which is good because there was no way that I wanted to try walking upwind throught the muck. Water was perfectly flat due to the weeds and algae. After riding about 200 feet upwind I was able to ride out of the algae with just weeds on the bottom. The wind wraps around the mountain so it has a NE orientation, so I could not ride the ponds from one side to the other rather I had to tack back and forth to get from the west to the east side. There is a small 15' wide clay berm between the ponds covered with bird droppings. I walked over the berm to the northern most pond. This pond had no visible crude on the surface, but there are weeds and moss below the surface. The eastern side of this pond has some ripples, but the western side is perfectly flat water. All of the water is saline. It is about as salty as Rush is this time of year. I decided to do some further exploring and check out the triangular pond
***Warning*** this portion contains content about scaring birds, including baby birds!
The triangular section near the freeway is foul or should I say fowl. Birds everywhere, gulls, pelicans, geese. The tack is short so, I made tack after tack scaring birds up on every tack. As I approached the north end of the lake I noticed a large folk of young geese that could not fly well, they went crazy in every direction honking and fluttering about. I figured I had seen enough of that stinking pond and went back to the other less disgusting ponds.

So the question is, should you ride there? Depends on how much you like birds, bird filth, and your riding ability. I would say that a cousin of the Rush moss monster lives there, so you have to be able to keep your kite in the air. The muck is super nasty, so if you have a particularly sensitive nose, you may not like it. You have to be able to ride upwind unless you like trodding through deep filth. Will I go back, absolutely. It beats the Salt Ponds any day and is 20 minutes closer. Plus the water is flatter and due to the wrap the wind is stronger.

[mike loeser]

All I can say is you must be insane! Hope you didn't get any bird droppings on yourself or your gear.
Can you post the google earth of which ponds you rode and which was the best? I'm all about saving the drive time, easier to deal with a skunk. Plus if you don't need a nuke suit to avoid contamination that would make it nice.
I still keep passing the salt ponds and head for Burmester. One day...
Mike L.

[Kenny]

I didn't get bird droppings on my gear, but it is stinky, nasty!