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Do you know you can float in the Great Salt Lake? I didn’t know until I looked for things to do around Salt Lake City for our vacation three summers ago. A few pictures of people floating in the Great Salt Lake popped up in my screen and I thought, hmm… I’ve been floating in the Dead Sea before, so this is going to be my second experience of floating in the lake.

I was so excited! All this time I thought Great Salt Lake wasn’t ‘salty’ enough for people to be able to float. I told the plan to my husband and son, showed them the pictures, and they sold. Yippee!

But there’s a catch that I found out after we got there.

Where to float in the Great Salt Lake

After poking around, I found a place to do the float: Antelope Island State Park. It is about 41 miles north of Salt Lake City, to the west of the town of Layton.

Camping, hiking, horseback riding, cycling, and wildlife watching are some of the activities that you can do at this park, too. It opens year-round with hours of operation varied by season and you can click here for a complete information on Antelope Island State Park.

When I Float in The Great Salt Lake

There weren’t too many people when we got to the Antelope Island. In fact, there was only a group of tourists from China at the Visitors Center. After touring the facility and grab the park’s map, we made a quick loop around the park while waiting for the sun to go down. It’s two days before July 4th, so it’s hot.

Then we picked Bridger Bay where there’s a restroom with shower and a concession nearby. We didn’t see any cars at the parking, and I thought it’s good. So, there would be only us in the beach.

After we changed clothes, we walked straight to the beach. In a distance we saw like less than 10 people floating and paddle boarding in the water. They sounded like they had fun. I couldn’t wait to jump and float and showed my sister the pictures. (She went with me floating in the Dead Sea, too).

But, the closer we were to the water, we started smelling something bad. And it’s not gone when we moved further. It’s even getting stronger! Then we started to hear buzzing sounds and when we saw the water, it looked dark. When we got closer, my husband screamed, “It’s flies and brine shrimp.” Eeekk! I tell you what. It looked nasty.

“Let’s walk a bit further. Maybe we won’t see them in the deeper place,” I told my husband and son. Determined to float in the Great Salt Lake and we made it that far already, I didn’t plan to leave before I floated. But billions of brine shrimps and flies were still there.

Then my husband had enough. “I’m going back to the car. You can go float if you want to. This is too nasty,” he said.

“But who’s going to take my pictures?” I asked.

After a negotiation, my husband agreed to take pictures from where he stood while I went further inside to the lake. My then 8-year-old son didn’t want to come. “It’s stink, mommy. I just want to go back,” he said.

Finally, I stopped when the water reached my thigh and floated for about, I don’t know, a minute maybe? And the brine shrimps and flies were still around though not as many. If you see the black dots in the picture below, those were the brine shrimps and flies. 

Then we walked back to the restroom and took a shower. We had brine shrimps stuck to our swimsuit and trunks. When we got back to the hotel, we took another shower. This time was a looong one.

Should I float in the Great Salt Lake?

Honestly, it’s your choice. The lake was smelly and nasty with all the flies and brine shrimps when we were there. I read it’s almost like that all year, so even locals just go and try it once. It’s a ‘been there done that’ kind of thing.

If you really want to do it, you know what to expect from my experience. Maybe it will be better if you go further until the water reach your chest. You will still have to deal with brine shrimps and flies in the beginning of your walk though. Or, call the park’s office to find information about the beach condition the day you want to visit.

But, no matter how nasty it was, I got to cross float in the Great Salt Lake from my bucket list. Now on to salt lake #3!