Lucin Latilong

Edges and Corners

I've always wondered what was on the east side of the Great Salt Lake, but had never taken the opportunity to actually go there, until several of my birding friends wanted to go there as well.

Flats

In July of 1998, I was driving all the freeways of Utah and taking all the exits to learn more about the state. One exit I took was a very remote rest stop in the San Raphael Swell where there is an overlook over a deep canyon the original inhabitants had named Eagle Canyon, because it was "so deep an Eagle couldn't fly out of it." After viewing the canyon, I drove to the top of a neighboring hill into the Pinyon-Junipers in search of a Juniper Titmouse and came upon a pickup and camper with a couple eating lunch in the cab. Noticing they had a flat tire, I pulled up beside them and asked if I could help them change the tire. They looked at me and said, "Why, we don't have a flat." Followed by a quick "Do we?" Two weeks later, in an equally remote spot at Grouse Creek in the Lucin Latilong, I had a flat tire. We were eating lunch when my fellow birding traveler told me it was flat, and like the couple in the pickup, I was in denial.