Categories: Utah, Museums
By Westward Vibes
Salt Lake City’s Strangest Attractions: Gilgal Garden, the Spiral Jetty, and Other Beautiful Weirdness
Let’s dive in, weirdos — lovingly said, of course. Salt Lake City has a reputation for being buttoned-up: temples, tabernacles, and powder-perfect ski resorts. But scratch the surface and you’ll find one of the strangest, most delightfully off-kilter cities in the West. We’re talking folk-art sphinxes in a secret backyard, a world-famous coil of rock in a pink lake, and a pyramid church hiding on the west side. Buckle up for SLC’s beautiful weirdness.
Gilgal Sculpture Garden — the Secret Backyard of Stone Dreams
Tucked in the middle of a city block behind houses and a parking garage, Gilgal is the kind of place you walk past a dozen times before someone lets you in on the secret. Between 1945 and 1963, stonemason and LDS bishop Thomas Battersby Child Jr. hauled boulders here from Little Cottonwood Canyon — the same quarry that built the Salt Lake Temple — and carved his spiritual vision into stone.
The result: 12 original sculptures and more than 70 engraved stones, including a sphinx bearing the face of Joseph Smith, a grasshopper carved from green stone, and a wild arrangement of disjointed body parts illustrating King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. It’s the only identified ‘visionary art environment’ in Utah, and wandering its paths feels like stepping inside one man’s wonderfully strange daydream.
- Location: 749 E 500 S, Salt Lake City
- Hours: 8 AM–8 PM April–September; 9 AM–5 PM October–March; closed New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas
- Admission: Free
Pro Tip: Grab a walking-tour brochure at the garden entrance — half the fun is decoding the symbolism. Then stroll seven minutes to Trolley Square for lunch in the historic trolley barns.
Spiral Jetty — Land Art in a Pink Lake
In April 1970, artist Robert Smithson bulldozed thousands of tons of black basalt rock into a 1,500-foot counterclockwise coil jutting into the Great Salt Lake’s north arm — and accidentally created the most famous earthwork on the planet. Whether you can walk it depends on lake levels: the Jetty appears, disappears, and reappears as the water rises and falls. In recent low-water years it’s often fully visible, ringed by salt-crusted shore — but it can submerge again when the lake rises, so check conditions before making the drive.
The water here glows an alien pink-red, thanks to salt-loving microbes thriving in the lake’s extreme salinity. Walking the coil’s length is a genuine pilgrimage moment — art nerds, this one belongs on your bucket list next to the Mona Lisa. The Dia Art Foundation has stewarded the work since 1999.
- Location: Rozel Point, Box Elder County — about 2.5 hours from Salt Lake City via the Golden Spike National Historical Park
- Hours: Always open
- Admission: Free
Pro Tip: The last 16 miles are dirt road with zero services — bring water, food, and boots you can wade in. Stop at the Golden Spike visitor center for bathrooms and your last bar of cell signal.
Metaphor: The Tree of Utah — the Dr. Seuss Tree of the Salt Flats
You’re bombing down I-80 across the blinding white nothing of the Bonneville Salt Flats when suddenly — a tree? An 87-foot-tall concrete tree, its trunk holding up six giant spheres studded with Utah rocks, minerals, and ceramic tiles, rises out of the most desolate landscape imaginable. Swedish artist Karl Momen completed it in 1986 after, by his account, having a vision of a tree while driving the salt flats.
Officially titled ‘Metaphor: The Tree of Utah,’ the sculpture’s plaque quotes Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’ — fitting for a sight that has startled and delighted drivers for nearly four decades. Momen donated it to the state of Utah, and it remains gloriously, inexplicably there.
- Location: I-80 westbound, about 25 miles east of Wendover
- Hours: Roadside, always visible
- Admission: Free
Pro Tip: You can’t stop on I-80 itself — use the signed parking area nearby. Sunset turns the salt flats gold and the Tree into a silhouette worth the detour alone.
Sun Tunnels — Walk Inside the Sky
Four massive concrete tunnels, each 18 feet long and 9 feet tall, lie in the remote west desert near Lucin like something dropped from orbit. Nancy Holt — Smithson’s wife and a land-art legend in her own right — built them between 1973 and 1976, drilling holes through the concrete in the patterns of four constellations: Draco, Perseus, Columba, and Capricorn.
The tunnels align with the sun on the summer and winter solstices, and inside, sunlight streams through the star-holes and pools on the tunnel floor — you can literally walk on stars. On a still desert night, the silence out here is so complete it feels like the world got muted.
- Location: Near Lucin, roughly 200 miles from Salt Lake City in the west desert
- Hours: Always open
- Admission: Free
Pro Tip: Time your visit for a solstice or equinox sunrise or sunset if you can. This is serious middle-of-nowhere territory — full tank of gas, downloaded offline maps, and tell someone your plans.
The Summum Pyramid — Yes, There’s a Pyramid
Salt Lake’s west side hides a genuine pyramid. In 1975, Corky Ra founded the religion of Summum — a blend of ancient Egyptian practice and Gnosticism — and built a pyramid-shaped church where members have meditated, made wine, and attended lectures for 50 years. It’s one of the most unexpected buildings in Utah, full stop.
- Location: 707 Genesee Ave, Salt Lake City
- Hours: Public lectures on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month at 7 PM; reservations required
- Admission: Check the official website for current hours and admission
Pro Tip: Even if you don’t attend a lecture, the pyramid makes a fantastic drive-by photo stop on a west-side weirdness tour.
Saltair — the Moorish Palace on the Lake
Rising from the shores of the Great Salt Lake like a mirage, Saltair has been Utah’s pleasure palace since 1893 — a Moorish-inspired pavilion that once hosted everyone from big bands to beachgoers and now rocks on as a concert venue. The current building is the third incarnation, and its onion domes against the lake and the Wasatch Mountains remain one of the state’s most surreal silhouettes.
- Location: 12408 W Saltair Dr, Magna, on the south shore of the Great Salt Lake
- Hours: Varies by event
- Admission: Varies by event; check the official website
Pro Tip: Come at sunset even without a show — the light on the lake with Saltair’s domes in the foreground is pure Utah magic.
Salt Lake City’s weirdness isn’t a bug — it’s the whole feature. From backyard sphinxes to desert earthworks, the strangest corners of this city are also its most memorable. Go find them, geek out freely, and tell us which one bent your brain the most.
