Photograph: Copyright © 1971 Roy D. Tea

Made 1971, Great Salt Lake Desert, Utah.

Here, 12± miles southeast of Floating Island, the trail takes a sharp turn to the right, or northwest, before bearing left again toward Pilot Peak. The mountain does not appear in this photograph, it lies south of the camera's view, but faintly seen on the distant skyline is the northern extent of the Pilot Peak range. Firmer ground to the north made it possible for the pioneers to correct their line of travel here. Numerous small shortcuts across this "Big Bend" are visible on close observation. The bend is very prominent on commercial aerial photographs made for survey and documentation purposes before parts of the trail were flooded in 1987-89. The flooding occurred as huge pumps moved 1.5 million gallons of water per minute around the clock from the Great Salt Lake onto the area generally north of here to alleviate flooding around the lake's shoreline from several years' unusually heavy precipitation.