Exploring

In Search of Kit Carson’s Cross on Fremont Island in the Great Salt Lake

By Heidi Nedreberg, 7-26-11

	Group of Fremont Island explorers. Photo by Charles Uibel ©.

On July 7th, my baby sister, Disa, turned 22 and my gift to her was a little taste of why I dedicate so much of my time working to protect and explore the natural world.

She might not have known how special and rare it is to tag along on a visit to Fremont Island when I invited her, let alone why in the world her sister would dedicate an entire summer to exploring and writing about the Great Salt Lake, but I think by the end of the day, she knew.

On the way to Antelope Island Marina, where two state park boats waited to whisk us away to the shores of Fremont, Disa admitted to Nicole and me that she doesn’t read our blog, ”Summer of Salt, An Exploration of the Great Salt Lake.”

I write to her because she doesn’t know about the Lake, and has no reason to care about what happens to it. In fact, she has no strong feelings one way or the other. She is exactly the kind of person Nicole and I want to reach with this blog – people who would quickly understand if only they had a proper introduction.

For me, it was like discovering the Lake all over again.

We were part of a group of explorers that day that included Neka Roundy, former mayor of Kaysville and director of the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival; Ron Taylor, former director of Antelope Island State Park, and his wife, Susan; Jeremy Shaw, current director of Antelope Island State park; Loretta Park from the Ogden Standard Examiner (read her article from the day here); Kera Williams, photographer and videographer with the Ogden Standard-Examiner (check out the video here); Wendy and Ryan, both from Antelope Island State Park; Nicole’s cousin Vaughn Jacobsen; R. Jefre Hicks, president of the Utah Airboat Association; as well as (for the first time) the entire Summer of Salt crew: Nicole, Charles, and Cindy.

When the two boats docked in a makeshift harbor on the south side of the island, a group of sheep belonging to the owners watched over us from the cliffs above. I strained to find any other signs of life. The hillsides were covered with dried-out cheatgrass, which we would all come to know intimately during our hike, and the occasional outcropping of rock. Ron Taylor gathered the group and offered us a choice: Either visit the Wenner Homestead, or head uphill and to the west to search for the famous Kit Carson cross.

The group seemed to agree. So we headed west with a cobbled arrangement of directions and landmarks in our minds that might help us locate it. Charles headed off on his own, climbing immediately up the steep slope toward the watching sheep.

The cross is a lasting memorial to John C. Fremont’s expedition to the island in 1843. When Fremont and others landed on its shores after a rather thrilling crossing (involving deflating boats and all), they found no water and nothing to eat. Fremont promptly named it Disappointment Island, set up camp, and had California gull for supper.

During their stay, Kit Carson disappeared to the west on the island where he found a rock and carved a cross “about the size of a dinner plate,” Ron said as he pointed to two separate peaks where it might be.  Nicole said she heard it sat on the northeast face of one of those rocks, and I recalled someone telling me to look for a window in a rock and to look above it for the cross.

As we hiked, waves of summer rain came across the Lake and cooled our ascent. With each step, the Lake grew larger and the view more expansive, and our socks and shoes filled with ever more cheatgrass seeds. Nearing the west end of the Island, Disa walked just behind me and began to hum a Foo Fighter’s song.

“It’s times like these you learn to live again,” she sang, between labored breaths as we climbed to the highest point on Fremont Island. “Don’t ask why I’m singing that.”

“Why are you?” I have learned that when Disa says don’t ask, she usually wants me to ask.

“It’s definitely something you can tell stories about to your kids and grandkids,” I replied. “Not like….”

“Spending hours on Facebook,” she interrupted.

Yes! I thought. This was exactly what I have been hoping she might discover for years now.

“I want to have more adventures this year,” she continued. She went on about the places she wanted to explore and the people she wanted to take with her. Places to make stories. And, if we’re lucky, maybe she’ll even even bring her friends to the Lake someday.

Finally we reached the first spot that Ron suggested might be the home of the cross, but as we spread out and searched we found no sign of it. Some of the group split off to head toward the peak to the south, while the rest of us headed further up to the north, where Charles was standing watching us. Soon, he and Ron beckoned us all on, eagerly claiming that this was the right place.

We must have walked past the cross several times not seeing it, and Charles wouldn’t tell us where it was. But I spotted that rock with the window in it, and Nicole and I finally noticed it almost simultaneously. I stood just feet from it, and Nicole saw it from a distance.

When I asked Nicole, the historian at heart, what finding the cross meant to her, she said it had a special meaning since Carson carved this cross on her birthday many years before she was born. She is a believer and she knelt down before it for a photo. I don’t know if she really prayed or just gave thanks for the day, but my guess is both.

The cross was small and weathered from the wind and rain but it stood the test of time.  It will be here long after we are gone, sitting atop the cliffs of Fremont Island.

From Kit Carson’s inspired vantage point, we could see nearly the entire Lake, and many of the places we’ve already visited this summer. Disa sat on a rock overlooking the Great Salt Lake Minerals ponds to the north, and we watched two trains cross the Lucin Cutoff, heading west toward the Great Salt Lake Pumps, Danger Cave and the Sun Tunnels. To the west stood the Promontory Range, blocking our view of the Spiral Jetty. To the East were vast complexes of green wetlands and the Wasatch Mountains beyond. To the south, Antelope Island and the Great Salt Lake Marina with its Kennecott lighthouse and magical sailors disappeared in and out of rain clouds.

For me, Fremont Island brought the Lake together like nothing else has – but I was even more thrilled by the look of awe and the revived spirit of my baby sister as she sat there and took it all in with me.

Visit: Fremont Island is privately owned and closed to the public, but private tours can be arranged by contacting the owners. For more information, contact Chris Haramoto at Antelope Island State Park.

Heidi Nedreberg works for the Nature Conservancy in Utah and blogs for Summer of Salt.

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