What contributed to the party’s infamous winter survival in the Sierra Mountains was the delay the emigrantsĮxperienced while crossing the Salt Flats. Promoted by Lansford Hastings as a faster, easier route to California, Hastings Cutoff proved to be just the opposite for the Donner- Reed Party of 1846. The next year Fremont’s route across the Salt Flats would become known as the Hastings Cutoff as part of the California Trail. government-sponsored expedition crossed the heart of the Salt Flats in 1845 while trying to find a shorter overland route to the Pacific Ocean. The salt flats are about 12 miles long and 5 miles wide with total area coverage of just over 46 square miles.įrom the BLM: Trapper and frontiersman Jedediah Smith crossed the Salt Flats while returning to Utah from an expedition to California in 1827. This Special Recreation Management Area is managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The Bonneville Salt Flats are a 30,000 acre expanse of hard, white salt crust on the western edge of the Great Salt Lake basin in Utah.

Visiting the bonneville salt flats