Spiral Jetty: Corinne, Utah

Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty is not the easiest place to get to--it involves a long, bumpy drive into desert lands, past military contractor installations and a funny twisted train track monument to the Golden Spike. And once you get there, it feels almost laughably small: true, the rocks are massive, but up close, the grand clear spiral of photos fractures into a tumbled line of stone and becomes almost nothing compared to the sublime landscape. The day I was there, the sky was pale blue and streaked with clouds and the ground was scarfed and drifted with banks and blobs of salty foam; walking around, it felt as if the boundary between sky and land was very thin. In the distance, the salt lake shone pink and silver (wild to think that the Jetty was under water for so long; I hear the mud can be treacherous when the lake levels rise). I'm going back in September, and this time, visiting Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels, which are a ways further on.