The Great Salt Lake is a body of water that is easiest to measure by its absence. That absence is the whole point of a run that begins and ends at the Utah State Capitol, where on a Tuesday morning in mid-October, a group of runners and cyclists set off to circle the entire lake on foot and on bikes — roughly 260 miles over five days.
The event is called "Where the Water Was," and the name is not a metaphor. It is a set of directions. The route traces the old Bonneville Shoreline, the high-water mark left behind when ancient Lake Bonneville filled this basin tens of thousands of years ago. "We're running around the part of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail where the water was 30,000 years ago," said Dakota Jones, the professional ultrarunner who organized the relay. "We're going to be running along where the lake shore should be, but frequently we're not going to even be able to see the water because the lake has receded so much."
Jones is not a newcomer to either endurance sport or environmental advocacy. He is a co-founder of Footprints, a nonprofit that helps runners turn their platforms into community climate action. The organization grew out of a realization Jones had years ago, when the cycle of racing and traveling began to feel hollow. "I knew there had to be a way to make this about more than just me," he has said. That experience eventually became Footprints Running Camp, a week-long gathering where trail runners build community and design climate projects to take home. "Where the Water Was" is that idea applied to the largest saline lake in North America.
Jones originally intended to run the entire 260-mile loop alone. A foot injury forced him to change plans, and the solo effort became a relay — which, in retrospect, may have suited the message better. "It's not a race or competition," he said. "This is a community effort. We want people to join me. We want it to be a conversation. We want people to feel welcome and included." Runners and cyclists from in and around Salt Lake City have joined segments of the route, and organizers have invited the public to show up along the way and at gatherings throughout the week.
The stakes behind the run are not abstract. The Great Salt Lake has been shrinking for decades, driven primarily by water policy that diverts its tributaries to farms, lawns, and cities faster than the lake can be replenished, and secondarily by a warming climate. As the lakebed dries and is exposed, wind lifts arsenic and other heavy metals off the ground and carries them toward the communities along the Wasatch Front — landing hardest, as the event's organizers note, on neighborhoods with the fewest resources to cope with the consequences.
The economic case is just as stark. The lake anchors a regional economy that the event's organizers value at $1.3 billion, supporting a brine shrimp industry sold worldwide and critical habitat for millions of migrating birds. Evaporation from the lake adds an estimated 5 to 10 percent to Utah's snowpack, stretching the ski season by five to seven weeks and supporting tens of thousands of jobs. "The Great Salt Lake has been drying up for a long time, and it's a gigantic health hazard, a huge environmental problem, and it's costing the state of Utah and its citizens billions of dollars," Jones told KSL. "So this is a really big problem that we need to address, and I think that there has been a lot of work for the lake, but not quite enough to really get us back to a healthy level."
Jones is candid that a relay run does not, by itself, refill a lake. "Running may not seem super related to protecting the Great Salt Lake," he said, "but what it can do is raise awareness and funds to empower action to support the people who really are making a difference for the Great Salt Lake." The event channels support to three organizations: the Utah Rivers Council, Grow the Flow, and Utah Youth Environmental Solutions. Organizers also point out that Utah has already made real progress on the lake, and that the run is meant to amplify existing work rather than start from zero.
Alongside the fundraiser, the event promotes three specific calls to action. The first is donating to the campaign benefiting those conservation groups. The second is signing the People's Charter for the Great Salt Lake, a petition created by high school and college students that lays out specific demands for protecting the lake. The third is voting — organizers are urging participants to turn out for Great Salt Lake champions in the midterm elections on November 3. "We just want people to participate in the democratic process because when that happens, then your voices get heard," Jones said.
For all the policy and chemistry involved, the run itself remains a physical ordeal. Two hundred sixty miles is a long way in any format, and the route wraps around a lake whose scale is part of its identity. "The Great Salt Lake is the Great Salt Lake for a reason," Jones said. "It's a big place." The relay began at the Utah State Capitol on Tuesday, October 13, and continues through Saturday, October 17, with the public invited to join segments of the route and the gatherings along the way. More information, including the route map and donation links, is available through Footprints at runfootprints.org.