Solar evaporation ponds on the Great Salt Lake, Utah

© Robert L. Potts/Offset

Solar evaporation ponds on the Great Salt Lake, Utah

You won’t need floaties if you’re going for a dip in the Great Salt Lake. Known as America’s Dead Sea, this body of water is saltier than the ocean, making it easy to bob around the surface and enjoy the view. The Great Salt Lake is the largest salt water lake in the Western Hemisphere, but it’s only a remnant of a much bigger body of water–Lake Bonneville. This prehistoric lake covered most of western Utah some 30,000 years ago. In the last ice age, the lake breeched its natural dam and much of the water was released in the Bonneville Flood, an event that inundated eastern Washington and Idaho, carving out canyons and creating waterfalls that still exist today.