Geocaching the West Desert: Northern Route

Utah’s West Desert, that vast expanse of wonderful wasteland stretching from the Salt Lake Valley to Nevada, is one of our favorite places on earth. We discovered it years ago for its solitude and nothingness. We travel there today, though, for the excitement and adventure it offers around every corner. You never know what you will discover — an old rusted out car, a herd of wild mustangs, antelope, scenic vistas, hidden caves, rattlesnakes and more. Our normal route is the Pony Express Trail, where we found our first Geocache in 2004. But recently when we were pressed for time, we decided to discover a bit of the northern route along I-80.

Cactus poses with a real, live (OK, dead) Tumbleweed

Attempting to be thorough, we decided to hit Fire Elemental’s Cave Cache on 2100 South. Unfortunately, that cost us 30 minutes of fruitless searching. It was a foreshadowing, of sorts, to the two hours search we would have a week later at his The Last cache! So, we decided to get on the road and just head out to the desert.

Before I go further, I’m sure all of the desert purists will find this route pretty lame. Yah, it’s a lot of I-80. But it’s a quick way to introduce yourself to the desert and hit a few cool caches. If you have the time, there’s actually a cache at nearly every I-80 exit, including a slew of them around Saltair.

Our next pulloff was just past Tooele, where we hit Reflections, Welcome to Burmester and Burmester for sale. Burmester is a Tooele County ghost town, also known as the the ‘town that vanished.’ Both caches are pretty easy. There’s nothing very attractive there. But as you stand at the Burmester cache looking at the wasteland and the salt plant, it gets you thinking about the past. Thanks to Dumbledore’s Army for the Burmester caches.

We continued west, stopping for a couple more at the Grantsville exit, before heading out into the real desert.

Our next stop was one of the most interesting scenic views of the trip. If you look at the map, you’ll think Salty View is an easy pickup from the eastbound lanes of I-80. Guess again! This is the one cache on the entire trip that I wouldn’t recommend doing in a passenger car. There are two routes — the high road and low road. You can make the low road access in a passenger car (carefully), but you’re in for a decent hike. The high road affords you drive-up access via a Jeep road (we did get into 4WD in one spot). The view is sensational, looking out on the Great Salt Lake and the mountains of the West Desert and Stansbury Island. Along the way you’ll pass Mountain Goat’s Glory. This looks like a fabulous cache, but it’s a technical hike and we weren’t quite up to it.

We also picked up our first virtual of the trip at this stop, Film Set 01 Way of the Gun, part of KD7MXI’s Film Set series of virtuals. We didn’t know most of these films, but each of them were shot, in part, at one of these West Desert locations.

Next, it was on to the thriving metropolis of Delle. Delle was once a thriving stop along the Lincoln Highway (U.S. 40). I recall a few years ago when the town was for sale. Today, there’s a pretty active Sinclair station and it has become a hotbed for ATV’s and motocross. There were probably over 50 riders flying through the desert course behind the gas station. There’s a film set virtual here plus a super cool cache at a Utah landmark keeping sentinel over the parade of gamblers heading west to Wendover. The eyes will be on you!

Heading west on I-80 towards the Cedar Mountains (wilderness area), there are a number of caches along the north side of the highway, all pretty easy finds and accessible in a decent vehicle. In fact, some of the desert gravel roads are pretty smooth! After hitting a half-dozen desert caches, we headed south to Hastings Pass, crossing over west to east through the Cedar Mountains.

Just south of the Hastings Pass road in the Cedar Mountains are three caches reachable only by foot in the wilderness area. Two are very close together and look like they would be worth the mile or so hike. The old ghost town on the Hastings Pass Road was the highlight of the adventure. There are three or four old buildings, plus some old vehicles. We really enjoyed the CSI Tooele County - Dead Body in the Desert cache! There’s also a cache at the top of Hastings Pass, but it was starting to get dark so we didn’t take the time.

The downside to this particular route is that there’s nothing more all the way back to I-80. There are a number of caches along the Skull Valley Road, but it’s not very accessible to the Hastings Pass Road. If we had had more time, we would have turned south out of Hastings Pass.

With darkness approaching, we decided to take a swing through Grantsville. In 20 years in Utah, we had never been there. There are probably a dozen caches in town. We had fun with the Dead Dogs cache, right next to the Dead Dog Saloon (which we plan to hit on another trip).

Ready to Go?
Are you ready to go? Here’s a bookmark list of the caches we found, plus others in the area. You can download it and create a pocket query to make it easier to plan your outing. We may make another journey if the weather stays nice and will update this report.
West Desert Geocaches - Northern Route

Tell Us Your Favorite West Desert Caches?
Help us plan our next trip to the West Desert by sharing your favorite spots.  Simply post a comment below for all to share!

A cow guides traffic on the access to Hastings Pass in the Cedar Mountains

Salty View from an overlook near Skull Valley looking west on I-80

Eyes stand sentinel on I-80 near Delle, Utah

Antelope run through the West Desert near the Cedar Mountains

The view from Hastings Pass looking east towards Skull Valley

Tumbleweed and Cactus with a … tumbleweed