Clear air up in the mountains
Our winter inversions in the Salt Lake City area are depressing to me and who knows what poisons we are breathing in with the particulates hanging in the air, the inversions cause breathing difficulties for many people and some, like me, get horrible headaches when the inversions build up.
So it is nice to head away from the inversions into the mountains that surround Salt Lake City and climb above the filth that clouds our air. Yesterday that was the Stansbury Mountains where up near the top the air was clear and smelled great. I wasn’t seeing many birds so I took some cell phone snaps in one of the canyons.
Inversion building over the Great Salt Lake
But coming down the mountains is depressing during the inversions. You can see the north end of the Stansbury Mountain Range in this photo on the left and from that end see that nasty looking, kind of purple-gray mess that is just above the sagebrush covered hills? That is the inversion. If you look closely just above that crap just to the right of the center you can see the top of the mountains on Stansbury Island. The elevation of the Great Salt Lake is 4,206 feet, the highest peak on Stansbury Island is 6,647 feet or about a 2,441 feet difference.
What you can’t see in this photo is more important than what you can
Here the inversion blocks out views of Stansbury Island, Antelope Island, The Great Salt Lake, the edge of the Oquirrh Mountains, the town of Grantsville and way off in the distance the Wasatch Mount Range too. They are all out there but can’t be seen through the crud.
It makes it so hard to head home when I have been up where the air is clear knowing that the inversion will be hanging over me and in my lungs.
Inversion creeping into the Stansbury Mountains
Closer to Grantsville I can see the inversion moving towards the Stansbury Mountains, looks kind of like a fog but it isn’t, it is much more harmful than fog could ever be. And the view only gets worse the closer to Salt Lake City that you get.
Unless the jerks on Capitol Hill start taking action on the inversion other than telling people not to drive during the worst of it these inversions will only get worse. Actions like holding industry accountable for the filth they spew into the air and to quit giving the polluters passes.
But they (greedy politicians and businesses that don’t care what you breathe) decided on building an inland port in a bird sensitive area close to the Great Salt Lake that will do what? Oh yeah, bring more pollution to mix in with the already poisonous inversions. Horrible for the people already struggling to breathe but I guess that is the price so that some well-connected wallets get fatter.
Denver, CO cleaned up their “Brown Cloud” caused by inversions and there is absolutely no damn reason it can’t be cleared up here.
I do get depressed some days on the way home from being up in the mountains and our winter inversions are why. Sorry for being a downer today.
Mia
I could post a lot of links but if you want more information on our inversions just do a Google search using the key words “Salt Lake Valley Winter Inversion”, I’m certain that will bring up tons of information because when I do it I see about 1,160,000 results.
Amen! I agree. We have inversion layers happening in the Napa Valley, too. Just south of town we have a train yard that runs dirty diesel tourist trains up the Valley and a mining operation that has not been required to upgrade to best available technology and others. So, we installed a PurpleAir citizen air monitor at our house to find out exactly what the air is like right here and now (PM2.5 and more) before doing exercise outdoors. Also, it really helped in knowing how bad the air was during our horrific California fires so we would know when to wear our N95 respirators.
I’m new to your web/blog and have really been enjoying it! Great photos.
Such a difference between the gorgeous clear shots and the icky brown ones. Sigh. 🙁 Growing up in the LA basin during the 60s and 70s, I’m well-versed in that inversion layer blocking out the mountains — or the buildings of downtown LA. Fortunately, things are a little better, but those DC idiots want to send us back to the “dark ages” in more ways than one.
Sigh.
And hiss and spitl.
Maybe the prospect of the Winter Olympics returning will motivate the fools on the hill to do something to clean the air. Last night on KUTV news:
“Governor Gary Herbert’s budget recommendation calls for $100 million to be spent on improving Utah’s air quality during the next fiscal year. Plans for how that money would be used have not yet been drafted, but the governor voiced support Thursday morning for providing subsidies to replace wood-burning stoves.“
We’ll see if the fools on Capital Hill will follow through on the governor’s recommendation, and what solutions are actually effective.
Had not heard that Utahbooklover but that is an incentive for them. I’ve often thought they could place huge fans about the valley, benches etc to stir the air. The air of course is calm so they’d have to turn them some how–maybe the hot air from the fools on the hill. 🙂
So in agreement Mia but even summers are becoming a mess with the fires in the west. We moved back to Utah in 1983 and that first winter I remember there was 6 weeks of continuous, thick smog, fog and gunk. It was depressing!! Utah politicians have never seemed to give a damn about the environment, it’s all about growth and greed as you say. For a state that promotes love of family, it seems a bit ironic they don’t care about the family’s health.
Totally agree and in fact, had a conversation with my friend last night about what causes these inversions, not autos as I had assumed but refineries. Sad that profits take precedence over health.