Episode Transcript
Hello, and welcome to the second episode of Snow and Salt, a podcast about the seasonal journey of water and life in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains.
Released on the solstices and equinoxes, this podcast is intended to help curious minds tune into seasonal changes occurring in the natural world around them. In each episode, I will visit three locations—one in the Wasatch mountains, one in the Salt Lake Valley, and one along the shores of Great Salt Lake—and discuss what’s happening to the plants, animals, and the watershed as the seasons shift. I’m your host, Ayja Bounous, award-winning author in Salt Lake City.
Today, we celebrate the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. This morning, the Salt Lake Valley welcomed the sun at 5:56 am. The sun will reach its meridian, meaning it’s highest point in the sky, at 1:29 pm. It will set over Great Salt Lake at 9:02 pm, giving the Salt Lake Valley fifteen hours, six minutes, and one second of daylight. Sun lovers, rejoice!
Today, the moon is a waning crescent with 28% illumination. The new moon will be in five days, on Wednesday, June 25th. June’s full moon was on Wednesday, June 11th. This month’s full moon is often called the Strawberry Moon in honor of the season when berries begin ripening in North America. Strawberry Moon is the English interpretation of a name given to June’s full moon by northeastern Native American tribes, such as the Algonquian peoples. In parts of Europe, the full moon closest to the summer solstice, falling in June this year, is sometimes called the Honey Moon or Mead Moon, signifying the time when beehives are full of honey, which is then harvested and fermented into mead. The next full moon, often called the Buck Moon because it’s around the time when male deer begin to regrow their antlers, will be on July 10th. Another name for July’s full moon is the Salmon Moon, which is the English interpretation of the indigenous name given to July’s full moon by the Tlingkit people of the Pacific Northwest, marking the time when the salmon make their way from the sea and begin their long, arduous journey up swollen western rivers.
Now is the time when rivers are at their most active due to snowmelt. As the sun tracks its most northerly path in the sky, those aspects in the mountains still holding onto their snowpack are losing water rapidly. On June 15th, the Alta Collin’s weather site, located at an elevation of 9,662 feet, recorded a snowpack depth of 10 inches. Three days later, on June 18th, the depth had dropped to 1 inch. Today, the snowpack is negligible, thus officially ending the season of the snowpack in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains.
On the southern face of Mount Superior in Little Cottonwood Canyon, an iconic snowfield changes shape as the snow melts, taking on the shape of joined butterfly wings late in the spring. It’s a long-standing tradition in the Little Cottonwood community to guess when the snow between the butterfly wings will melt, splitting the wings vertically and signifying the unofficial start of summer. This year, the wings serendipitously split on the summer solstice.
With the snow officially gone, soil that hasn’t seen the sun in half a year is now exposed to warmer air, sunlight, and oxygen. This combination triggers germination in dormant seeds that have been slumbering since last fall. As the snow melted, those seeds began soaking up moisture, a process known as imbibition. The seed swells as it draws in water, and as it expands, enzymes within the seeds are activated. Cells begin to respire, using oxygen in the air to break down stored carbohydrates, giving the seed sugar and energy to grow. The first part of the plant to emerge from the seed is the radicle root, which prepares the plant by growing down to create an anchor. Next, the baby shoot, called the plumule, stretches skyward, breaking through detritus and busting out leaves, photosynthesizing and turning the Wasatch basins green.
As these seedlings mature, they will produce reproductive systems—more commonly known as flowers. Utah is home to hundreds of wildflower species, and summer is their time to shine. The snowpack melting dictates the timing of the wildflowers. The thinner the snowpack and the quicker it melts, the earlier the wildflowers will appear. During lower snow years, we can expect wildflowers in the high basins starting in late June and early July. An early wildflower season means that the blooming times are staggered, so it can sometimes result in a patchier wildflower season in the mountains, with wildflowers appearing at different times. When the snowpack lingers, the wildflower season can be pushed back into September. The wildflowers are forced to grow rapidly and vigorously to compensate for the shorter season, competing for sunlight and resources and creating more vibrant wildflower fields in places like Albion and Mineral Basin.
If you venture into the Wasatch to appreciate the wildflowers in the coming weeks, please refrain from picking them or flattening them under your hiking boots. Though these flowers are hardy when it comes to tolerating extreme habitats, their reproductive systems are delicate. Many of our cherished critters and pollinators here in Utah depend on wildflower season, so it’s best to leave the flowers at peace so they can continue reproducing.
Speaking of pollinators, we are in the middle of the North American Pollinator Week, which is June 16th to June 22nd. Pollinators are truly a global treasure. Having evolved alongside each other, pollinators and fruit-bearing vegetation have developed a wonderful dependency—flowers provide pollinators with a source of nourishment, and in return, the pollinators aid in reproduction. Pollinators can be many different types of critters, from bees, moths, beetles, and butterflies to bats and birds. They are responsible for pollinating 75% of major crops consumed worldwide, making them an invaluable puzzle piece within our global ecosystem. And the most important of these pollinators are bees.
When we think of bees, we often picture honey bees. But honey bees are just one speck in the bee population. North America alone has over 3,600 species of native bees, and Utah is home to over 900 of those species. And while rallying cries of “Save the Bees!” have contributed to the popularity of backyard honey hives, honey bees can compete with native bees for resources in places where resources are scarce, like in urban areas, or in suburbs where lawns are prominent.
Pollinators around the world are threatened by a variety of factors, from climate change to disease. Luckily, there are some easy ways to support our local pollinators here in Utah. An easy way to celebrate pollinator week is to simply walk outside, find a place in your garden, and sit and observe the pollinators that you see over the next 10 or twenty minutes.
If you don’t spot many pollinators, here are some ways you can attract them to your yard.
Plant a wide diversity of native plant species. The more diverse a garden you keep, the more diverse your pollinator population will be. Pay attention to the different blooming times of the plants to ensure that there are sufficient blooms throughout the year, from spring to summer to fall.
Reduce or eliminate pesticides, which harm pollinators. In vegetable gardens, consider practicing companion planting, which can help aid in natural pest control. For example, chives and marigolds are great examples of plants that deter pests while attracting pollinators. And—you might even see a significant increase in your vegetable harvest with more pollinators around!
Leave patches of bare soil to encourage bee nesting. At least 75% of Utah’s native bees are ground nesters, burrowing to create nests in underground tunnels. Most can’t burrow through thick mulch or weed barrier, so leaving bare soil provides a place for the bees to make their home. Bees don’t fly in the rain, so if you use an overhead sprinkling system, it’s best to run it at night when the bees are safe in their dens.
And finally, a key ingredient in saving our pollinators is by understanding them. You can contribute to community science by creating an iNaturalist account or getting involved with groups dedicated to pollinator conservation, like the Xerces Society, Utah Pollinator Pursuit, The Hollow Tree Honey Foundation, or the Mountain States Bumble Bee Access.
Supporting your local pollinators also helps support the larger ecosystem, as insects provide a valuable source of nourishment for other animals, like the birds that have made it to Utah during their summer migration. Plenty of these birds are now enjoying the ample food sources in the wetlands of Great Salt Lake. With the temperatures being unseasonably hot this month, the obnoxious brine flies and midges that often deter visitors to the lake have dropped off, and the lake can be visited in relative peace without having to slap the bugs at your ankles.
If you visit the lake during this time of year, you might be able to spot chicklings. Some of the earliest chicks to hatch in early May are egret chicks and goslings, aka baby geese. Later-hatching chicks include ducklings, avocets, stilts, and grebes, which often carry their chicks on their backs.
If you visit the wetlands, you will likely see American White Pelican adults, their large, white bodies and long yellow beaks distinct against the cerulean waters. However, you won’t see any pelican ducklings. That’s because pelicans create their nests in remote and hostile environments, like Gunnison Island, where predators are less likely to live. Pelicans will travel up to 100 miles in a day to hunt in more abundant places before returning home to the safety of their nests.
Unfortunately, Gunnison Island, historically one of the largest pelican nesting colonies in North America, with up to 20,000 adults, has become less of a safe haven for pelicans in recent years. As lake levels drop, land bridges connect Gunnison Island with the mainland, allowing coyotes to ravage nests. Between 2014 and 2023, the average pelican population dropped by over 50%, from 20,000 individuals to about 8,500 individuals. In 2023, the situation got so bad that the pelicans actually abandoned the Gunnison colony altogether. Happily, pelicans returned last year in 2024 and even repopulated Hat Island, which hadn’t had a pelican colony since 1943.
As of June 21st, 2025, Great Salt Lake is at an elevation of 4,193 feet at the Saltair Boat Harbor, which happens to be the exact same elevation the lake was at when the first episode of this podcast was released on the spring equinox. Unfortunately, this is not a great sign for the health of the lake.
The lake’s current level is 4 feet lower than its median for this date. The lake typically fluctuates throughout the year, rising with the spring runoff before summer heat creates higher evaporation rates. Until fairly recently, it was assumed that a heavy snow year and thicker snowpack meant higher lake levels. But it turns out the relationship between snowpack and spring runoff is not as black and white as it seems.
While some of the water kept safe in the snowpack this winter has been swiftly making its way downstream these past few weeks, much of the snowpack becomes groundwater in the mountains. Up until just recently, the balance between snowmelt and groundwater hasn’t been well-understood. A team of researchers at the University of Utah has been making efforts to better understand the connection and flow between snowmelt, surface water, groundwater, and the movement of water in the mountains to the valley and Great Salt Lake. It’s easy to assume that a thick snowpack in the mountains translates to rising lake levels, but that’s not the case. We saw this in 2023, when an exceptional snow year—Alta recording over 900 inches of snow—didn’t translate to high lake levels. 2023 was the year the pelican population abandoned their nests on Gunnison Island due to predation heightened by low lake levels.
How much snowmelt ends up in rivers and reservoirs depends largely on groundwater levels in the mountains. When snow melts, most of it soaks into the ground rather than flowing over the surface. Above-ground streams make up only a small portion of the water in an ecosystem. If mountain soil is dry before snowfall, more meltwater will be absorbed into the ground instead of running off. After a dry autumn in 2024, much of this year’s Wasatch snowpack may seep into the soil, potentially staying underground for years before entering waterways. The drier the soil, the more water becomes groundwater rather than reaching reservoirs or Great Salt Lake. Northern Utah’s reservoirs are already losing more water than they’re gaining—an alarming trend typically seen later in the summer and a bad sign for our watershed this season.
We can, of course, all do our part to help our state’s water scarcity by limiting the amount of water we use in our households. But, as is the case with most environmental and climate challenges, individuals can only do so much when it comes to real change. For example, 68% of the water diverted in Utah every year goes towards growing alfalfa. Yes, you heard me right—alfalfa. One-third of the alfalfa grown in Utah is then shipped to China. Yes, you heard me right again—so approximately 22% of Utah’s total diverted water goes towards a product that just gets shipped to China. You might assume that, for us to divert so much of our life-giving water towards this industry, it accounts for a significant portion of our economy. In reality, alfalfa production accounts for a mere 0.2% of Utah’s annual gross domestic product.
So, on this solstice, if you’d like to help conserve water, feel free to take a shorter shower and run your sprinklers for a shorter time, but also make sure to contact our representatives and suggest that, rather than praying for rain, they could grow a spine and stop pumping amost 70% of our water towards a mostly pointless and water-wasting crop.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Snow and Salt. In the coming episodes, I hope to bring naturalists, gardeners, and activists on to talk about wild spaces, backyard gardens, and water policy. If you, or someone you know, might be interested in a future collaboration, I would love to hear from you. All of my resources are in the episode notes.
Thank you for listening. See you on the equinox.
