Many Salt Lakers driving the 120 miles to Wendover are after the kind of rest and relaxation they can’t find in the beehive state: gambling, cheap liquor or maybe even some recreational marijuana.
But archaeologist Ron Rood has something very different in mind when he makes his regular trips — preserving ancient history.
Rood works for Metcalf Archaeological Consultants, which partners with the state to steward Danger Cave State Monument.
“We’re not making sites that have 12,000-year-old components anymore,” he said on a cold, Sunday morning in early December. “So that’s why it’s really important that these sites are protected.”
Danger Cave sits inside a limestone cliff overlooking Interstate 80 and the famed Bonneville Salt Flats. It was formed when ancient Lake Bonneville covered some 20,000 square miles — reaching into Idaho and Nevada and as far south as Fillmore, Utah. But the combination of a broken natural dam 14,500 years ago and climate change caused the inland sea to shrink.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aim to inform readers across the state.