A kayaker is on a mission to create Google Street View-style maps of drought-stricken waters and shores across the West — including the Great Salt Lake.
A shoreline-level view, Footen said, offers policymakers and the public an even more granular view of waterways in peril.
“You’ll have a fully immersive experience of the entire nearshore and the lake,” Footen said, “that will hopefully help conservationists and help stakeholders.” Today, the jetty sits nearly a mile from the water’s edge. It made for a grueling portage as Footen dragged his equipment-laden kayak across the salt-crusted lakebed, on a particularly hot day for early spring.
Seeing the lake from above also didn’t prepare him for its otherworldly, sometimes disorienting nature. “You don’t see that in pictures,” Footen said, adding land bridges to the long list of Great Salt Lake obstacles he’ll have to navigate. Brian Footen brings his digital mapping rig ashore at the Great Salt Lake on Friday, March 25, 2022. He walked the 100-pound kayak back to his truck from the edge of the shore.
Around 2015, Footen began dabbling in entrepreneurship. Wildlife managers sometimes use helicopters to monitor fish populations, but Footen figured he could use drones instead.He shifted his focus to boat-based photography after studying Washington’s Green River on Google Maps, he said. After some colleagues zoomed in on a bridge using Street View to assess bank erosion, Footen had his “eureka” moment.
Brian Footen paddles his kayak along the Great Salt Lake near the Spiral Jetty, just south of the Rozel Point peninsula on the northeastern shore, March 25, 2022. Footen is hoping to paddle the lake's shoreline in June to document its receding waters impacted by the western drought.
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