Great Salt Plains State Park in northwestern Oklahoma centers on an unusual landscape of salt flats and a broad, shallow saline lake. The nearby plains, covering about 11,000 acres, were created by salt left from an ancient inland sea and are continually renewed as saline groundwater rises and evaporates. Early American visitors with the Sibley expedition reached the area in 1811 and called it the Grand Saline. The park and neighboring wildlife refuge combine geology, recreation, and conservation, offering fishing, boating, camping, and birdwatching in a setting also known as the world’s only place where visitors can dig for hourglass selenite.

Nescatunga, Oklahoma · USA