"He would raise each rock up and roll it around, then he would move this one, change that one until it looked exactly right," Phillips said. "He wanted it to look like it was a growing, living thing, coming out of the center of the earth." At the time, the Great Salt Lake was unusually shallow because of a drought. Holt said that after the water level went up, her husband talked about adding rocks to make his work more visible. Over time, glistening white salt crystals encrusted the black rocks. The crystals accumulated all around the jetty, turning the whole area a glaring white.

"He liked that the work was strong enough that it could survive these natural changes," Holt said. "He loved that these natural processes can be seen."

The drought in the West, which has been going on since 1999, has brought the earthwork more attention than it has received in decades.

"We have people come in all the time and ask where the 'Spiral Jetty' is," said Noel Christensen, who works at the nearest gas station, 30 miles away.

Over the summer, visitors came from as far away as France and Italy to make pilgrimages to the "Jetty." One day in September, a family of five was floating in the lake's salty waters just off the rocks. Two men from Salt Lake City walked to the center of the spiral as their Labrador retrievers splashed in the water.

But all these visitors could ruin "Spiral Jetty," said Hikmet Loe, a Salt Lake City librarian who wrote her master's thesis on the earthwork and continues to stay in close contact with the Dia and Holt. Because the lake is so shallow and there has been so much salt buildup, people and animals can run between the coils instead of staying on the part Smithson intended for walking. Loe said she would like to see the Dia preserve the earthwork.

"If people are walking across the spiral and kicking up rocks, the shape of the piece will start to erode," she said.

For years, the Dia has cared for other major earthworks like Walter De Maria's "Lightning Field," an installation of 400 metal rods in the high desert of southwestern New Mexico, as well as some smaller Smithson works. But foundation officials say making "Spiral Jetty" more accessible is especially complicated.

"We started surveying the land area, mapped out the size of the piece and its height to see if there's anything we need to do to restore it," Govan said. Anything the foundation does would be in close consultation with Holt, he said. Wally Gwynn, a Utah geologist and editor of "Great Salt Lake: An Overview of Change," said "Spiral Jetty" would be submerged again as soon as Utah's drought ends. But he is not sure it is necessary to make the jetty more accessible.

"It has as much mystique underwater as it does when it is exposed," he said. "It's kind of like Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. We know it's there, even if we can't see it."

Phillips, the contractor, who was initially suspicious of Smithson's plans, is now one of the earthwork's biggest fans. While the jetty was submerged, he said, he even considered adding rock to it himself. But he decided it would be wrong to alter the piece in any way without Smithson to supervise the project.

"Smithson had something to do with every rock out there," Phillips said. "It would not be the same thing if somebody else monkeyed around with it. It would no longer be Smithson's work."