Five Day Trips from Salt
Lake City, by Gerry
Wingenbach
[Map]
Whatever Salt Lake City might lack in nightlife
and cultural attractions it more than makes up for in epic
landscape. The city lies at the intersection of Interstate
80 and Interstate 15, two routes designed to offer the most
direct line between two points. But life has a way of confounding
geometry, and road trippers with a spirit of adventure will
soon find themselves headed down some riparian corridor or
scare-you-mother byway, happily exploring Utah's big sandbox
and wild mountain country. In life, it is often the dalliances
and the detours that define us.
Here are five day trips to get you started. You'll
find scenery, wildlife, sports, good food and history along
each route - often within an hour of the city. And underneath
it all you'll find remnants of the mythical American West
that are as real as the day is long.
Alpine Loop Scenic Byway
85 miles, 2.5 hours
Among autumn leaf lovers, the Alpine
Loop Scenic Byway is Utah's most talked about excursion.
The locals all think it's their secret, some mutation of supersized
New England color unknown to the hordes down on the interstates.
Prime viewing happens through most of October, when the colors
of red maples and yellow aspens become seemingly electric.
To pick up the loop, take I-15 south from Salt
Lake City to Utah Highway 92, 25 miles from downtown Salt
Lake City. Head east past the wide, picket-fence-lined streets
of Highland and into the Crayola-colored walls of American
Fork Canyon. This is the start of the 20-mile-long loop. The
road, which is a journey meant for IMAX, nips and tucks its
way through the Wasatch Range, offering a mountaineer's close-up-view
of 11,749-foot Mount Timpanogos, Salt Lake Valley's most dominant
peak; at times you find yourself nearing 8,000 feet above
sea level. If you stop and gaze the high ridges, you'll likely
see mountain goats.
A good place to stretch your legs is at Timpanogos
Cave National Monument, where the Park Service operates
an information center and offers one-hour hikes to three extraordinary
caves overgrown with stalagmites and stalactites. Further
along Highway 92, a seven-mile side trip down State Route114
takes you to Cascade
Springs, where a quarter-mile-long boardwalk traverses
a mountain spring, exposing natural pools and cascading travertine
terraces teeming with aquatic plants and animals.
On the far side of the loop is Robert Redford's
Sundance resort, which has evolved into a friendly ski resort
and high-end retreat in the years since Redford purchased
it, in 1969. The resort offers top-shelf dining in its Tree
Room restaurant, as well as wallet-draining excesses in the
gift shop and decadent overnight accommodations in well-appointed
cabins.
Highway 92 meets State Route 189 a few miles
east of Sundance. Head south to Provo, and in about five miles
you'll see 600-foot-high Bridal
Veil Falls. From here, continue a few miles to the entrance
to I-15 North and back to Salt Lake City.
Antelope Island
60 miles, 2 hours
The Great Salt Lake sets the scene: aspirin-white
sand, sea gulls and salty water under a china-blue sky. Antelope
Island is the largest of the lake's 10 islands. No topiary
gardening here. This is the American West the way we envision
it - wide open and wild. And it's pretty accessible. The causeway
that connects the island to I-15 reopened in 1992 after being
submerged for years by high lake levels. (The lake is now
experiencing record low levels.) To reach the causeway, take
the interstate north from Salt Lake City to Exit 332 (Layton);
the causeway lies about seven miles to the west.
The island's glorious beaches, excellent hiking
trails and fine cycling terrain make the journey well worthwhile.
And if you yearn for the Wild West of old, you'll be pleased
to find a resident herd of about 600 bison roaming the island's
28,000 acres. The herd is managed by the state park and recreation
department, and visitors are welcome at the management facilities.
The island's biggest annual event is the annual bison roundup
held in November.
Facilities on the island include restrooms, beach
picnic areas, camping and marina.
Park City
100 miles, 5 hours
That skier on the Utah license plate, the one
with the halo that reads "The Greatest Snow on Earth,"
is Heidi Voelker. She lives in Park
City.
If you're not visiting Utah in the winter it's
easy to forget that some of the most iconic ski resorts in
the world are within an hour of Salt Lake City. In fact, Park
City was the site of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. It is
also home to the U.S. Ski Team and is one of the most venerable
ski towns in America. You've seen this movie before: An old
mining town dries up in the early 1900s, a few hundred citizens
ride out the ghost-town days, and a generation later you have
an Aspen, Breckenridge or Park City (to name a few).
To get to Park City, follow I-80 east over Parley's
Summit. Kimball Junction, on the east side of the pass, is
the exit to Park City. Follow State Route 224 another five
miles to town. The city's 19th-century Main Street is a historic
treasure, but it also offers some eclectic shopping, not all
of it hijacked by high-end retail. When in doubt, eat lunch.
Given its international winter crowd, this old silver mining
town has some pretty good restaurants. Some you can even afford
to eat in.
On most good weather days you can ride the town
chairlift up the slopes of Park City Mountain Resort. You
also can drive over to Deer Valley's Empire Canyon and ogle
the $10 million ski-in, ski-out homes. On your way back to
I-80 and Salt Lake City, reserve time for some serious shopping
at the Tanger Factory Outlet Center in Kimball Junction. It's
ranked as one of the best outlet malls in the country.
Ogden River Scenic Byway
130 miles, six hours
The extraordinary autumn colors of the Upper
Ogden Valley are right out of a movie. Located just up the
valley from the picturesque little city of Ogden, the 44-mile
Ogden
River Scenic Byway traverses the mile-high mountain hamlets
of Eden, Huntsville and Liberty while skirting the Pineview
Reservoir. The blazing orange and brilliant yellow leaves
of the maples, oaks and aspens are rimmed by summits soaring
to almost 10,000 feet.
The road trip really begins in Ogden, which is
to Utah what the town of Boulder is to Colorado: an adrenaline-fueled
playground and corporate center for extreme sports. Follow
1-15 north from Salt Lake City, then take Interstate 84 to
Ogden. Follow 12th Street east to the mouth of the Ogden Canyon.
Soon a dramatic 200-foot waterfall cascades into the Ogden
River on the left side of the road. The eight-mile canyon
gradually widens to showcase brilliant fall colors of oaks
and maples contrasting against the gray granite and red rock
walls.
Now you're in the Upper Ogden Valley, a high-mountain,
amphitheater-like setting with a scent-of-apples-down-orchard-roads
feel and nothing but blue sky overhead. If you head south
for a few miles on State Route 167, you will see Snowbasin
Ski Resort, site of the downhill, combined, and super-G events
in the 2002 Winter Olympics. So grand is the trip in and around
the valley that finishing it brings regret.
A great lunch spot is Rooster's Brewing Co.,
on historic 25th Street in Ogden, where the most popular home
brew is chocolate-flavored and the menu more than satisfies.
Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons
50 miles, 3 hours
Just east of downtown Salt Lake City, along the
Wasatch Front, high serrated mountains line up in a row. In
the late afternoon, the sun peels off the granite walls of
Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons. The mountains' swooping
descents are stepped down in cliff and talus from juniper-dotted
plateaus. Even crimson-faced hikers well into a day of jaw-dropping
views still look amazed. The ragged gorgeousness of it all
is hard to take in.
There are two separate canyons here - Big Cottonwood
and Little Cottonwood canyons - both entered from Wasatch
Boulevard, which is a zinger of a country road that dips along
the lower Wasatch Mountains. The mouths of the two canyons
are about five miles apart. Both canyon roads end at internationally
known, state-of-the-sport ski resorts with bowls the size
of the Sea of Tranquility. Brighton and Solitude resorts are
in Big Cottonwood Canyon; Alta and Snowbird resorts are in
Little Cottonwood Canyon.
This beautiful and echoing road trip is a look backward into
geologic time. Sometimes travel begins when you stop moving
forward. Across the pink and tan rock of the walls are fossil
skeletons of the Paleozoic era. And the scenery is straight
off a postcard: the golden summits, the sculptured rock faces,
the sense of getting so much of the world in one big gulp.
As you drive down from the canyons in the fading light and
glimpse the city below, the sunset looks like the dawn of
a new day.
Gerry
Wingenbach
10/10/08
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