Things to do near Salt Lake City

Here are my recommendations based on our limited five-day trip.  This is in no way a comprehensive list of things to do. I am assuming you would want to go out to run a marathon.  There are several in Utah, including one other in Salt Lake City that doesn’t have the severe altitude drop of Deseret News.

First, go for more than five days.  Plan your race for either at the beginning or the end of your trip so that you can do other things that might call for strenuous exertion, either after you have recovered from the run or early enough to recover from the exertion before the run.

Places to stay:  Stay in downtown Salt Lake City.  There are nice options, even pricier options, and cheaper options, like Motel Six and some local non-chain places.  There is a free trolley in the heart of SLC.  There are many restaurants.  We went to three within two blocks of our hotel.  Two of them were run by micro-breweries, Red Rock Brewing and Utah Brewing Company.  UBC had an amber ale, which was the first beer it brewed in 1989, called Emigration Ale.  Of course, I had several of those.

Things to see:

1.   The Temple area in Salt Lake City.  Yes, I know I told someone I wasn’t going to see it, but we did.  Impressive architecture and grounds. (Picture of state capitol with mountains in background taken near Temple area.)

2.   Malls – if you like shopping, there is City Creek Mall (with an artificial creek running through it) right across the street from the Temple area.  There also another mall write in back of the Arena.  Both are outside malls.  Not sure how that works in the winter.

3.   Timpanogos Cave National Monument – less than 40 miles from SLC, this affords a great up-close view of the limestone and sandstone layers in the mountains. Unfortunately, when we went, the tours of the cave were sold out.  But fortunately, it was sold out because we went the day before the marathon and the climb up to the cave was a thousand feet, meaning also a descent of a thousand feet. I had the impression the climb was only a few hundred feet.  Dress appropriately for cave temperature in the mid-fifties.  Do this several days before or after your race. 

4.   Park City – also about 40 miles from SLC, this was a mining town, dating from the time of rushes for mineral wealth.  When the mining petered out, the mining company went into the skiing business and built an early ski resort, using the old elevators of the mine to take the skiers up the mountain. Utah claims to have the best powdery snow, owing to the conditions in which it forms. (I’m just repeating what I read.) The town is somewhat of a tourist trap in the off-season (summer) and reminds me Cape May on a steep slope with unique bright color schemes that some of the houses are painted. There’s a free trolley, which I used several times to go to the bottom of the main street. (Walking downhill was the painful part the day after the marathon.)

5.   Utah Olympic Park – located a few miles from Park City, this was the site of the 2002 Winter Olympics.  Training goes on there year- round.  We took a tour, but people with the kids could do the zip-line, a bob-sled run or the ski-jumping into a pool.  The young future Olympians train for the trick X-games type skiing by skiing into the pool.  Rope courses and other activities are available or being built.  I was mildly shocked at how lightly this facility was being used by the public.

6.   Red Butte Garden – a beautifully kept botanical garden on the outskirts of SLC.  There are hiking trails leading from this area.  The red butte above is visible when one is flying into SLC. There are also outdoor evening concerts at this park, including Crosby, Stills and Nash in August.

7.   The Utah Museum of Natural History:  Across the street from the gardens this is a truly impressive facility – with dinosaur fossils and native artifacts from as long as 9,000 years ago.  There is even a glass-encased room where people are working on newly found fossils.

8.   Freedom Park – the site of the finish of the marathon is a large park.  There is a wood-chip single-track path for runners going around the perimeter (about two miles).  At one corner of the park is Tracy Aviary.  Most of the larger birds are rescue animals, which were injured and could no longer survive in the wild.

This list is by no mean comprehensive, but consists of the things we got to within a five-day span.  Trying to cram all this in a relatively short time meant that we couldn’t spend the time that some of these attractions deserved.

A comment on the weather:  Coming from the soupy Mid-Atlantic region at this time of year, SLC is “different”.  At almost 4,500 feet, the sun seems hotter, apparently with the rays not having to penetrate as much atmosphere.  But the air is usually quite dry.  A day, which Utahans call “humid”, seems relatively dry by East Coast standards.  Although at 98 degree day is hot when you are moving around in the sun, it you are in the shade, it isn’t bad.