Adventure #238

DISCOVERING UTAH
By Phil Clark - Mad about Travel
Mention Utah and images of mountains, prairies
and snow come to mind but we discovered it is
so much more!
Yes, Salt Lake City has the majestic Salt Lake
Temple and 15 awesome ski resorts, but the
state also offers incredible scenery, diverse
history, fantastic food and some of the most
epic landscapes I’ve ever experienced.
Our trip commenced in late March at the end of
the ski season and we planned some mountain
biking, hiking as well as a bit of skiing (if we
were lucky to get enough snow).
It turned out to be one of the best snow years in
history, so we made the most of the conditions
by heading up to Park City for our first day.
Formerly two separate ski resorts (Park City
Mountain and The Canyons) which were
linked by a gondola in 2015 making the largest
resort in The USA at 2954 hectares. Park City
Mountain has a mix of long cruisers on the Park
City Village side and steep fall line skiing on
The Canyons Village side. Stunning chalets and
mountain mansions line the sides of the runs
giving us a clue of where the beautiful people
live. The resorts are well laid out and navigation
around this huge resort is incredibly intuitive
At the end of the day, we headed off on the
three hour drive down to Bryce Canyon. This
geological marvel is the start of a series of
giant steps which trail from Bryce Canyon to
the Grand Canyon and encompass, several
National parks including Bryce Canyon, The
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
and Zion. We spent a week exploring the
national parks in this area.
On the morning of day two of our trip we woke
up to fresh pristine snow. As we drove into
Bryce Canyon, we were wondering what this
staircase thing was all about. Then it hit us, as
we walked up to the edge of the first precipice
the earth dropped away from us in a series of
pink pinnacles and spires. Like a cathedral the
snow-covered landscape had a quiet grandeur.