Touring the Wasatch Front with Ira and Illana

Interesting bit of Trivia: Everything that can be seen in the photos below is at most 45 minutes away from downtown Salt Lake City. Click the Pics for a larger view.

This past weekend Ira and Ilana were in town and we went on a pretty good tour of the Wasatch Front and Salt Lake. On Saturday we were at Snowbird but I'll skip over that for now as everyone has seen plenty of Snowbird pictures.  On Sunday we toured the Wasatch Mountains as well as the Great Salt Lake in the Jeep following the Route shown below.

We left our Apartment in Sandy and headed South until we cut through provo canyon to go east through the mountains.  We saw Bridal Veil falls and then headed up Alpine Loop towards Sundance and followed it upwards until Aspen Grove where the road is still closed and covered with snow (This is the little spur you see in the bottom right of the circle)  From there we continued to the North until we hit Deer Creek Reservoir and then Park City.  After walking around Park City for a while we headed back West on I-80 through Parley's Canyon and then swung by University of Utah and the Capitol Building.  Then it was off to the North-West where we took the causeway across to Antelope Island which is a very large island in the Great Salt Lake.  After exploring, hiking, and looking for Buffalo there we headed back home.

All of the pictures below follow this route in chronological order.

This is a bad picture of Bridal Veil Falls which is a 600 foot waterfall in Provo Canyon.  I'll get a better picture later in the year when there is more water coming over and we aren't looking right into the sun.

In this picture we have passed Sundance a few miles back and are at the base of the Mount Timpinogos trailhead.  We couldn't continue any further up the road into the mountains because the road is still covered with snow and closed to all vehicles except snowmobiles.  It is the same road that Julie and I drove in the vette before the winter hit and it is full of spectacular switchbacks.

This picture was taken at Deer Creek Reservoir on the way to park city.  There were no boats on the water so it was smooth as glass and there was a nice backdrop of mountains all around.

Here's a picture taken on Main Street in park city.  What a great name for an establishment.

I found this "friendly" moose lurking the streets of Park City

After heading back from park City we checked out the University of Utah campus and the nearby capitol building shown below

From there we headed north to the Great Salt Lake and took a causway to Antelope Island.  The Island is huge and the Lake is even bigger.  Much like the Great lakes there are spots where it is so wide that you can't see any land on the other side.

Here is Julie hamming it up on Antelope Island

Here are Julie and I with the Salt Lake and Mountains in the background

And Ira and Ilana
Here Julie is preparing to head off in search of Antelopes and Buffalo.  In the background you can see the mountain in the middle of the Island. I told you this was a BIG Island.

We were pleased to see some Antelope so we knew that the island's namesake was well deserved but we were still on the lookout for the elusive Buffalo.

Finally we spotted a Buffalo!  Here it can be seen drinking out of it's giant Buffalo sized doggy-bowl.  I guess it is fair that they are provided with fresh water considering they are surrounded on all sides of the island with the undrinkable Salt Lake.

Here we have spotted some buffalo in a more natural habitat.  I was quite pleased to have gotten the Buffalo, Salt Lake, and Mountains to all cooperate and pose for the same picture...

Here we are hiking up the mountain in the middle of the island.  We didn't go all the way to the top because it was getting late and we didn't have any water with us but we still got in some great views as you can see in the pictures below

Here's another shot of the Mountain in the middle of the Island.  It is amazing that the island can be so big but still be tiny when compared to the great expanse of the Salt Lake.

Here's more of the lake

In this picture I used maximum zoom to take a picture across the lake of Downtown SLC with the mountains jutting up behind it.

I can't resist posting at least on pic from Snowbird on Saturday. I did a doubletake when I saw the Tram as shown below. For a split second I thought that Superman must be averting a disaster but quickly realized that someone had attached a dummy to the bottom of the tram.

Stay tuned for more updates.  Next weekend we are excited to be heading south to explore Moab and Arches National Park.

Hike to Bells Canyon waterfall

Today after I was done with work I decided to hike up Bells Canyon to see how far I could get before the snow got too deep. It stays light out here now till after 8 PM which worked out well since I had budgeted two hours to ascend as high as I could and then an hour to get back down. Though there was no snow at the bottom of the Canyon I knew it would get deep as I gained elevation. One reason I chose Bells Canyon is because there is a waterfall that Julie and I somehow missed when we hiked it in the Fall and another reason is because the part of the trail I was on doesn't have any avalanche danger.

Julie had gone for a long run earlier in the day so it was just me going on this hike. Here's a quick video I took after slogging through some pretty deep snow and finally finding the waterfall:



If you are wondering just how deep the snow got here is a pic I took of myself while hiking through one of the deeper sections. Fortunately alot of areas were already packed down or there was no way I could have made it as far as I did:


This is the entrance to the main trail and you can see the canyon wrapping around to the right in the distance.


This is the lower bell canyon reservoir which is near the beginning of the trail:

At the low elevations the trail was pretty easy to travel on without too much snow

This sign amuses me because it specifically forbids bringing hang gliders into the wilderness area. Do they really have a big problem with some rogue hang gliding element?


This is the stream that runs through Bells Canyon and forms the waterfall in a steeper section. It has much more water in it later in the spring when all the snow is melting.


This is a view of the "Crows Feet" which are pretty popular destinations for backcountry skiers and boarders.

In this picture you can see the snow is getting deeper as well as the "Bell Towers" in the background for which the canyon is named.


This pool of water looked very refreshing. Even though there is so much snow on the ground the air temp was pretty warm today and I was getting a bit hot hiking in my snowboard pants and a T-shirt.

I noticed this arrow carved in a tree which apparently indicates where to turn off the main trail to find the waterfall. Julie and I somehow missed it on our last hike up this canyon


Here's a picture of the waterfall
And another

And this one is looking back down the canyon toward civilization

In this area I was sinking in almost to my waist so it seemed like a good point to turn around

And finally a self portrait with the waterfall:

13 feet of snow in 12 days!!!

Before I get to talking about all the new snow, I need to share this video we took a few weeks ago but it got lost in the shuffle. Julie and I were up at Snowbird with about 18 inches of new snow and we were lucky enough to drop into Mineral Basin right when it opened. I decided to video the experience while holding the camera in my hand so please excuse the poor camera work. The highlight of the video is definitely the full on cartwheel that Julie manages to pull off when she leans too far forward. Don't worry folks, it doesn't hurt at all if you crash in deep snow like this, it is like being surrounded by marshmallows:



Anyway, on to the main blog post:

Two weekends ago Julie and I were climbing outdoors in T shirts in 75 degree weather. The total snow for the season at snowbird was at 387 inches and we were wondering if it might end up falling short of the 500 inch season average. As I write this the snowfall stands at 543 inches and today Julie and I had one of the best powder days of the season. For the past two weeks snowbird has averaged more than a foot of new snow a day and in the past 48 hours we've gotten around 4 feet which made for epic conditions on the slopes today.


The powder at snowbird today was so deep you would literally sink up to your waist in places. It is fortunate that Snowbird has plenty of steep terrain because on anything more moderate this much snow could bog you down like quicksand. It was snowing so hard up on the mountain itself that I couldn't really get any pictures to come out well so I've improvised with some pictures I took at the base.

It is amazing how much more snow falls at the higher elevations compared to the valley. Our apartment is at 4,000 feet elevation and we have exactly 0 inches of snow on the ground down here. The entrance to the Canyon road is only a few miles away but a few thousand feet higher and there are a few feet of snow on the ground. The base of snowbird is around 8,000 feet and there is a whole lot of snow as you can see in the below pictures. The peak of the mountain is over 11,000 feet and it is nearly impossible to describe how much snow has fallen up there.

This picture is from the parking lot at the base of snowbird. The truck buried in this picture is a full sized Dodge Durango and the snow that has covered it all fell in about a 12 hour period overnight!


This is also a picture from the bottom of the mountain where groomers pack the snow down every evening. The snow in this picture fell after the area was groomed the previous evening. For reference my board is about 5 1/2 feet tall and half of it is buried.


The previous two pics just showed overnight snow fall. In this one you can see how much has fallen cumulatively over the past two weeks. In this picture Julie is actually standing on a balcony that earlier in the season overlooked the mountain. Now the snow has piled up well above the balcony which is normally at least 10 feet or so above ground level!

Even though I couldn't get any pictures to come out on the mountain, the pros apparently could so I've copied a few of the snowbird pictures of the day to give you an idea of what riding in this much snow looks like. I love how in the third picture the guy is completely submerged except for a ski pole!





OK, as excited as I am about all the snow I've also got a few pics from a few weeks ago that you might find interesting. If you read closely on the box in the picture below you can see that it has a U.N. Weapons designation of "Howitzer". Don't worry, the box is empty but it is one that was used to store the shells that the Ski patrol shoot off every day to set off any potential avalanches before the slopes open.



This is one of the spent shell casings from the Howitzer. It smelled like fireworks... Apparently the Ski patrol at snowbird has a bigger stockpile of explosives than the military of a small country.

Lastly, I will close with some pics from a nice bluebird day a few weeks back with about a foot of fresh snow. A great day to be sure but it seems so quaint now compared to what we were riding in today.