Utah

“On a rattlesnake speedway in the Utah desert” ... Bruce Springsteen

The Great Salt Lake, the land of Mormons, home to 5 national parks.  A place that could be a movie set for a martian landscape, maybe it has been. My brother lives here with his wife. I’ve visited Utah three times in my life; these are my impressions.

Landing in Salt Lake City for the first time, friends pick me up and take me straight to Antelope Island to view the the Great Salt Lake.  It smells like rotten eggs, sulfur.  Buffalo roam the island.  There are burrowing owls making their home. Two years later my future wife and I would be on the same island and hear the cries and howls of coyote.  

In Salt Lake City we pass the grounds of temple square. This is the home of Mormon faith. The large spires of the Salt Lake temple soar into the sky. There are several buildings surrounded by beautifully manicured gardens.  This city may be the cleanest I have ever seen.  However this is just one area of the city, and it’s not all like this.  The outsides of the city have the same sprawl-like development and dirtiness like everywhere else.  I have never experienced the poor air quality, but I have been told in the winter, inversion can be absolutely terrible.  Inversion is when the polluted air gets trapped in the city due to its geographical location between high elevated mountains.  It is an increasingly serious health hazard.   On the interstate headed to my brother’s apartment, I see large billboards with Karl Malone selling used cars, a reminder of the Utah Jazz basketball legend.  I get out of the car and unpack some of my belongings.  An hour later, the roar of my brother’s Harley Sportsters pulls in the driveway signalling his arrival. His blacked out motorcycle glistens in the bright sun.  We load up in two SUVs with a group of friends and head south to Capitol Reef National Park.  Erin, the only girl stuck with us guys for the weekend, would later move to Utah for a few years.  Erin loves all aspects of outdoors and would  agree with one of the state’s mottos Utah is “Life Elevated.”

The drive takes a little over 3 and half hours. We make way through to our campsite at the Fruita Campground.  Fruita gets it name from early settlement of Mormons using the land as an orchard and farm area.  A river runs right next to our campsite; it’s a cold relief for our feet on a hot August day.  

In the middle of the night I heard a sound but thought nothing of it.  The ranger the next day tells us a cougar attacked a mule deer nearby.  I am told that this is uncommon.  Next to our campsite is the Gifford Homestead which has locally made items.  I highly recommend the fruit pies.  My brother and I eat them as breakfast. We head out and spend hours hiking to vista points in the park.  My lungs burn; I don't know if it’s the altitude change or if I am just that out of shape.  The views are unreal.  That night we celebrate our friends Brad’s birthday with a case of PBR while watching the sunset.  Be aware when buying beer in Utah, beer sold at grocery stores can only be 4% alcohol, due to state laws.  These laws are slowly changing as Utah lawmakers are now considering allowing the sales of beer with higher alcohol content.   We go on a late night hike later led by a park ranger.  The sky is filled with stars.

We returned Sunday back to Salt Lake City.  Later that week my friend Kyle and I departed south again to see two more National Parks, Arches and Canyonlands.  Arriving late into Arches we found a campsite outside of the park on the Colorado river.  Camping when it’s 90 degrees fahrenheit at night is miserable.  The following day we make a midday trek to see the arches.  It’s amazing the power of nature and seeing the magnificent sculpture in person.  We continue to other points in the park to make hikes to see other famous arches.  In a remote area, we come across a man who has been wandering the desert for hours.  He appears to be severely dehydrated and has no water in an environment that feels like you are walking in an oven.  Kyle and I have packed lots of water and share with him.  It turns out he was a Chinese foreign exchange student in Philadelphia.  He was making a solo trip and took a wrong turn.  We help him back to the parking lot.  His trip could have been lethal, and I am not exaggerating.  Every year there are multiple deaths in Utah due to dehydration.  I can't stress enough how important having water is.  Our next destination was even more remote and had even less water available in the park.

Canyonlands National Park is one of the most amazing places I have ever been.  It’s like the Grand Canyon with better views and less people.  Kyle and I grilled Wisconsin brats and watched a summer thunderstorm in the great distance.  It’s really hard to describe the views off the edges of the canyons; it's such a foreign place to me.  We woke up early to see the sunrise at Mesa Arch, which was incredible.  It’s a great mini trip and we make our way back again to Salt Lake City.  

I decided that I wanted to see more of the state’s national parks.  However vacation time was up for much of the group who needed to work during the week.  I decided to rent a car and travel solo to Zion and Bryce National Park.  Blaring a classic rock station, I take off through the desolate Utah landscape at over 100mph.  I make great time and enter the zoo of cars that Zion can be.  Tourist buses are easily available to transfer people to trails.  I head to the highly popular trail, The Narrows.  The Narrows is not a trail, but a river passage carved into the rock with high walls.  My plan is to start at the bottom point and head up.  There's all different ways of hiking it, and some may need permits.  About two hours in, thunder is heard and there’s fear of flash floods, so rangers are out and force me to turn back.  The experience is still incredible and something I want to do again.  As I make my way out of the park, bighorn sheep gather on the edge of the cliffs.  I am not in the mood for camping alone and crash at a cheap motel in the middle of nowhere.

I am not a stranger to traveling alone and welcome the openness of the road as I make my way to Bryce National Park.  A large number of German tourists are about as I make way through a loop trail.  On my way to the top of a switchback trail, my favorite blue stainless steel water bottle tumbles out.  This was a gift from my Italian host family, so I backtrack to retrieve it.  The canyon was not kind, but I found my dented up bottle.  It was another great mini trip, and I return a very dusty SUV to the rental shop.

The next weekend we packed up and headed east to Dinosaur National Monument.  The park is located next to Vernal, Utah and crosses the border into Colorado.  As soon as you hit Vernal you will instantly notice the large pink dinosaur welcoming you.  Inside the park we find a great spot to sip a few beers and set up camp on the river.  That night was the first time in my life I was able to gaze upon the Milky Way.  My brother and Kyle slept outside the tent under the stars.

The next morning we visit the park’s many trails, but the must-see is the Quarry Exhibit Hall.  It is so amazing that you almost question if it is fake but it’s not.  The preservation of the dinosaur fossils are more than amazing.  If you are at all interested in dinos you need to check out this place at some point in your life.  I purchased a replica of an allosaurus claw which I continue to show and impress students with to this day.  It’s another amazing weekend finished off with an afternoon spent outside Salt Lake City tubing down a river along the mountains.

Back in Salt Lake City, my brother and I visit the Natural History Museum in Utah.  Located at a high point near the University of Utah campus, we walk through the many exhibits.  The reason I’m here is the dinosaurs.  My interest has peaked since the visit to Dinosaur National Monument.  New discoveries in southwest Utah of the Allosaurus, which were recently featured in National Geographic, are on display.  The first movie I ever saw in a theatre was Jurassic Park when I was four years old … ever since, I’ve been fascinated.  In the fall of 2017, a huge discovery was made in paleontology.  The most intact fossil discovery, over 76 millions years old, of a Tyrannosaurus was found.  The discovery was made in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National monument and the fossils were airlifted to the Natural History Museum.  Now the future of this land is in jeopardy..

I started writing in the fall of 2017 to get away from the news and find the positives in the world.  In December, President Trump declared over two million acres of this publicly protected land in southern Utah to be open to development.  The monuments that were cut back were Grand Staircase-Escalante, by half of its current size.  The other monument cut was Bears Ears National Monument, by over 85 percent.  A region rich with fossils that have never discovered anywhere else in the world will soon disappear for mining and oil.  Other areas include ancient paintings of the washed away Native American history prior the arrival of the Mormons.  All of this land is to be used for resources which are not even in demand.  What are we doing?

I’ve heard that only 4% of the land in the United States are national parks.  It might be bullshit, but there is no reason why more land should not be protected and wild.  The fight for this land isn't over, but I can tell you first hand from driving through these regions and Red Rock Canyon, you need to see this place before it is gone.  Maybe Trump wants to be the final conqueror of the few wild places left.  Maybe he doesn't care about it and just wants to reverse anything President Obama did.  It does no use to try to think like him.  The truth is a large amount of people do care and the fight is not over yet.

Following the museum, we meet a friend, who I met when I was in Japan, at her house.  Stacy is a die hard Real Salt Lake soccer fan and helped get us tickets in the fan section.  When we pulled in the parking lot at the game I was impressed with the tailgating scene and atmosphere inside the stadium.  Having no professional soccer team in Wisconsin, I am officially a Real Salt Lake fan now too.  This part of my trip to Salt Lake City removed some of my personal stereotypes of the city as a whole.

I have found a lot of stereotypes and prejudices when talking about the Mormon religion.  Mormons have faced ridicule and unwelcomeness in many parts of the world.  I have been asked by others if I have observed any polygamy.  Polygamy, having more than one wife, is not recognized by the official Latter Day Saints Church.  It has been said that it accounts for less than 5% of the religion.  However from my observations in the city, national parks, even an aviary… I saw what I believe to be one man with multiple wives and lots of children.  Even though I believe the amount is dramaticized in the media, there really is some polygamy being practiced.  I later try the local and wildly popular Polygamy Porter by Wasatch Brewery; Utah craft brews are now popular throughout the United States.

When I talk about drinks, I usually talk about food, so I will switch gears and give you some of the highlights. The Sugar House district has a variety of trendy shops and restaurants and worth exploring.  My favorite restaurant was Red Iguana.  They have two locations with long lines due to the popularity.  I was really impressed with their signature mole dishes.  Mole is a Mexican sauce combination made of nuts, herbs, spices, and peppers.  When I visited in the spring of 2015, my wife was craving sweets so we headed over to Ruby Sugar Snaps, a speciality bakery featuring a sweet variety of cookies to satisfied her sweet tooth.  One thing you may notice on some menus is Mormon funeral potatoes.  A common side dish at, yes, funerals, they are also a typical side and resemble my grandma's potatoes dish.  There's a large celebration on July 24th called Pioneer Days.  This is a huge celebration marking the arrival of the Mormon settlers to Utah.  However an alternative has been made to coincide with the official state holiday where people eat pie and drink beer.. Pie and Beer day!

One of my brother and sister-in-law’s favorite spots is in Silver Lake, BIg Cottonwood Canyon.  A spot where they have seen many moose, their favorite animal. My wife and I visited this area for the first time in March of 2016. It was amazing how much snow covered the frozen lake as we snowshoed on the four feet of fresh powder snow.  The elevation and great conditions make this a skier or snowboarder’s paradise.  Seven months later my brother and his wife got married near this lake.  The contrast in weather, made an incredible change in scenery.

Utah  is like nowhere else in the world.