A Salt Lake City Craft Beer Experience
Sightseeing
After a wonderful two weeks in Park City, I spent 3 days exploring Salt Lake City. Interestingly, the area that is actually called ‘Salt Lake City’ is smaller than I expected and formally reaches until just below downtown. On the map SLC looks huge, but it only has a population of 210.000. The larger urban area has a population of appr. 1.8 million. So RoHA for example is still in SLC, but SaltFire is in South Salt Lake. Getting around the city is easy and inexpensive. There is a Trax light rail that runs from the airport to downtown and takes only 15 minutes. There are several Trax lines in downtown, which includes a free zone where you don’t have to pay any fare. To go further afield there are buses available. A day pass costs $5 and can be bought online.
Salt Lake City also has a few sights that are worthwhile and of course plenty of nature in the area for hiking and daytrips. One of the highlights for me was walking up Ensign Peak for a spectacular view of the city. As you can see from the photo below, the city has few highrises. The other – more obvious – landmark is Great Salt Lake. I took a tour out to Antelope Island State Park to get a closer look. To be honest there is not that much to see, but the tour guide was a lot of fun and made the trip worthwhile. I did get to see live owls and bison! We also learned a lot from our tour guide about the Latter-Day Saints (i.e. Mormon church). He himself had left the church, so we got some special insights. You can also learn more about LDS at Temple Square. The Temple itself was under construction when I was there, so I didn’t get to visit. To get to know the city and its history, a visit to Utah State Capitol is recommended, located on a hill in one of the city’s oldest neigborhoods. The state’s symbol is everywhere you look and it won’t take long to guess that Utah is also known as the Beehive state. There are also a few museums and some shopping, so plenty to keep you occupied for a few days!
Chances are that you are just passing through on your way to one of the gorgeous Utah national parks, like Bryce Canyon or Capitol Reef. Park City has a lot to offer as well. I thoroughly enjoyed my summer trip there. It is probably best known as a ski resort, but there is a lot of biking, hiking and stuff to do there and in the surrounding area. I even made it to Wyoming for a beer at Suds Brothers Brewery. But that is a story for another time.
