Our trip to Salt Lake City was primarily to try out the skiing in some of the nearby Wasatch mountain ski areas. We arrived on New Year's Eve in time to hang out at a downtown microbrewery for most of the festivities. The following day we went up to Snowbird ski area just a little southeast of the city. It was cold, windy and the visibility was horrible so we took no pictures. The second day of skiing was beautiful and clear however as we drove north to Snowbasin ski area near the city of Ogden. The 2000 Olympic downhill events were held here and we tried out that run just for good measure. Satisfied that we were definitely not Olympic quality skiers we stuck to the intermediate slopes after that.

After skiing we visited downtown Ogden which has a nice western sort of feel to it. This picture is taken downtown just outside the microbrewery (yes, it is a theme) looking towards the Wasatch Mountains.

In between skiing we spent a day in downtown Salt Lake City, mostly at the LDS family history center doing some genealogy work. We took a lunch break to explore Temple Square. This is Assembly Hall which nowadays is used only for special occasions.

The enormous Mormon temple doesn't really dominate the skyline of Salt Lake City anymore but it is still quite impressive. Only church members are allowed inside although a few other buildings in Temple Square can be toured.

On the secular side of things, Salt Lake City is also the state capital and there's a nice view of the city from the hill this building sits on.

We drove out to Park City on our third day of skiing and the Canyons ski area. Canyons is truly a vast resort covering several mountains in their entirety. This is the main base lodge where we started and finished the day but never visited in between those times. It was yet another sunny day and we spent a fair amount of time in the woods between slopes trying to improve our powder skiing.

Again after skiing we visited the local town, this time Park City. It's a little bit difficult to park in town and it's a tad pricey compared to other Utah ski areas but on the whole it's a charming little town in the middle of nowhere.

Our last day of skiing was at Alta, also found to the southeast of Salt Lake City. Alta has the distinction of not allowing snowboarders on the mountain. Our official opinion on that is that there are good and bad skiers just like there are good and bad boarders. Either way, it's a nice area tucked way up in a canyon.

This is the view towards the mouth of the canyon from Alta. Driving back down into Salt Lake City affords a fantastic view of the valley and the Oquirrh mountains to the west.