Colleen's Fall/Winter Visit (Two Seasons in 3 Days!)

A few weeks ago, Colleen came to visit for the weekend. Our first visitor! It gave us a chance to take pictures of some more sites around downtown SLC. Here's a shot of City Hall.




And another.

Here's SLC's very cool city library.

There's a walkway that goes all the way to the top of the library, from which there are some great views of the city and mountains.

Another shot of the library from near the top of the walkway....

Inside the library.... in addition to the traditional library services, there are also a few little shops. Pretty cool!

Here's a view of the city and mountains from the top of the library.

A little more to the northwest... This is at about 11 a.m.

And this is Kate and Dave at about 1 p.m. after it suddenly snowed!!!

Here's what the city looks like covered in snow!

Another one.

Chihuahua - not actual size!

Snow covered mountains!

More.

And more!

More still.

Last one of the mountains!

The three of us in front of some snow covered trees! Despite the major shift in the weather, it was a great weekend and we had a lot of fun with Colleen. Look how happy we are!

Finally, check out the winter hat Dave made for Kate! It will keep her very very warm all winter!

SLC at Dusk

Driving around SLC at dusk can yield some very cool views. Here's a few we grabbed with the new camera, though it's still somewhat difficult to get a clear shot as it gets darker.

Here's the temple as you come down First Ave.



The sun sets behind the Oquirrh Mountains to the west of the city...

Here's the State Capitol with the city in the background

Just north of the Capitol, here's the west side of the city. You can see the Oquirrhs a little, and the Great Salt Lake is thinly visible too.

Another shot, but a little more zoom.

Turning slightly farther to the south - no more sunset, but you can see the outline of the Oquirrhs behind the lights of the city.

Another shot of the Oquirrhs - you can see a bit more of the Great Salt Lake.

Here's the front of the Capitol as you come up State Street.

It was getting darker, but we were able to get a few more shots of the city - this time from I street at the top of "The Avenues" not far from our place.

And another.....

And one more, this time trying out fireworks mode. In case you didn't realize, you can click the pictures so they are much bigger. If you click this one, you can see the Temple off to the right...

Next time, we'll try to go a little earlier to get some better shots that don't blur the lights quite so much.

The Leaves They Are A Changin'

Today we hiked to the "Living Room" in the foothills above Salt Lake City. It has a great view overlooking the city and the Salt Lake Valley, but the changing leaves added a bonus to the day.

Here's a shot as we started up the trail...


The trail was somewhat rocky, but not too bad. Here's a picture of a rocky section of the hillside with some trees growing out from the face.

Mountains in the distance, while the colors change....

You can see some of the trees have already turned orange.

Another shot of the mountains in the distance.

We accidentally went off the main trail (again) and ended up taking a much more difficult path that included crawling / clinging / climbing over semi-steep rock faces like this one. Dave takes a breather...

This is one of the hills we had to climb OVER to get to the Living Room. It was a bit of a challenge.... we took the easy way down!

A view over Dave's shoulder at the Living Room. As you can see, people have taken long flat rocks and created a Flinstones like set-up with tables and chairs. It was actually pretty comfortable and the view was great.

Here's a couple shots of the rock recliners / sofas / tables.

Now you understand why they call it the Living Room!

A hazy shot of the city from the comfort of the Living Room.....

Kate lounges....

A shot of the valley over Kate's shoulder. This shot also gives you a better view of what we had to climb over to get here. These peaks are really two or three separate hills over which we climbed up and down and up and down, finally reaching our destination. It looks far less treacherous from this side though - the other side was much rockier!

Here we are!

And as we headed back down the trail, we took a quick picture of ourselves in front of this beautiful tree! Fall is here!

All in all it was a very fun hike, despite being more difficult than we intended. Thanks again to Mark and Tricia for the hiking book!

Adam's Canyon

Last weekend, we hiked into Adam's Canyon, outside of Ogden, UT. It was a difficult hike, since we are somewhat out of shape, but it was beautiful. We started at the bottom of a steep hillside, climbed up, and then down into the canyon. This is just outside the mouth of the canyon.


Here's a nice shot of the leaves changing colors up on the mountain side beyond the canyon.

Holmes Creek runs through the canyon, starting from the waterfall at the back (which was our ultimate destination). Filled with rocks, it is quite a peaceful sight. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of veering onto the Bonneville Shoreline Trail for a few miles. But we managed to get back on trail eventually.

Here's a nice one, definitely while we were looking back (since the trail was uphill most of the way to the waterfall).

Rocks jutting out from the mountainside, as viewed from the canyon.

And a view from within the canyon...

Finally, we came to the waterfall - a good reward for all of our hard work.

From the trailhead to the waterfall, we walked two miles (not including our sidetrack of at least another 2 miles on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail). The elevation climbed from 4,800 feet to 6,100 feet, meaning we walked mostly uphill rising about 1,300 feet in the process. So naturally, we took a picture in front of the waterfall.... but the kid we asked to help didn't get much of it for us!

Looking out from the waterfall..... we take a rest.

And now, back through the canyon another 1.8 miles to the car....

Thanks to Mark and Tricia Grebel for giving us "60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Salt Lake City," which is where we found out about this hike.