Colorado 2021 – 4

Our next stop was in Provo, Utah. We camped near Utah Lake and the cottonwoods were in FULL bloom. Cotton puffs were everywhere! Most of the Utah units had specially made screens to cover the A/C units and vents. (I will try to avoid the cottonwood season on future trips). Nevertheless, the SR189 Canyon leading to Park City was gorgeous. This wide spot in the river was loaded with trout and the fishermen were pulling them out like crazy. The creek came out of Deer Creek Reservoir, located on miles 7,8,9 and 10 on the Utah Valley Marathon route. There was a “No Ice Skating” sign posted, probably for late last season.
This is the canyon that the Utah Valley races are run in. It is an absolutely great place to run with a vertical drop from 6,200 feet at the start, about four miles above Wallsburg to 4,535 feet at the finish in downtown Provo.
Bridal Veil Falls was located on the route, at milepost 16. It is getting weaker as the summer progresses.
We returned to one of my favorite bookstores in the historic section of downtown Provo.
Just down the street was a Peruvian diner which had Inca Cola! I learned to really crave the stuff while in Peru and it is hard to find in the states. Kinda like heaven, good books and Inca Cola!
After the runs (Cathy and I both ran on Friday and I ran again on Saturday), we took a drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon to the ski resorts of Alta and Snowbird.
The scenery on top of the Wasatch was incredible.
We stopped to take a closer look at this beaver dam. It was located pretty close to the road. Where you see beaver dams, you sometimes find
a Utah moose!
Near the top of the mountain, we drove into the little historic town of Alta. This pond is a counterpoint for the town. There were several small creeks running into this pond and there were plenty of trout visible. If we were here a little later in the day, I would bet it would have been overrun with either moose or elk.
This is one of the creeks entering the pond.
We continued on past the townsite and as we neared the actual pass, we veered off to a side road. We took it to the end and had to turn around. We met a snowmachine driver here and he told us how he used to climb this hill with the machine. We tried to identify a car (in pieces) at the bottom of the hillside and he told me there were several more in the trees and brush at the bottom. I am glad we decided to turn around.
Coming down from the mountain we could see this rock formation in the distance. It looked interesting and we decided to stop near it to explore.
I missed the wide spot in the road (turnout) so we had to backtrack a bit but were able to park near the formation. There was another couple at the site but they both stayed at the bottom. Hmmm, time to climb. I went up the right side of these sharp rocks and made it to the top rock. The view was great from up there.
I passed this unique formation of rock, apparently an area of different material, compressed between layers of the sandstone and laid sideways when the mountains rose.
I did see some neat, multicolored striations and layering in the rock.
I believe this is evidence of the ancient seabed. The wind action on the sea left distinct marks in the sands which hardened into the sandstone. There was some signage at this site indicating that this was an ancient seabed, about 700 million years old. I picked up a small shale shard for Jason.
That’s Cathy down at the bottom trying to figure out where I went. She made the wise decision not to attempt scrambling up the sharp rocks. I called to her to look up the hill so I could take a very detailed photo of her from my vantage point. It was starting to get late and we decided to start back to our camp in Provo before it got really dark in the canyon.

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