Salt Lake City

One of the many interesting and irrational things about the people I work with is their disdain for Salt Lake City. Now, granted, these are people who choose to spend at least at least 8 days out of every 14 wandering around in the desert, pooping in holes, and spicing their mac and cheese with a few tablespoons of sand. However, I still find it confusing when they say things like, “Ugh, I have to go up to Salt Lake for a couple of days, I hate it up there”, or “I could never live in Salt Lake, it’s so congested and dirty, I would go insane”.

When these things are said to my face I simply nod sadly along with the rest and say things like, “Yeah, what a cesspool”. However, in my private moments I find myself wondering if these people have ever been to Salt Lake, and if they have, if they have ever been to any other American city, because the truth is this; Salt Lake is fucking gorgeous.

People like to call Phoenix, the city I grew up in, “The Valley of the Sun”, but as far as I can tell its not so much as valley as a flat place interspersed between randomly placed lumpy bits. Salt Lake City is a true valley, with stunning snow capped, green mountains that come right up to the city’s edge. It is objectively beautiful.

Other virtues of Salt Lake City:

1. The speed limit on the freeways is 70 MPH. 70!
2. Contrary to popular belief there are many coffee shops and bars.
3. Lots of people are Mormon.
4. Lots of Mormon people are very friendly.
5. Most of the Mormons there assume that you are either (a) already Mormon or (b) are a lost cause for conversion, and so generally leave you alone.
6. The streets are laid out in a foolproof numbered grid.
7. So many discount outdoor gear stores!
8. Ridiculously easy access to climbing, backpacking, mountain biking, skiing, canyoneering, fishing, etc.

Now, the Salt Lake itself is pretty disgusting; it’s an enormous, shallow puddle filled with biting black bugs. The citizens of SLC have wisely not built anything of interest within 20 miles of that actual cesspool.

However, perhaps even more wisely, the only BLM land in the area is right on the edge of the lake. The effect of this is forcing everyone wanting to camp for free (me) around the city to have a very bad time swatting bugs and smelling brine all night. And yet somehow this seems, at least outwardly, to oppositely effect the very specific type of person I described above. We all sit around a small fire, hoping the smoke will blow in our face and relieve us momentarily from the bugs and say, “Isn’t this nice? Thank god we’re not in that disgusting city over there”.