Summer at Snowbird

Our local activities passes expired a few days after we got home from our trip so we decided to go on one more adventure that Saturday.  We drove up to Snowbird Ski Resort, considered one of the (or perhaps the) best ski resort in Utah.  Our passes were to ride the tram to the top of Hidden Peak (elevation 11,000 feet) and back down again.  Ben and I had been looking forward to taking the kids on this little adventure for a while so I'm really glad we were able to make it happen before the passes expired.

This is the first interesting thing we saw after we parked: the river running quite high and fast.  We had so much precipitation this winter and spring!  And in the green space right beside this river we saw some new-to-us animals.  They were large rodents, almost like beavers, but not quite.  We heard from another visitor that these things were called marmots.  Pictures to follow.

The tram ride was so cool!  It was so cool to look out at the still-very-snowy mountains and just appreciate the beautiful scenery and the distant views of the Salt Lake Valley.  It was neat to see where people had recently been skiing and snowboarding too... in mid-June.

Can you see the ski-tracks?

At the top!

View of the valley.

I don't know what I was thinking dressing the kids in shorts and sandals.  I knew that the mountains were still snowy but for some reason I didn't think this mountain would be snowy.  I pictured us doing some hiking and exploring once we reached the top.  Thank goodness Ben suggested we all at least bring jackets.  (Unfortunately, he ended up forgetting his jacket, so he wrapped up in a thin blanket we keep in the trunk of the van.)  While it was a cool 65° at the resort, once we got up to the top of Hidden Peak the temperature dropped 20°.  Literally.  And there wasn't much hiking and exploring to do, especially in our sandals.  So we took pictures (of everyone except Eliza apparently) and got some hot chocolate in the restaurant, took in the views for a while, then headed back down on the tram, spotting a few real-live skiers as we rode.

As we were leaving the resort, heading back to our car in the parking lot, we passed the green space beside the river again, and this time there were even more marmots.  About 10 of them.  And they were not shy.  They came so close apoproaching Jack that I actually got a little nervous.  But there were no bites and we thought the experience was super cool, especially now that we know about an animal we'd previously never heard of.

Such a great little adventure!  And it made me laugh to think about all the time we'd had in the Southeast during the previous two weeks (at the beach or at the pool) soaking up the sun, and then we were in Utah for just a few days before we were up on a mountain, drinking hot chocolate and trudging through snow.