All Things Olympic in Utah

We always enjoy watching the Olympics on television, so of course we like visiting places that have hosted the Olympic Games. The Winter Olympics were in the area surrounding Salt Lake City in 2002. They hosted 2,399 athletes from 77 nations that competed in all types of winter sports for 17 days. Last year, this city found out they had been selected to host them again in 2034. So we spent some time touring some of the locations that have witnessed--and will witness again--the drama of the winter games.

Our first stop was Soldier Hollow Nordic Center. We found these tall banner signs at all the Olympic locations.

The signs include the name of the venue on one side, and then pictures of athletes that have competed in their sport there. This 1,280-acre venue hosted the cross country skiing and shooting events in 2002.

We will be seeing the Soldier Hollow Nordic Center building again in 2034. It has already been determined this is the best place for these endurance events that require a flatter surface.

The area around the nordic center features trails where the cross country skiers were practicing this summer. They use long skis with wheels on the bottom to train in the summer. We were sorry to find that we missed the competition they had earlier in the day. To walk the trails one must purchase a trail pass, and the visitor center was closed by the time we visited.

It was fun to find pictures taken right here in 2002 that featured the skiers participating in these Olympic events. They were skiing with rifles on their backs . .  .

because part of the competition was hitting targets along the course of the race.

Our next stop was Park City, Utah, which hosts many of the downhill ski venues. This is a ski town, with mountains adorned with ski lifts surrounding it. During the summer it was a sleepy tourist town with restaurants spilling into the streets and boutiques and other shops tempting visitors. Getting there early in the morning meant that most of the tourists were still sleeping and the streets were empty.

The Olympic banner in Park City indicates that snow boarding was one of the Olympic sports hosted here.

Our next stop was the Utah Olympic Park, where many more events were held. We signed up for the $15 tour to learn more about it.

While we waited for our tour time, we watched the ski jumpers practicing. In the summer they can use the facility's ski jumps that end in the pool.

Water is flowing down the ramps, making them slippery like snow. Jumpers of all ages were doing flips and spins off the ramps. The water was a more forgiving surface to land than a frozen mountain.

Hopefully they completed their rotation and entered the pool in the same posture they hope to land on the ski hill. Then they have to swim to the edge of the pool with those long skis still attached--another athletic feat to master.

The first part of our tour included the bob sled track, so Denisa was trying on a bob sled for size in the visitor center.

Our tour was led by a popular guide--Carl Roepke. We soon found that he was a past U.S. Olympian, and was raising two sons that are also aspiring to be Olympians. He obviously has a passion for the games, and he loves to share that with his tour groups. He explained how the ice is carefully layered in paper-thin layers on the cement bobsled track that he was standing inside.

Even when it is very cold outside, the winter sun can melt that ice and cause bumps and creases that aren't acceptable for bob sled racing. So the whole track has awnings that can be unfurled to shade the track on sunny winter days.

The olympic park offers a "bobsled experience" where visitors can purchase a ride on a wheeled sled in the summer. No one had purchased that expensive ticket this morning, but Carl had connections. He managed to have a loaded sled swoosh by us at 70 mph while we were watching.

The other two races that use an iced track are the luge (top) and the skeleton (bottom).

Thanks to our lovely models, we can show the proper way to ride both. Mark was on the luge, where riders are on their backs and go down the track feet first. Luge athletes start the race in a seated position, and then lay down flat as soon as possible.

Skeleton riders start with a sprint down the track before jumping face-down onto their sleds. They race with their chins very close to the ice, flying head first down the track.

Carl's sport was the luge. He was a member of U.S. Luge Team from 1983-88 and was the national master's champion in 2008 and 2009. He also told us that his oldest son starts college this fall, but will spend part of his first semester in Lake Placid, New York, training with the Olympic Skeleton Team. Carl took us to the very top of the course to show us the steep gate where luge and skeleton athletes start their races. He also shared with us that he has attended every one of the winter Olympic games as an English announcer since 2002. He had already been invited to work at the next Winter Olympics in 2026.

While we were shuttled around to these different sites in a van, the tour involved some walking and quite a few steps. This last stop took us through the Olympic entrance that the ski jumpers will see.

This is the tallest ski jump in the world at 7,310 feet.  There are only two ski jumps like this in the United States--this one and the one in Lake Placid (which we have also visited). This is where Carl's youngest son, Auggie hangs out. As we looked down that long and steep jump, it was hard to imagine riding with your skis pointed straight down and jumping at the end. Yikes!

After that very informative tour, we spent some time in the Olympic Museum that was free to all visitors. They had samples of the medals made for the 2002 Olympics.

They also had pictures and props from the Olympics held in Utah. This white bison was part of the opening ceremony performance that kicked off the 2002 Winter Olympics. Manipulated by a host of puppeteers inside the massive bison, it was just one of the wild west animals that filled the stadium in the "Land of Enchantment" show.

That over-sized bison puppet head was hanging from the wall in the museum, almost too big to fit into the camera lens.

The Olympic Center offers lots of memorabilia, and some hands-on exhibits. Visitors can choose from many different backgrounds to snap a picture at the visitor center. 

Before we left the center, we asked about the ski jump competition that Carl had mentioned during our tour. The public relations person explained that the tickets were $25 each. But then she also explained that they had been given some complimentary tickets if we were interested. We're always interested in free!

Our next stop was the Olympic Cauldron Park at the University of Utah football stadium. It was here that the Olympic flame burned for 16 days in February, 2002. Besides finding another olympic banner, we also found a fine collection of photos from the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.

After spending the rest of the day in Salt Lake City, we returned to the Olympic Center to watch the Springer Tourney ski jump competition with our free tickets. This is the 26th annual event, that includes a week of training sessions with mentoring from the U.S. national team. While we had seen the tallest ski jump from the top on our tour, this was our first look from the bottom. It's interesting to see that they have already emblazoned the 2034 olympics date on the smaller jump on the left.

In order to make the plastic surface slippery like snow, the sprinklers were started as it got close to the time for the competition to begin. That was the sign for the jumpers to head up the chair lift to the top of the jump.

We thought it was interesting to watch all the jumps, but we were especially watching Carl's son, Auggie. We've learned that the outfits they wear are regulated. They can't be too loose, because that would give them wings that would help them fly through the air better than the other jumpers.

With the binoculars, we could see that the jumpers had started arriving at the top, along with the coaches that were checking them in.

Their view from the top shows that they have several different movable benches to sit on before they zoom down that very steep ramp. Most ski jump competitions award the most points for landing the furthest down the ramp. But this is a unique "target competition" that rewards precision over raw length. Each participant must spin a wheel that will land on a value between 70 to 135 meters. Then they are awarded points based on how close they get to their uniquely spun target landing distance. If they spin 70 meters, they would want to start from a lower bench because they don't want to fly far down the ramp at the end. If they spin 135 meters, they'll need to start at one of the benches closest to the top to give them time to build up the most speed.

This competition allows skiers of all ages to compete together. We were surprised to see some jumpers that looked to be around 12, all the way up to adults. We watched as the girls and boys flew off the end of the ramp, and became airborne. Keeping their skis closer together and under their bodies will help them fly further if they got one of those longer jump lengths.

With our untrained eyes we can't tell for sure, but we think Auggie's form looks pretty good.

It was also hard for our untrained eyes to tell exactly where they landed on the hill on the right.

Our good camera is pretty good at focusing on flying animals, and also flying ski jumpers.

Based on the facial expression, we're thinking that Auggie wasn't thrilled with his latest jump. After going full speed down a steep mountain, the jumpers have a surprisingly small amount of space to come to a stop before plowing into the crowd.

They did three rounds of jumping, and during lulls in the competition we were entertained by the Lone Buffalo Band. Rumor has it that an old couple traveling through the area even did some dancing at the ski jump competition.

Another activity available to tourists was riding an inner tube down the smaller landing ramp. You can get a better idea of how big those ramps are when you see the smaller ramp on the left with an adult riding on a tube down it. From the screams we heard from the riders, it must be a thrilling ride.

At the end of the evening, cash awards were given to the jumpers that came closest to their random jump lengths. First place was awarded $1,250, and he was only a total of six meters off from his three targets. That may sound like a big pay-out for a single competition. But the expenses to participate in these extreme nordic sports is very high. These future Olympians need all the help they can get to fulfill their dreams of representing the United States one day.

We've had a good day of exploring all things Olympic in Utah. We feel like we've rubbed elbows with past and future Olympians, and spent a little time understanding more about their world.

We crossed into Utah!

We left Meadows campground and made the steep descent out of Rabbit Ear Pass and into the town of Steamboat Springs. We made a Walmart stop for groceries--our first of this trip. Then we drove through the sagebrush-covered hills of western Colorado fighting an 8-mile-per-hour head wind that brought our gas mileage down to 13.6 miles per gallon. It was a three-hour trip that saw signs like "no gas for 67 miles." Heck, it should have said, "no people for 67 miles." We drove right past the Dinosaur National Monument because we toured there in 2019. But we knew we were in dinosaur country when we stopped for lunch on the Stegosaurus Parkway in Dinosaur, Colorado. We ordered a half-pound Slopper at a little cafe at the corner of Brontosaurus Street and Ceratosaurus Avenue. 

Then we crossed the Utah border--our fourth state on this two-month adventure.

We were on our way to our full hook-up site near Jennings, Utah. There was only a post office and a visitor center in this tiny town. But more importantly, our campground had a laundromat. When we were traveling full-time in our motor home, we had our own washer and dryer on board. But now in our tiny trailer, we get to "experience" laundromats. We have scheduled stays in campgrounds with laundromats every week or so on this trip, to wash our dirty laundry.

After putting away all that laundry, we were on the road the next morning--driving deeper into Utah. After 123 miles, we arrived at Lodgepole--a National Forest Campground. The tall trees once again made our little trailer look even smaller. 

We have to give a shout-out to the campground manager, Crystal. She saw us coming, and even met us to offer information about loading up water. The drought has resulted in this campground turning off the bathrooms and water spigots during the week. But she let us know that both were available to us today. Whew! With our smaller tanks and lighter-weight trailer, we were trying to not travel with water on board. She also offered us our choice of several sites, instead of the one we reserved on-line. She went above and beyond what we had found at most campgrounds.

We had little shade at our camp site, but the weather was nicely cool at this high elevation. At 7,200 feet, we had highs in the 70s, and lows in the 40s. This was another good test of our solar system and our lithium battery as we settled in for a three-day stay near Salt Lake City with no hook-ups. On our first day, our batteries were 100% charged after a good sunny day. We were also 100% glad that things were still going well as we crossed into Utah.

Should we hike the Wyoming Loop or Rabbit Ears Trail?

We were saying good-bye to Ranger Lakes Campground after four nights at State Forest State Park. We got up in time to hike one more circle around the lakes before we headed to our next destination. We have enjoyed our six days on highway 14, but we found that there are no gas stations, no cell phone signal, and no groceries along this 99-mile stretch of road. So we were almost on empty when we pulled into Walden, Colorado, for gasoline and lunch. Then we were on our way to our next camp site at Meadows Campground in the national forest.

The drive included going down one mountain, through the high desert around Walden, and then back up to Rabbit Ears pass at 9,426 feet. This is one of the most easily recognizable passes in Colorado. An unusual two-ear-shaped rock formation can be seen from the highway, and Denisa tried to take a picture of it as we drove by.

Meadows Campground is a forest service campground. We were glad to get the half-price senior rate, because $26 was too much to pay for a spot in the woods with no hook-ups. Granted, it's a beautiful place with tall trees that absolutely made our trailer look tiny.

Our welcome into the campground was a sign warning us of bear activity in the area. One of our neighbors told us she saw the bear from her trailer last night, and had bear tracks next to her van this morning.

The dumpsters in the campground had the usual bear bars that hold the tops down securely. That keeps most bears out of the trash. But we had never seen dumpsters with padlocks with four-digit codes needed to open them. We guess this bear was pretty good at opening dumpsters, but hadn't yet learned how to open a padlock.

We found a hike leading from our campground loop, and took a little hike with our new neighbor. That gave us a couple more miles of exercise before we called it a day. The trees in this area were so tall, and you can barely see Denisa standing beside one in the picture below.

But the most exciting part of our new campground with all its tall trees, was that we were once again in AT&T cell phone service area. We got to send texts and got FaceTime calls from both our sons. Yay!

We were at 9,300 feet in elevation, so it was a delightfully cool 46 degrees at night, with daytime highs in the mid-70s. That's our kind of July weather! There was also great hiking in the Routt National Forest that surrounded us. We found three different hikes that interested us, and our hardest chore was picking just one. Should we do the Wyoming Loop (which is longer but we love loop hikes), or Rabbit Ears trail (which goes to that cool rock formation we could see from the highway)? We finally decided on the Wyoming Loop Trail, mostly because we had hiked Rabbit Ears 6 years ago. We were on the trail by 8:00 the next morning.

You will probably get tired of pictures of wildflowers, but we can't remember seeing more abundant flowers anywhere! 

This was a 6.8 mile loop with only 790 feet in elevation gain. That's a pretty easy hike by our usual standards. We soon had views of Dumont Lake. The picnic tables overlooking the lake were almost hidden by the wildflowers. Mark was sitting on the table, because the benches were covered with flowers.

As we gained elevation, the flowers didn't stop. We were soon high above Dumont Lake.

All these wildflower pictures were taken miles apart. It was like strolling through a never-ending botanical garden on steroids.

We were definitely wandering through God's wonders on this hike! We decided that we made a good choice on this hike, even though it's not the most popular trail. We only saw a a handful of other hikers. One of them was a young woman on her ninth day of hiking the "Colorado Trail"--a 567 mile hike between Denver and Durango which passes through some of the best of the Rocky Mountains. We didn't take her picture, but we did take more pictures of the wildflowers she got to enjoy today.

This trail is also part of the Continental Divide trail, and we saw some of the trail identifiers on the trees.

We met Huck, who was hiking the entire Continental Divide Trail. He was in a great mood, and greeted us cheerfully. When we asked what mile of the trail he was on, he thought a while and then said, "about 14 . . . " With such a low number of miles, we thought he had just started. Then he finished his statement, "about 14 HUNDRED miles." He started this trail in May in Mexico, so he had been on the trail for over two months. 

The Continental Divide Trail stretches from Mexico to Canada and is almost 3,000 miles in length. Later, we would see this sign in town. It looks like Huck was about half-way on his journey, as he was 1,436 mile from Mexico and 1,441 from Canada.

To put that in perspective, if you walked 20 miles every day at high altitude going up and down mountains, it would take you 5.5 months to complete the trail. We think people that hike these long trails are amazing, but it isn't anything we want to do ourselves. Huck waved and was back on the trail just like that. Did we mention that the wildflowers were beautiful?

We hit the top of the Wyoming Loop after about 4.8 miles, and we were heading back down towards the pickup. We were still taking pictures of some beautiful wildflowers that looked like they came out of a florist shop.

When we had hiked 6.5 miles, we got the wild idea that we could do our second choice hike too. If you look at the digital map on the All-trails app, we were at 10,000 feet in elevation at that time. If we could stay at that elevation and hike across the mountain for a mile, we could hit the trail leading up to the unique rock formation known as Rabbit Ears. So after hiking 6.4 miles, we veered off of the loop trail in search of the Rabbit Ears Trail. Our All trails app beeped, and asked "Wrong turn? Looks like you've taken a detour from your planned route." Well yes, we had.

We thought we could follow the topographical map to keep from going up and then down in elevation. But that map didn't know what was in that mile in front of us. Our detour started in a beautiful meadow, where it was easy to hike a consistent elevation.

But then we headed into the forest, where we had to traverse over fallen logs, and around big trees. There was some snow, but we couldn't let that get in our way.

When life gives you snow, make snow angels.

But the hardest section was through a bog filled with pussy willows that were so thick we couldn't see our feet or even each other. We were trying to keep our feet dry as we dodged the water through the willows. Was this a good idea?

We were glad to finally find the second trail after a mile of slogging through all kinds of obstacles. We were not glad to find that we had just joined to the Rabbit Ears trail at the point that it turned into a crazy steep trail. Now we remembered the trail description, "pleasant until the last mile when it turns sharply uphill." It was about this time that we met a jeep on the trail. What?!? Riding up this section feels like they were cheating. 

It was the kind of up-hill hiking where we made ourselves go 100 steps before we had to stop and catch our breath. We must be getting older, because it was so steep we often made it only 60 steps. Granted, we were at 10,000 feet in elevation and that made it even harder.

But we did prevail, and we have pictures to prove that we made it to the top of Rabbit Ears. Here we are, standing in front of one of the ears.

There was only one other couple at the top, and we traded taking pictures for each other.

The top of Rabbit Ears was 10,589 feet, and we worked hard for every one of those feet.  

After that tough hiking, it's a rough rock scramble to earn the right to stand between the two ears at the top of the mountain. Here's the side view . . .

and the wide view to give you more of a feel for how big things are at the top of the mountain.

It was crazy that this rock was so big and so noticeable from far away,  but we couldn't see it most of this hike because we were right under it. It wasn't until we were over a mile back down the trail that we could look back and see those ears again.

And of course, on this hike, we would have to include a picture with wildflowers in the foreground, and the ears in the background.

We are sorry to keep including so many pictures of wildflowers. But they were the most amazing display we have seen, and they were like this throughout the entire hike!

Okay, so we're not sorry for including so many wildflower pictures. But we have to say that we didn't carry as much water as we should have for this unexpectedly long hike. So we were sipping instead of gulping water on the trip back down the mountain.

By the time we got back to the pickup, we had hiked a total of 11.5 miles with an elevation gain of 1,499 feet. Whew! The other stats for the day included: we spent 6 hours and 38 minutes on the trail, we burned 2,597 calories, and we saw 474,318,674 wildflowers.  When you have to decide between the Wyoming Loop hike or the Rabbit Ears hike, and you have that much beauty around you, we recommend that you take both!