I love Utah for tons of reasons. There are always four very distinct seasons we go through every year. Occasionally one of them only lasts a couple weeks, but they're always there.
We have awesome mountains surrounding us, filled with some of the best resorts in the country. Within a half hour of where I live there are dozens of hiking trails, caves, mines, wildlife, lakes and waterfalls to be found. Some of the best rock climbing areas in the country. One of the premiere ice climbing canyons in the world. One of the best fly fishing rivers in the country. Tons of outdoors opportunities from mountain biking to atv's.
Within a few hours there is lots more. Salt Lake is about half an hour away if you're into bigger cities. There are a dozen National Parks within a few hours drive, a few of which are among the most beautiful and best in the country. There's everything from the bonneville salt flats (seen in tons of videos and movies, even though you may not realize it) and the basin and range desert in the west, to the grandiose and beautiful (and highest east/west running range in the country) Uintah Mountains. You know those pretty images of high mountain lakes? That's what the Uintah's look like. And those lakes are everywhere up there.
There's one of the most Native American art decorated canyons at Nine Mile Canyon about an hour away, and it's spectacular; literally hundreds, if not thousands, of images carved or painted in the rocks. Beautiful slickrock country in the south, which includes some of the best biking and four-wheeling areas in the county.
There's also easy access to most of the west. Vegas is only about 6 hours away by car. Denver and southern Cali are both about 10. Within the same time frame there are quite possibly hundreds of national and state parks, as well as all sorts of tiny not well known but still amazing areas to explore.
Numbuk wrote: Oh, and I am also grateful that natural weather disasters are rare here. Hurricanes, obviously never happen. Because we're surrounded by mountain ranges, tornadoes are an extreme rarity. They happen maybe once a decade or less. The only thing folks here fear are earthquakes. I should say, "THE Earthquake." We don't get many. But, the whole valley is built on an ancient lakebed (lake Bonneville). And many fear that when the big one comes..... that's it.
There are lots of earthquakes in Utah, but generally speaking they're far too small to feel. The "big one" that's due could be a huge problem here in Utah Valley though. If a large enough slip occurs along the fault, the west side of the valley could drop a dozen feet or more, causing Utah Lake to literally move to the other side of the valley, flooding and demolishing Provo. Along with liquefaction that occurs due to the lake bed sediments that many have built upon, this could lead to tens of thousands of deaths in the valley if it were to happen. Not good for sure.
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