Big Cotton Canyon

No one knows an area like the locals so for the price of a diet coke and some Hersey's chocolate, I engaged professional guides, Terry & Gail, to lead an expedition up Big Cotton Canyon to Park City and then on to Mirror Lake. No question, it was money well spent...

Terry & Gail

The slopes of Park City in the summer

Fresh fish for dinner

The Alpine Loop (Hwy 92)

This scenic byway (southeast of Salt Lake City) winds its way up through the mountains of the Uinta National Forest where you see vistas like this...

And critters like this...

All in all a great area for hiking and camping.

Museum of Ancient Life

At first I thought the Museum of Ancient Life was going to be about my cousin, Chris, but no, it is about other old fossils like dinosaurs. If you can tolerate a million screaming kids, it is an interesting place to visit.

Bingham Canyon Mine

If you are going to pay to see a big hole in the ground, then the Kennecott Utah Copper's Bingham Canyon Mine is a good place to start. It is the world's largest man-made excavation (can be seen from space). Since open-pit mining began in 1903, enough material has been removed to create a pit that is more than three quarters of a mile deep and two-and-a-half miles wide. Still in operation, this massive mine has yielded more than 19 million tons of copper as well as vast quantities of gold, silver and molybdenum. Click on photos to enlarge.

I was going to put a set of these on my UTV until I saw they were $25,000 per tire...

Payette National Forest Ride

We did not make it to Black Lake due to...

So we rode the forestry roads to various mountain tops...

Click on photo to enlarge

Owyhee Mountains Ride

Another great ride in the Owyhee mountains southwest of Boise.

Elevation ~8,400 feet (click on photo to enlarge)

Bonnie & Clyde's car?

Old Idaho Penitentiary

The Old Idaho Penitentiary was operational from 1870-1973 and is one of only four Territorial Prisons still open. If today's inmates think they have it rough, they should consider serving time here in late 1800s when you were housed in a two man cell about the size of a walk-in closet and with only a bucket as your indoor plumbing.

There is also a surprisingly good weapons exhibit.

Gatling gun