On A Clear Day, You Can See Forever

Salt Lake and Utah valleys are basins and tend to trap city pollution but out here in Capital Reef National Park, it's still pristine.

Want proof of Utah having some of the clearest skies in the contiguous 48 states? Here it is.

See those snow capped mountains in the background that look so close? They are 150 miles away.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Los Angeles.

Herd of Mule Deer at Fruita, UT

If you cannot tell by now, I love wildlife and try hard to flock to areas in Utah where I can take photos of such majestic animals.

Here's another shot of the same herd of Mule Deer in Capital Reef National Park.

Deer are everywhere in Utah and can be quite a hazard when driving at night. They can be spooked by lights and dart out in front of cars.

Capital Reef National Park, Utah

Forgot to post this. Here is a photo I took while visiting Capital Reef National Park. A herd of mule deer were feeding amidst an apple tree grove in Fruita, Utah.

This was taken two weeks ago so the apple tree are probably fully budding right now in South Central Utah.

The air is always crystal clear here, where one can see forever. There are no clearer or bluer skies in the West, contrasted by ruddy red rocks.

What's In Back of My House In the City

I decided to take a twenty minute drive up to Brighton to take my dog for a walk. The ski resorts are just beyond the mountain in my backyard so getting there is pretty easy. I just have to go up the canyon to the south of my backyard mountain.

No need to get on the highway -- just the road in front of my house, two intersections away, then up the mountain.

The ski resorts have been getting a lot of snow dumped on them but they are about to close down for the season. Last year one resort ran all the way until July 4. Amazing!

Salt Lake City Is IN the Rockies, Not By It

A view from the parking lot of my local ward in Salt Lake City.

Our backyard view is like a national park. We are visited frequently by deer. I've seen moose. There's a herd of elk that call the mountain home. And there's even a cougar that comes down once in a great while.

From the front of my house one can see the vast expanse of Salt Lake valley, a basin set between two mountain ranges -- the Wasatch and the Oquirh.

Ain't life in the Rockies grand?

As can be seen, Salt Lake is no Denver. It lies right smack dab in the Rockies - ski country. We do not have to travel on a highway for an hour and a half to ski. And, it has the conveniences of a large city -- 1.1 million large.

Winter Still Has It's Grip on Salt Lake City

Global warming? Not here in Salt Lake City. At least not this morning.

This is a backyard photo taken this morning. There's a lot of snow from the night before. It melted fast as the sun came out and the day heated up.

In case you cannot tell, I think my dog must be some weird variety of Himalayan snow dog. Her favorite thing is playing in the snow.

She was a lucky dog today.

Spring and Easter in Salt Lake City

It's Good Friday and Spring is definitely here. Salt Lake Valley has warmed to 71 degrees today. So I felt like breaking the camera out.

New life is budding out from what have looked like dead trees.

It's an interesting coincidence that Passover and hence Easter falls in Spring, not in Summer, Fall or Winter. I suspect there are older themes at work here on the timing of these festivals that predate the exodus and Easter story.

The death of Winter has passed us by. New life springs forth. Some might even say a rebirth. Themes that we will hear in our chapels this weekend.

Mark 16: 6. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.

Time: Utah's Toxic Opportunity in Skull Valley

Time magazine had a feature story on Skull Valley. The federal government has now approved and licensed the reservation to store not just nuclear waste but vast quantities of it.

Last month (February) the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a license for a $3.1 billion project that would make the Skull Valley reservation the nation's biggest nuclear-waste holding site, a temporary parking lot for 44,000 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel now being stored at nuclear power plants nationwide. For utilities, it could solve what has been a vexing problem. For tribal officials, the advantages are tangible: as much as $100 million in fees to be paid over 40 years by a Wisconsin-based consortium of utilities, Private Fuel Storage (PFS)..."People say this will destroy the land," says tribal chairman Leon Bear, who brokered the deal. "But how can you poison what is already poisoned?"

The tribal chairman's point about the land already being poisoned is well taken. I found suspicious dead cattle just a couple of miles from the reservation (see photo). The twenty or so Goshutes that remain in the valley are surrounded by a chemical and biological testing ground to their West. Bombing grounds to their north. A military chemical depot to their east. Somehow, Skull Valley has become a renoun waste land good for nothing except the very worst that the military can throw at it.

And what is the State's best argument against the federal government's power to place nuclear waste two valleys over from metropolitan Salt Lake City? Can we just say no? Apparently not because it's on Goshute land. The State's best argument to prevent the country's largest nuclear waste deposit in our backyard seems to be to raise concern over the bombing sorties to the north about 50 miles.

The state has filed suit in federal court to void the NRC license on the grounds that the spent fuel would sit dangerously close to an Air Force training path. F-16 fighter jets roar overhead on 7,000 sorties a year. Should one crash into the steel-and-concrete casks, state attorneys argue, cancer-causing radiation could waft over Salt Lake City.

Moving Lips

I love this phrase by movie critic Roger Ebert. Had to post it.

"many movies are aimed at people who move their lips when they think."

Snow Again Today

It's snowing again in Salt Lake Valley. We have a little more in the benches. Here's the view from my backyard this morning.

The ski resorts up the mountain are expecting a foot and a half of new snow. Good skiing. 

Utah Ranks 7th Worst in Air Quality

In a report from the EPA, headed by Utah's past governor Mike Leavitt, Utah ranks 7th worst in air quality. The excuse is that the data is now old for at least Utah Valley since Geneva Steel no longer pollutes so the valley air quality has gone up significantly. Hmmm, now there is a question begging to be asked...

A friend once told me that the inversion we get in Salt Lake Valley is just water evaporating from the lake. In his defense, he did live for a stint some 30 years plus ago as a kid at the west edge of rural Tooele Valley where there is considerable haze from the lake.

Not so for Salt Lake or Utah Valley. Surrounded by mountains, pollution is not able to escape a bubble over the valley, which means that we stew in our own juices for weeks at time during the Winter. When one breathes, the body knows that the air is bad -- eyes itch, throat burns, and breathing is difficult. It may be beautiful clear blue skies above but the sun is blocked out in a brown soup.

Cowboys Alive and Well in Utah

Cowboys aren't gone. They are alive and well in rural Utah. You can even find them here among the sheep.

I caught this moment with my camera outside of Gunnison, Utah. The sheep were rounded up by a combination of two sheepdogs. The herding of the sheep down highway 28 was supervised by this lone cowboy.

Traffic was stopped for a good 15 minutes.

General Conference

It's General Conference time again at the Conference Center.

If you have Windows Media Player, you can click here to listen on lds.org.