Utah Scenic Drive: US-40 & US-189

After eating dinner at Ruth’s Diner in Emigration Canyon, I decided to drive down to Park City and then come back through Provo Canyon.  I have lived here for two months but still hadn’t made it over to Park City except for one day skiing at The Canyons.  Unfortunately I left the memory card to my camera in Waco, so I didn’t take any pictures, but if you’re ever in the area, you’ve got to drive this route.  The drive to Park City wasn’t spectacular and Park City itself is pretty ugly in my opinion.  The historic downtown district is nice and looks like it could be a lot of fun, but other than that I didn’t find too much worth seeing there.  The three ski resorts there (The Canyons, Park City Mountain Resort, and Deer Valley) seem much flatter than the resorts in Little Cottonwood Canyon like Snowbird and Alta, and are at a much lower elevation.  I couldn’t see any point where any part of the Park City resorts rose above the tree line.  A little disappointed, I decided to drive back to US-40 and head south towards Heber City.  As I got closer to the city, the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains appeared and surrounded the entire area.  The route passed the Jordanelle Reservoir, a picturesque mountain lake that I’ll have to revisit in the summer…ideally with a boat.  I drove through Heber City, a quaint town with the usual conveniences of fast food, grocery stores, and the like, then turned onto US-189 towards Provo and Orem.  Outside of Heber City, the road follows the shoreline of Deer Creek Reservoir, an even more spectacular sight than Jordanelle, right at the foot of the very tall, very steep Wasatch Range.  Nearing the end of the Deer Creek Reservoir was the incredible Bridal Veil Falls, with a terraced waterfall that looked to be 2,000-3,000 ft tall.  Near the mouth of the canyon, the trees became more dense and the cliffs grew steeper until I was at the mouth of the canyon and looking down towards Utah Valley, Utah Lake, and the Lake Mountains.  It was nearing sunset as I made my way back home along the eastern bench of the valley.  I made a map of my route, which you can see here.