Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City, Utah, sits in a valley between the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake — a city founded by Mormon pioneers in 1847 and still the world headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose Temple Square is the city's most visited attraction and whose clean, orderly civic culture reflects the community's values in every aspect of the city. Temple Square, the 35-acre complex containing the Salt Lake Temple (closed to non-members but spectacular from outside), the Tabernacle (home of the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir — free public concerts on certain Sundays) and multiple museums and visitor centres, is the city's centre of gravity. The Natural History Museum of Utah in its spectacular LEED Gold building is outstanding — Utah's extraordinary geological and palaeontological record is displayed with world-class interpretation. The Utah Museum of Fine Arts and the Clark Planetarium are also good. Salt Lake City is primarily known internationally as the gateway to extraordinary skiing — Park City (45 minutes), Alta, Snowbird, Solitude and Brighton are all within an hour, and the Wasatch Mountains receive some of the world's finest powder snow. Arches National Park (4 hours), Bryce Canyon (4 hours), Zion National Park (5 hours) and Canyonlands are all accessible from the city as longer day trips or multi-day excursions. The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere.