Day 12: Lehi to Salt Lake City

May 19, 2022

Today is not especially long or difficult but I have a lot of things to see. On the road at 9:10. Downhill on city streets to the Jordan River trail. I will ride the trail all the way to central Salt Lake City, with one temple detour.

The first 10 miles of the trail is quite hilly, sometimes climbing more than 100 feet above the Jordan river as it flows through a canyon that separates Utah valley and Salt Lake valley. While in the canyon it's hard to tell that the trail is in the middle of a sprawling metropolitan area.

Utah loves to copy Biblical place names. Jordan River is a rare borrowed name that has genuine similarities. The lower half of Palestine's Jordan river flows through desert from a fresh water lake, Sea of Galilee, to a salt water lake, the Dead Sea. Utah's Jordan River also flows through desert from a fresh water lake, Utah Lake, to a salt water lake, Great Salt Lake.

After the canyon ends I detoured on roads to the Jordan River temple which is in the city of West Jordan. I pedaled miles around the temple to find the one open construction gate. The temple is closed now for major parking lot repairs.

Jordan River temple was dedicated in 1981. It's one of the first temples built after the unpopular modern temples in Ogden and Provo. This temple has obvious modern design but the overall shape is rather traditional. I like the modern interpretation of traditional but it didn't turn out to be popular. Newer LDS temples have much more traditional designs.

One thing I don't like about most LDS Temples is that they have few and small windows. I'm not allowed to go inside the temples, so I have no idea if they seem dark inside. LDS temples are broken up into multiple specialized rooms. They don't have a giant communal open space like cathedrals.

The Jordan river temple has modern design evoking a traditional style.

I wandered around the grounds of the Jordan River Temple looking for other inspiring views. I didn't find any other good views because of construction, trees, and an obnoxiously bright cloudy sky.

The Jordan River trail is a typical suburban recreational trail with a wide variety of surfaces and conditions. It passes under most roads in a tunnel. Only a handful of grade-level road crossings. But there are also diagonal crossings, zig-zags on street sidewalks, and spur paths that complicate navigation. Spur paths were extremely well signed. The main path was not well signed. Counterintuitively, at trail junctions I needed to follow the unsigned route to stay on the trail. Many times I had to stop and analyze the situation to figure out where is the trail ahead.

On two occasions I saw a French cycle tourist who is also traveling north on the trail. We exchanged a few words the first time while he was stopped to repair a flat tire. He didn't speak much English, so the conversation was short.

Trail users are well protected from errant golf balls by this very long fence.

The trail becomes gradually more urban in Salt Lake City. Most of the trail is a tranquil greenway in the middle of a big city. The meandering trail is significantly longer and hillier than the flat straight city streets. But I don't have to stop at a traffic light every 2 minutes.

Jordan River trail in the middle of Salt Lake City.

Today had a high temperature of 70F at noon. Then the wind shifted to the northwest and the temperature steadily dropped during the afternoon. The second major cold front of the tour is passing through. Today is not bad but tomorrow will be much colder.

Salt Lake City is not as perfectly clean and tidy as the rest of Utah. It does have some urban problems. I saw a few homeless people along the trail. I never saw homeless camps visible from roads, though. Salt Lake City is relatively cosmopolitan, more diverse than the rest of Utah. It has a sizable Latino minority. It's the headquarters of the LDS church but Salt Lake County is only 48% Mormon, the only county on my tour route that is not majority Mormon.

It gets slightly more urban and gritty near downtown Salt Lake City.

I pedaled a couple miles east on city streets to get from the Jordan River trail to downtown Salt Lake City.

I continued through downtown to Temple Square and found that it's a big construction site. I wasn't expecting that.

On the southeast corner of Temple Square I stopped to look at Brigham Young's Beehive House. This was Brigham Young's main house, built in 1853-1855. In the first few years that Brigham Young lived here he was both the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the Territorial Governor. There was no pretense of separation of church and state at that time, and there's not much separation now.

Then I pedaled up the steep hill to the Utah state capitol. My first stop was at the Utah Battalion monument. The Mormon Battalion of 500+ volunteers served in the 1846-1847 Mexican War. It was the only religious-based unit in the history of US Armed Forces. The battalion didn't actually fight in the war. Their most significant accomplishment was to build Cook's Wagon Road, a wagon route to southern California.

Utah Battalion monument on the state capitol grounds.

The Utah State Capitol was quickly built after Utah gained statehood in 1896. The site was set aside decades earlier. Utah had the population and political organization to qualify for statehood 20 years earlier, but the US Congress delayed statehood because Utah refused to ban polygamy in good faith. The promise of statehood wasn't enough of a carrot to motivate Utah to ban polygamy. Polygamy wasn't completely banned until the Federal government used the stick approach, declaring the LDS church to be illegal and seizing their property.

Across the street from the state capitol is the Council Hall which is one of the oldest buildings in Salt Lake City.

The 1865 Council Hall served as City Hall and territorial capitol. It's now tourism offices and Utah Film Commission.

Back in downtown I stopped to take a picture of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. It's a LDS church building now, but it was once the Utah Hotel.

Joseph Smith Memorial Building was originally the Utah Hotel.

Temple Square construction was huge disappointment. I learned that the temple reconstruction started in 2019 and is expected to be completed at the end of 2025. The temple is undergoing a seismic retrofit. Steel rods will be inserted through the stones to hold them together. A huge hole has been excavated around the temple. It will be two levels of underground temple expansion. The temple restoration/expansion probably costs a billion dollars but the secretive LDS church will never say how much.

Map of the construction at Temple Square.

The Salt Lake City temple is completely covered in scaffolding (with a very cool open air elevator). The 6 spires have been removed. In this state it is very hard to visualize what the temple looked like before construction.

Salt Lake Temple and a big hole in the ground.

I have been to Temple Square before. I was looking forward to spending the night nearby and taking night photos of the brilliantly lit buildings. I guess I need to come back in 2026...

My 2013 Florence-Missoula-Salt Lake City bike tour ended a few blocks from Temple Square.

The only part of Temple Square that isn't torn up is the southwest corner which contains the Mormon Tabernacle and the Assembly Hall. The Tabernacle is quite interesting on the inside but the metal roof makes the outside look like an airplane hangar.

Inside the Mormon Tabernacle, home of the world famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

The Assembly Hall still looks great and has nice landscaping. For some reason it never occurred to me to go inside. Tonight's home is the Plaza hotel which is visible in the photo below. It's the closest hotel to Temple Square, adjacent to the genealogy library. Many hotel guests are here to study up on their family history, maybe to find non-Mormon ancestors to baptize.

Assembly Hall is the only part of Temple Square that is not torn up.

My room is on the 11th floor of Plaza Hotel. The window at the end of the hallway has a good view overlooking Temple Square to the east.

View of Temple Square from my 11th floor hotel hallway.

My hotel room has a view looking south at downtown. I kept my curtains open and enjoyed the view as much as possible. The $135 room does not include breakfast but the location makes it a decent value.

City view from my 11th floor room at the Plaza Hotel.

The evening was very cold and windy. I wasn't motivated to walk around looking at the city lights. The wind was unbearable. One time I saw an errant trash bag flying through the air outside my 11th floor window.

Temple Square was an extreme disappointment but I enjoyed the novelty of a big city experience. This is the only night of the tour in the middle of a big city.

Distance: 47.5 mi. (76 km)
Average Speed: 9.4 mph (15 km/h)
Ascent/Descent: +1275/-1562 ft. (+389/-476 m)
Miles 404-448 on the route map

Today's ride: 48 miles (77 km)
Total: 503 miles (810 km)

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Kelly IniguezYour research is admirable, and interesting.
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