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Salt Lake City is far closer to the mountains than Denver is, to echo everyone else.
For the scientific answer, as the crow flies, one can get to 10,000 ft. elevation from
DT Salt Lake City in 10 miles
DT Los Angeles in 37 miles
DT Denver in 25 miles
I'm actually kinda surprised that in Denver's case it's only 25 miles. In Denver, you can't really go out and realistically expect to get in terrain hiking, like up a mountain, after work. Salt Lake City is the only somewhat major city in the world I have observed that in, at least to that degree.
The Denver case is only surprising for one fact. It is a mile high already. So mountains above that are going to be very high, but I agree the terrain there is much more subtle than Salt Lake City.
We were just in Europe and an Italian couple we talked to voted Utah as their favourite state during their western US travels and really liked SLC.
Relative elevation is all that matters when it comes to mountains.
I would imagine SLC has less haze than Denver, which makes the mountain views prettier there as well. There's numerous days I can barely see the mountains at all from my work office due to thick Denver smog.
Salt Lake City is far closer to the mountains than Denver is, to echo everyone else.
For the scientific answer, as the crow flies, one can get to 10,000 ft. elevation from
DT Salt Lake City in 10 miles
DT Los Angeles in 37 miles
DT Denver in 25 miles
I'm actually kinda surprised that in Denver's case it's only 25 miles. In Denver, you can't really go out and realistically expect to get in terrain hiking, like up a mountain, after work. Salt Lake City is the only somewhat major city in the world I have observed that in, at least to that degree.
The number of miles you have to drive to get from any given city to 10,000 feet elevation really doesn't tell the whole story. Denver's elevation, after all, is nearly 1,000 feet higher than Salt Lake's. I don't know how long it would take to drive from the Denver Airport to any of Colorado's ski resorts, but you can drive from the Salt Lake City airport to any one of seven world-class ski resorts (Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, Solitude, Park City, the Canyons and Dear Valley) in just barely over a half hour.
I live in Cottonwood Heights. It's technically a city in and of itself, but is part of the Salt Lake metro area. (We get mail addressed to our home address but with the city listed as Salt Lake City, all the time.) From my house, I can get to the mouth of both Big or Little Cottonwood Canyons (Alta, Snowbird, Brighton and Solitude) in just over 5 minutes. During the summer months, the temperature up in the mountains is a good 10 degrees cooler than it is in Salt Lake itself, which is also nice.
Today (mid-May), a person could go up to Snowbird and ski half a day and then drive back down to the city and play a round of golf in the afternoon.
IMO, the only plus Denver has over Salt Lake is that it doesn't get the nasty inversions in the winter that we do.
Great observations by lovescrowds and as usual by Katzpur. I'm a Denver native, however, I grew up in SLC (late 50's to 1969). We lived in the Olympus Hills area along the east bench. It was the best childhood one could ask for. We had access to Millcreek Canyon, Mt Olympus trail, run our mini-bikes all over the back country which was just a mile or so from our house. We moved back to Denver in 1969 and I was stunned. Even back then, Denver was known as the capital of the Rockies. My back country fun turned into a city-like life in Lakewood. I couldn't see what all the fuss was about with Denver. In Lakewood, all we could see were the treeless foothills of Green Mountain and the Hogback area. When I'd mentioned we'd moved from Salt Lake, folks didn't even realize Utah had mountains. For years I hated living in Denver. But I grew to call it home and lived in the area until 1999.
Sorry for the long story. I moved the COS (Mountain Shadows) almost 20 years ago and like it here. It reminds me, as close as anywhere in Colorado can, of the SLC of my youth. I believe Salt Lake is one of the most underrated city in the country.
Denver still ain't bad though. Pretty good regional trail system and bike network, really cool suburbs (Boulder, etc.), great city amenities, and while mountains aren't ten minutes away, they probably are about an hour so an easy day trip any off day. Salt Lake though.... mannnn... are there any other metros in the developed world, with populations over 1M, where one can get to hiking mountains in less than 10 minutes like that?? Albuquerque seems close, but I mean, students at Utah campus (which is for all intents and purposes, downtown SLC) can literally go up from campus. Really a genuine question, I can't think of another place quite like it, though perhaps somewhere like Zurich would also qualify.
We were just in Europe and an Italian couple we talked to voted Utah as their favourite state during their western US travels and really liked SLC.
Relative elevation is all that matters when it comes to mountains.
I would imagine SLC has less haze than Denver, which makes the mountain views prettier there as well. There's numerous days I can barely see the mountains at all from my work office due to thick Denver smog.
You make it sound like Denver is constantly covered in a thick layer of smog like LA...There are rarely days you can't see the mountains in Denver because of the smog. Maybe a week or 2 out of the year total smog is really bad, but not that bad. And secondly SLC is known for its terrible inversions.
I've lived in both SLC and Denver and I too prefer the scenery in Salt Lake. I think Salt Lake, with its snow capped mountains in every direction, has the natural setting people expect Denver to have. Not only are the mountains closer, but the Wasatch rise more abruptly from the valley floor than the Front Range does from the plains, giving the mountains a much more impressive appearance while driving around the city.
SLC definitely has prettier natural surroundings. Ive always thought that, too.
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