More mountain scenery and the Olympic Training Center

Our last day to explore before picking up Delaney and heading home!  We drove along I-80 and exited on Hwy 65 which took us along the Mormon trail that was blazed in the late 1800s by Brigham Young and other pioneers.  The pictures below are at the top of the East Canyon pass looking down into Salt Lake Valley.  I can't imagine how they must have felt to see that sight before them.  It was a quite a breathtaking view.

All along the Wasatch Range there are signs to not "Shred the 'Shed" - pollute the water shed.  About 185 sq miles of mountains with about 20 river basins and a number of reservoirs compose the watershed for the Salt Lake City valley and provide over 50% of the city's water.  There are signs all over about preserving the watershed, which include not taking your dog there or horses (without a permit), not off road vehicles, and other provisions to try to keep the water as pure as possible.  We noted that the reservoirs were quite low.  I don't know if this is seasonal (normal for July) or if it was a low water year  The water was down a good 30 ft from its high mark though.

 The dam.

 Part of the Mormon trail.  It very kind of muggy and unusually humid today because of a recent rain, but there were even ferns, so I think this part of the mountain gets regular rainfall.

 View from Lambs Canyon 

 1 for 1 with geocaches today.  We didn't put that much effort into it today.

We got to watch ski jumpers practice at the Olympic training center.  We thought we were just going to see the slopes, little did we realize they'd be taking live jumps into a giant swimming pool!  I could have stayed and watched this all day.  They had on life vests and paddled to the edge after the jump.  Several had coaches video taping them and they'd go over the jump and then climb to the top of the slope again for another run.

They even had a few kids who were jumping off a shorter ramp.  Some of them barely made it off the ramp.  I'm not sure what it takes to put a young kid on this ramp (money or motivation), but they had a lot of people cheering for them.

It does not look easy to get out of the pool with a left vest, helmet, AND skis attached to your feet!  You can't read her helmet, but it says "Nutcase" on it ; )

 They also had bobsled runs going on (with wheels, not on ice obviously).  We didn't make it to the center in time to watch them, but could see a few come around the last turn from a distance.  The clock was running and everything.

 They had inner tubes that you could ride down the ski jump slopes (the ones that didn't end in a pool)

 These were the largest slopes