Creation Care Mom

Ogden, UT sits just north of Salt Lake City by about 35 minutes. It’s bordered to the east by mountains, called the Wasatch front, and to the west lies the Great Salt Lake. The valley contains many communities that bleed into one another making it difficult to tell where one ends and another begins. Poor air quality is common with a high level of commuters traveling into Salt Lake City from the surrounding area. Like many western communities, top climate concerns include snowpack levels and wildfire risk while also serving a growing city population. Additionally, unique to Utah are worries over the depletion/drying out of the Great Salt Lake.

Ogden itself is an older city with much of its early development and growth happening during and just after WWII. With an air force base just to the south, this area became very well established during that time. Older parts of town have a lot of beautiful old trees that provide necessary cooling shade in the summer. The city has also done a good job of keeping green spaces available in most of the neighborhoods. Many of the playground have been redone fairly recently and most have shade as well.

There is quite the significant trail system along the mountain front. Long trails and short, easy and difficult, open to hiking and biking. Trails that take you into canyons and up mountain peaks. Access to nature isn’t hard to come by.

If you know me, you know that one of my favorite places are waterfalls. In our 9 months here, I’ve been to two! Were they easy hikes? Nope. Matt and I took James with us last summer on a 4 mile round trip hike that ended up including much more rock scrambling than we were expecting! But we had a great time. James was such a trooper. He walked and was carried in a backpack.

Matt and I went on a date in January and hiked a second waterfall while James went to daycare. This one had the magical wonder of ice and snow (which also made it a headache to hike). Slip sliding down the trail, we both took a tumble, but survived ok. I’m excited to go back to this one in the summer.

Within a month of being here, we had already paid for an annual membership to the Ogden Nature Center so now we get to enjoy unlimited visits to view birds of prey, hike trails, and explore the nature playground. James’s favorite part is the birdhouse trail full of very unusual and probably unpractical birdhouse designs (Tie fighter, robot, train, fish, cactus, and pyramid, etc). It’s nice to see this refuge for nature in the middle of the city. We’ve seen deer on several occasions and quite a few kinds of birds.

I’ve found over multiple moves that finding places early on to be outdoors and connect with nature makes the transition easier. It connects you to the place while also soothing the emotions that come with relocation. I’m glad that our new home made that easy for us to do.

Are you connected to the outdoors where you live? What are your favorite places?

Arwyn