One of the real gems we discovered on the far east side of Salt Lake City was the Red Butte Garden maintained by the University of Utah. Covering several hundred acrea, it incorporates the normal plantings of a botanical garden with the additional features of an arboretum and still maintains a lot of the natural areas looking much like they did when the pioneers first discovered the valley.
The nature trail climbing up the far east side of the garden gives an excellent overview of Salt Lake City and the garden administration complex. Also turning around and looking east gives a view of what the pioneers probably trudged through on their way into the new settlement.
In the early days, the upper reaches of the canyon were quarried for the red sandstone used here to construct the old caretaker's house. While walking the natural areas it is highly recommended to keep a careful watch of where you step. Here in mid May it was still fairly cool and we were the first to report a sighting of a friend sunning himself along the trail.
The actual cultivated area of the garden is so huge they have an extensive network of paved tramways with periodic narrated tours. The story is that at one time they had a rather large rattlesnake that would follow the tour along the top of the retaining wall just about at eyeball level and then go back down to wait for the next tour. Due to the well justified concerns that someone like Lori would like to pet it they had to relocate it to the upper primitive areas of the garden where presumably us hikers are a little more aware of the dangers. Of more concern would be babies not being quite so well behaved and they actually have more dangerous bites.
Sculptures abound even here in the wetlands area and pond.
One major problem getting pictures of many areas is they are not open during the prime sunrise and sunset periods and the beating sun washes out the colors and gives very harsh shadows. As you can see in the photographs above this was a nice cloudy day with soft light and this large moth was rather confused. It was fluttering about so quick I thought it was a hummingbird until I could enlarge the pictures on the computer later.
While I find gardens are beautiful at any time of the year (check Inniswood or Columbus for winter shots) I think my favorite time is late spring when everything is fresh but fully formed. Later on in the summer and fall the flowers tend to become more spectacular but they also become somewhat bedraggled if there are not enough volunteers to trim the dead blooms and promote the new ones.
