The zeal that Salt Lake Community College students and faculty possess for outdoor recreation is no coincidence.
According to the Utah Office of Tourism – a state agency tasked with encouraging tourism in the Beehive state – Utah’s outdoor recreation opportunities include skiing, mountain biking, and hiking. Outdoor recreation in Utah, and its associated economy, has boomed so much that in 2022, the Utah State Legislature created the Utah Division of Outdoor Recreation – an arm of the Utah Department of Natural Resources agency whose mission statement includes stimulating Utah’s economic prosperity via outdoor recreation.
Personal outdoor recreation experiences
Dr. Maura Hahnenberger, an associate professor in the earth and environmental sciences department at SLCC, initially moved to Utah for skiing but quickly became enthralled by rock climbing. She particularly enjoys completing first ascents of desert towers, or monolithic sandstone formations, that are littered throughout Utah’s desert locales.
Hahnenberger described the allure of first ascents, which are the act of scaling previously unclimbed rock features.
“We [she and her husband, Ben Folsom] really love going to the desert and camping and finding desert towers to climb,” Hahnenberger said. “It’s something that in many cases, no one has ever climbed to the top of before, and really inaccessible.”
Hahnenberger recalled a particularly memorable first ascent: a route called Waxing and Waning on Winter Moon Tower in the San Rafael Swell – a desert recreation area in south-central Utah – which she established with her husband.
“There was this pretty tall tower [Winter Moon Tower] in the canyon that hadn’t been climbed before, and we did it in the wintertime,” Hahnenberger said. “It was a great climb … beautiful weather, environment.”
Gregory Spendlove, a professor of philosophy and religious studies at SLCC, mountain biked frequently in his younger days. He now primarily hikes and whitewater rafts with his wife, Alana.
Spendlove, who also used to backpack and camp with his wife, cited back problems as their impetus for stopping.
“We both have back problems, so sleeping on the ground is not great for your back,” Spendlove said.
Spendlove recalled an adventurous whitewater rafting experience that he had with his wife on the Rogue River in Oregon.
“We got there [to the town where the Rogue River was located] … and right across the street was this small, little river rafting outfit,” Spendlove said. “And so we walked over there. We said, ‘Hey, we’d love to go.’ He [the river outfitter employee] said, ‘Well, when do you want to go?’ We’re like, ‘Now’s good.’ He’s like, ‘Okay,’ so he just put us in his van, drove us up and gave us a ducky [a type of inflatable raft], and we went down the Rogue River.”
Sam Watson, an SLCC student majoring in music recording technology, was introduced to skiing, mountain biking, and hiking in the Wasatch Mountains at a young age by his parents.
Watson, a Utah native who continues to ski, mountain bike and hike, remarked on the convenience of living in Salt Lake City for outdoor recreation.
“If there’s no traffic from my house, it takes me 25 minutes to get up to Alta to go ski or just cruise over to the foothills and go on a bike ride or a hike or something like that,” Watson said.
Watson added that his outdoor recreation habits tended to fluctuate with the local weather climate.
“If it’s dry in the wintertime, like it seems like it is more and more up on the [Salt Lake City] foothills, I’ll go for a bike ride in February if it’s not muddy and the air is not horrible,” Watson said.
Sully Tesch, a former SLCC student majoring in construction engineering at the University of Utah, said his earliest outdoor recreation experiences included camping in a pop-up trailer with his family.
Tesch spoke about the impact of the freedom his parents gave him and his brother to roam outside.
“My parents let my brother and I just kind of explore as we please when we [would] go camping, and [exploring] just kind of sparked my love for it [outdoor recreation],” Tesch said.
Tesch is now passing the proverbial outdoor recreation torch to his two-year-old son, Hudson, by taking him skiing and hiking. Tesch expressed admiration for Hudson’s budding passion for skiing.
“He skied Sugarloaf [a chairlift at Alta Ski area] the other day [in April], top to bottom,” Tesch said. “He’s into it. He loves it.”
Health benefits of outdoor recreation
Outdoor recreation is proven to have numerous physical health benefits. According to the University of California, Davis Health – a healthcare provider that is part of the University of California – being in nature, and by extension participating in outdoor recreation, can reduce heart rates, blood pressure, muscle tension, and cortisol levels in humans.
Dr. Hahnenberger talked about how outdoor recreation physically benefits her in the context of backcountry skiing – an activity where participants climb up the mountain before skiing down, as opposed to riding a chairlift.
“To be able to, you know, ski a great powder run, you have to put in the [physical] work and the effort to get there,” she said. “Having that reward [skiing down] at the end is really, really motivating.”
When asked about the physical benefits of outdoor recreation, Spendlove remarked on how he and his wife used hiking as an efficient way to gauge their physical fitness, which improved by hiking weekly.
“A lot of the times when we go hiking, we do time ourselves on these hikes that we do weekly, and we say, ‘Well, we’re getting stronger,’” Spendlove said.
Outdoor recreation has also been shown to offer mental health benefits. According to a research article in the National Library of Medicine, people who recreated in natural environments reported reduced levels of depression, anger and confusion.
For Watson, who works as a photographer while attending college, outdoor recreation provides an opportunity for mental decluttering, which he says optimizes his productivity.
“If I know I’ve got a big project to work on, I can … set up some sort of exercise in the morning, because if I get exercise in the morning, whether it be bike ride, ski … it definitely clears my head, makes me feel a lot better, and allows me to work better,” Watson said.
Regarding the mental health benefits of outdoor recreation, Tesch noted that participating in outdoor-based activities could enhance days that felt suboptimal.
“Anytime I’m having a bad day, if I do something outdoors, it becomes a good day pretty quickly,” Tesch said.
Balancing academics with outdoor recreation
The SLCC faculty and students interviewed for this story expressed a variety of opinions on balancing academics and recreation.
Hahnenberger spoke about the push and pull between her academic career and outdoor recreation.
“I am a person who wants to do everything, both in my work life and in … doing outdoor recreation,” Hahnenberger said. “And so that’s definitely a challenge that I feel like I always want to do more and do everything, and I think that’s going to be a process of understanding, like, okay, I may have to, you know, figure out what, what are things that are the highest priority for me, both in work and in, you know, my life pursuits and making time for both of those to be able to … have that good balance.”
Spendlove, who primarily recreates outside with his wife, lamented how their increasingly complex jobs have limited their time outdoors.
“Her [Alana’s] job is more complicated now, and my job is more complicated now,” Spendlove said. “For some reason, we’re not getting out as much as we like to.”
Tesch, who has worked in the outdoor industry, stated that he once prioritized outdoor recreation over academics, which had a detrimental effect on his grades.
“Honestly, probably academically…the outdoor industry has been a deficit,” Tesch said. “Probably would have gotten some more A’s and less C’s along the way.”
Tesch added that the arrival of his son motivated him to renew his focus on education.
“I’ve kind of reached that point where you get more realistic with life, especially [with] having a kid,” Tesch said. “So that’s why I’m back in school.”
Outdoor recreation advice
When asked for advice for the SLCC community about participating in outdoor recreation, Hahnenberger, Spendlove, Watson, and Tesch conveyed two distinct themes: don’t be afraid to try something new, and focus on the journey, not just the destination.
To learn more about outdoor recreation activities in Utah, visit this Bureau of Land Management webpage.
