Tubing at Soldier Hollow

*Check out the end of this post for two short videos of us going down the mountain!!*

Soldier Hollow hosted the 2002 Olympic Cross Country Skiing and the Biathlon events. Another interesting fact is that it has the longest tubing lanes in Utah and the entire west half of the US. The movie High School Musical opened with a scene from the lodge in the first movie (the New Years Eve Party and Karoke).

My Aunt and Uncle from Virginia came to Utah to visit their daughter Nicole and her husband Lance and their grandson Nicolas. We had a big dinner at my parents house with extended family that lived in Utah. While they were there, my Uncle suggested going tubing at Soldier Hollow before they went back to Virginia. I thought that would be really fun and on Tuesday, January 27th, my Uncle Duane, my Dad Richard, my Cousin Nicole, my Brother Randy and I headed out to Soldier Hollow. We met at Randy's place and headed east up the Provo Canyon. It was a great trip that only took about 40 minutes to get to from Orem.

The view looking down at the lodge and beyond. It was a beautiful day!

Our group L-R: Randy (my Brother), me (Julie), Nicole (my Cousin), Richard (Dad) and Duane(my Uncle).

The race is on- there are five lanes side by side and your group can race each other down.

Our group again

We're all smiles as we head back to the cable that tows you back up to the top of the runs. Talk about plush tubing! It was $20 for 2 hours. They also had music playing in the background. It was a great facility!

Randy trying to stop before heading into the fence.

Can his smile get any bigger?!!!

Nicole, looking beautiful even with the snowy, windblown look.

Uncle Duane was all smiles! He had a great time and we loved having him visit us in Utah.

My Dad as he was being towed up the mountain. What a great view and beautiful skies! The tubing was so safe! None of us fell off our tubes the entire time. Although some of us hit the fence at the end of the run. Luckily they are just flimsy plastic things that try to keep you from going further down the mountain into the parking lot. I went through the first fence into the second and tore out three stakes! All that I did differently was get a bigger tube and suddenly I was sliding all the way into the fence if I didn't try really hard to stop.

Look at these brothers go! My Dad is in his late fifties and Duane is older than that! They had a great time together with us "kids".

The view again as we get close to the top of the cable run.

I took this picture while in my tube going up the mountain. The runs were extreemly safe, even though you would fly down the hill at 30-40 mph. I even took our expensive camera and our cheap digital video camera down the slide. I will post the video of me going down the hill while the others were racing behind me.

Check out this video of me going down the run!

This video is of the others racing down the hill! What a great day. Thanks for inviting us Duane!