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BEST INDOOR BOULDERINGThe Front
When you can’t get out to natural climbing spots, your year-round climbing spot is right around the corner. The climbing wall provides more than 10,000 square feet of climbing space, and with weekly changes to individual sections of the wall, the routes are always new. And if you just feel like training for your next climb, take advantage of the full-service weight room, aerobics equipment or yoga classes. First-timers or veterans will find a perfect reason to get on the rocks. 1450 S. 400 West, 466-7625, FrontSLC.com
BEST FLAT MOUNTAIN BIKING
Park City
Once you’ve ascended 4,000 feet (in a car), Park City is a novice biker’s dream. Paved trails trace the path of the highway from Snyderville all the way to Park City. Old rail lines converted to trails run from Park City to Heber. And interesting signs along the way educate about local history. Then there is the Mid-Mountain trail, an on-mountain path that lets bikers cruise along at around 8,000 feet from The Canyons all the way to Deer Valley. (Again, drive to a start point at the top of the mountain.)
BEST GYM/HEALTH CLUB Readers’ Choice
Gold’s Gym
Gold’s Gym does its part to fulfill the American dream, offering members bright, shiny facilities that in certain locations stretch out like a massive airport hangar filled with new equipment and generous tubs of muscle powder. Utah residents have their choice of 19 locations, but Salt Lake City fitness enthusiasts swear by their chain’s Cardio Cinema, a darkened room with a screen projecting films while runners run, cyclists spin and elliptical users, um, elipticize. Other highlights include a kid zone, steam room and pool. Multiple locations, GoldsGym.com
2. 24 Hour Fitness
3. Xcel Fitness
BEST OGDEN HIKING TRAIL
Indian Trail
Above the Ogden River, Ogden city and the Great Salt Lake, through fir and spruce and wild flowers of clover and collomia runs, if not the best Ogden Canyon hiking, certainly its most popular hiking trail. The Indian Trail is all the better due to the fact that its 4.3-mile length is made essentially impassable to motorized vehicles and to most mountain bikers by virtue of its rock outcrops. Even the Shoshone Indians of past thought this was the best way to escape high water of old. For the Ogdenite’s ideal three- or four-hour hiking respite, find the Smokey Bear sign.Trailhead east of Ogden off 22nd Street
BEST SPINNING INSTRUCTORS
Sports Mall
This expansive Murray health spa and gym could be deemed the best in any number of categories. Best gym for families? Check. Best gym to avoid Stallone types? Check. Best personal trainers and group instructors? Check. Best all-around facility? Check. But, one category stands out at the Sports Mall—its spinning instructors are the best around, the most informed, the friendliest and the most willing to teach you the right techniques while pushing you through a great workout. Herman, Jim, Evi, Judi, Linda, Elissa, Leslie, Peggy, Mark, Bobbi, Stan, Karlyn, Mike, Megan, Diana and Pierre—you’ll know them by the music they play during their dynamic and varied 50-minute workouts. Get a VO2 test (to best determine your aerobic capacities; critical for safe and effective spinning) from Sports Mall trainer and fitness expert Scott Browning and let your inner wheels turn and burn. 5445 S. 900 East, Murray, 261-3426
BEST LOW-COST LANGUAGE CLASSES
Salt Lake Community Education
While the majority of the educated world has long been bilingual, Americans are famous as second-language laggards. You need not break the bank to end that trend. For as little as $50, you can learn all the Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese or even Russian and Arabic or ESL that a two-month, one-day-per week course can provide, courtesy of language classes through the Salt Lake City School District’s Salt Lake Community Education programs. Most classes are held early evenings and at local public schools in a neighborhood near you. Multiple locations, 578-8236 or 578-8275
BEST YOGA CLASSES Readers’ Choice
Centered City Yoga
If the only thing standing between you and yoga is a fear of vriksha-asana, ushtra-asana or any other seemingly unpronounceable, much less attainable pose, take heart—Centered City helps students enroll in classes suited for their individual strengths, abilities and intent. Bright and inviting, the downtown studio’s facilities will help you focus on the goal at hand, whether it concerns weight loss, stress management or simply the desire to feel like a kid again. The first class is free for Utah residents, as is every session of Amy Conn’s Quality of Life program for cancer survivors, fighters and their loved ones.918 E. 900 South, 521-9642, CenteredCityYoga.com
2. Flow Yoga
3. The Front Climbing Gym
BEST DEEP TISSUE MASSEUSE
Julietta Hernandez
When Hernandez lays her hands on you, don’t expect to start talking in tongues or to begin jumping up and down after years of being bedridden. However, you can expect to swear just a little bit while the muscles you’ve been abusing by not using perform their own kind of liberating dance. If you need to be healed and pampered (yes, she has a kind streak), try her deep tissue massage. Thanks to her precise trigger point work, you can kiss any tension in your body goodbye. 533 S. 700 East, 799-4999
News_&_Columns Best of Utah 2007 | Daylife 1CA7B8D7-2BF4-55D0-F1F3BE5DF2114175 2007-06-11 15:19:20.0 1 1 1 2007-04-05 00:00:00.0 7301 0
City Weekly Staff
Around 500 items jammed into slightly over 200 pages—yes, it’s City Weekly’s largest B
