Little America and Grand America: Outside

 Little America, and Grand America are a pair of hotels located in downtown Salt Lake City. They are both pretty fancy, but as expected, Grand is a bit fancier. I have been to both for various work events over my life, but never really took any pictures, no even noticed the trees. I am resuming my little scavenger hunt for redwood trees today, so that is what brought us out. Both hotels have quite a few redwood trees around their lots.

Grand America

Large patch of sequoias

Quick Details:

Length: It is about 8/10ths of a mile to just go around the 2 blocks in one loop. We of course decided to make it more difficult and did a wonky 1.06 ish mile trapezoid.
Trail Type: Loop.
Difficulty: It is completely paved. DR2.
Elevation Gain: NA
Restroom: I am sure there are restrooms inside both hotels, but unsure whether you can just use them. I would plan on looking elsewhere.
Dogs? Dogs may be leashed on SLC sidewalks. Please clean up after your furry friends.
Other Info:

To Get Here:

From i15 take the 6th south exit and head east to West Temple, or Main Street and look for parking, actually I don't think you can park on Main Street. But both hotels have parking as well, but I am sure they charge to use them.

Making our way downtown (Passenger Seat Photography (PSP)). Wait.. isn't that a song.. oh haha it is. :p

The Trail:

We started on the west side of Little America today (West Temple), and worked our way around clockwise.

Just after we turned the corner to the north side we found our first patch of sequoias.

Closer.

The distinctive and rough needles.

Some more tall guys.

More.

Needles.

A few more on the northeast corner.

The site I have been using as a guide depicted much shorter ones than this. However, the pictures are quite a bit old, or maybe we haven’t found the ones they showed yet, but these are all pretty tall.

Grand America. We decided to just make our way over there, As at the moment I figured a simple loop would be nice. So, we crossed over Main Street.

We found our first pair near the northwest corner.

As I mentioned it is quite a fancy hotel. It looks way older than it is too. It was built in 2001, but it just feels like it has always been here.

One of the two.

The other one. With the Little America Tower in the background.

Sadly, I think this is the best shot of the Little America Tower I got all day. So real quick: the tower is the 24th tallest building in Salt Lake City at 229 feet and 17 floors. Wikipedia states it was built in 1980. Not sure if that is the tower, or the rest of it. Landis says he was told it started with the shorter buildings, and the tower was built later.

Back to Grand America. The other side of the sidewalk is lined with these. I am pretty sure are sycamore trees.

At the northeast corner we found a dozen of healthy looking sequoias.

Closer.

Panoramic.

Washington Square kitty corner across the way.

Looking back towards the 12 we saw as we start heading south.

First one on the east side.

The rough needles.

Continuing along, with more sycamore trees and more of the pretty building. I was so distracted by the trees that I did not take very many pictures of the buildings today.

Neat detail.

Another one on the southeast side.

I thought these trees were pretty interesting looking. According to google lens they are cedars of Lebanon. I feel like that is a restaurant name, probably named after the tree I guess. Oh, yes, there was a restaurant near here called Cedars of Lebanon from 1981 to 2019. There also appears to be a State Park in Tennessee with the name as well.

Now we will swing back to the west.

More cedars of Lebanon, and Grand America again.

At 328 feet, it was the 8th tallest building in Salt Lake City, but it looks like it has been demoted to 11th after a few new building that came in recently. It is currently described at the biggest, and tallest hotel in the city. From what I can tell, it does still retain those stats at 28 floors and spanning almost an entire city block (although not all 28 floors).

Continuing west along 6th south.

Found another patch of sequoias.

This one looks a little sick.

These ones look pretty healthy and happy.

It looks like they have recently cut down at least 2 of them. They were probably more sick than the one to the right.

I didn’t think to count this group, but I would imagine at least another dozen or so.

Closer view of the needles.

Looking up.

Continuing along. It looks like there are a couple more sickly looking ones. I hope they can be saved.

A sad tree.

A happy one.

More sequoias.

Two more as we approach the southwest corner.

Some cute shaped bushes.

The west side appears to favor the cedars of Lebanon. So we opted to skip it and crossed back over Main Street towards Little America again.

Some sad looking ones on the east side of Little America. You can see the shorter building in front, and a bit of the big tower to the right. 

We decided to continue along the east side a bit, which kind of destroyed my perfect rectangle loop I originally planned on doing.

Looking back towards Grand America.

More sequoias on the east side.

Needles.

More sequoias.

So Grand America is flying the new Utah State Flag, The American Flag, and… the Wyoming State Flag? My best guess is someone important from Wyoming is staying here right now.

Grand America again.

Another sequoia.

Some more.

Another pair just north of the east entrance.

Flags at the Grand America again.

We decided to wander into the inner grounds of Little America, because we noticed more sequoias inside.

Some more sequoias just past the valet parking area.

Wandering around the property we found a few more. Here, the smaller one is the sequoia. The taller back 2 appear to be pines.

Some more.

You know for what I assume to be a little bit of the higher end of hotels, I sure did not expect to hear children screaming like shrill howler monkeys.

I know, I know. I am not a fan of children, like, at all. But I thought higher end hotel patrons would be better parents.

Looking up.

Some taller ones with the Little America Tower.

Quite a few more scattered around the property.

A biggun.

More scattered around.

Sequoias on both sides of the south entrance.

Another biggun.

This is currently Raw Bean Coffee. But the building looks like it might have been al old train station or something. I am not finding a whole lot of information about it though so.. meh, maybe I am pulling that out of thin air.

Flags across West Temple for the Hilton.

We found another 5 or so as we round the corner heading back north, so these are at the southwest corner.

Heading west.

The Astra Tower (Passenger Seat Photography (PSP)). This is the newest tallest building in SLC.

Interesting statue on this building (PSP).

Neat building mural (PSP).

Well, I guess that about wraps up this random adventure. We found a lot more redwood trees that we anticipated. That was pretty cool. I was more interested in the trees than the buildings, but I did have some interest in them as well. As far as downtown spots go, this was not too bad. 7 out of 10 squirrels.

As for difficulty, it is completely paved, and pretty flat. DR2.

Dogs are allowed on public sidewalks, leashed in SLC. But, I would probably avoid venturing into the inner area of Little America like we did today with them.