Disarmingly pleasant and easygoing, SALT LAKE CITY is well worth a stopover of a couple of days. It's not a particularly thrilling destination in itself, but its setting is superb, towered over by the Wasatch Front , which marks the dividing line between the comparatively lush eastern and the bone-dry western halves of northern Utah, and which offers great hiking or cycling in summer and fall and, in winter, some of the world's best skiing. Salt Lake City's bid to raise its international profile by hosting the 2002 Winter Olympics resulted in a major building program both in the city itself and in the surrounding ski valleys, plus an unwelcome notoriety following the taint of corruption that surrounded its selection. Nonetheless, though people elsewhere in the US still tend to imagine Salt Lake City as decidedly short on spontaneous public fun, so long as you're willing to switch gears and slow down, its unhurried pace, and the positive energy and lack of pretence of its people, can make for a surprisingly enjoyable experience.