Oktoberfest weekends are open at Snowbird, Magna gives up six blocks of Main Street, and Thursday is a wash

Snowbird opened its 54th Oktoberfest on August 8 and runs it every Saturday and Sunday through October 11, plus Labor Day, noon to 6 each day. Walking onto the festival grounds costs nothing. You pay for what you eat and drink, and this year that means more than 50 beers across the German lagers and the Utah taps, poured under the tents around the Snowbird Center. The programming is the part people underrate. Stein holding, alphorns and polka bands have been fixtures up there for decades, and the addition this season is Hammerschlagen, the nail-driving contest that humbles a whole table of people who thought they had it figured out. Der Marktplatz grew too, with more artists and vendors than last year. Parking on the mountain runs $15 at Entries 1, 2 and 4, valet at the Snowbird Center is $30, and the free shuttle from the Park and Ride at 9400 South Highland Drive only comes every 80 minutes until August 23. It tightens to every 40 minutes on August 29. For this Saturday that means reserving a shuttle seat online and building the wait into the day, or leaving early enough that Little Cottonwood is not already stacked at the mouth. The tram to Hidden Peak is a separate $58 on weekends, and the Alpine Slide and the mountain coaster keep anyone under drinking age busy while the adults work the taps.

The fire started August 7 in Morgan County and had burned 13,601 acres with 23 percent containment by Tuesday morning, four days in. Crews got their first favorable weather day in nearly a week on Tuesday, though 517 people are still out of their homes across Morgan and Summit counties, with Henefer and the ground near the I-80 and I-84 junction the biggest worry. What Salt Lake County got out of it was the haze that settled over the benches on Tuesday, carried in from about 30 miles northeast. The forecast finally helps, with thunderstorms likely here tonight and a 100 percent chance of rain on Thursday.

Planning staff have recommended approval of a 16-story mixed-use building on the Zions Bank site in Sugar House, and the Planning Commission takes it up today with five conditions attached. The Gardner Group's proposal stands 184 feet 10 inches, with mechanical screening pushing it near 193, in a base zone that allows 125. Inside are 139 apartments, 52 hotel rooms, 9,200 square feet of commercial space and 164 parking stalls. The piece drawing the argument is the bank drive-through, a use Sugar House removed from its rules in 2023, which needs a fresh conditional use permit now that the existing building is coming down.

Hogle Zoo clears out the strollers and reopens from 6:30 to 9:30 tonight for adults only, with beer and wine from local breweries poured around the grounds. Allbrook Station plays two sets, 7 to 7:45 and 8 to 8:45. The Eccles Express train runs and the giraffe feeding stays open, which is the part people forget they can do without a line of kids ahead of them.

Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings bring the Takin' It Back tour to West Valley on Friday at 7:30, with Don Felder opening. Felder played guitar in the Eagles from 1974 to 2001. Bachman and Cummings wrote the catalog, sued in 2023 over the use of the band's name, and got it back in 2024.

Salt Lake lost the finale 6-5 in ten innings on August 9 and dropped the series to the Comets five games to one. The one they won was the 14-13 shootout on August 8 that ended their longest losing streak since 2021.

Utah comes off a 2-1 loss to Denver Summit FC on August 9, where Tatumn Milazzo pulled one back in the 89th minute after the game was already gone. Friday brings Bay FC to Sandy under the lights.

A Honduran and Salvadoran kitchen on 3500 South that opens at 9 in the morning and runs to 10 most nights. Order the baleada first, the thick flour tortilla folded over refried beans, crema and cheese, then work into the pupusas. The breakfast plate with grilled steak, chorizo, beans, fried eggs and guacamole is the one worth driving for, and breakfast is not confined to the morning here.

Gilgal Sculpture Garden sits behind the houses at 749 East 500 South, reached by a walkway thousands of people drive past every day without noticing. Thomas Battersby Child Jr. built it through the middle of the last century, and it holds 12 original sculptures plus more than 70 stones carved with scripture, poems and quotations. The one everybody remembers is the sphinx with Joseph Smith's face on it. It became a city park, admission is nothing, and walking tour brochures wait at the entrance.

Wednesday evening in Salt Lake City, about 20 makers on the Fisher Brewing patio from 6 to 9.

Thursday night in Sandy, a 7:30 start on the hillside.

Sunday morning in Murray, more than 100 vendors on the west lawn from 9 to 1.

The Road Home and First Step House are building The Edward on the southeast parking lot beside Palmer Court, the 201-unit supportive housing building at 999 South Main that spent its first life as a Holiday Inn. The Edward brings 187 studios of roughly 420 square feet, all of them deeply affordable, with 10 units set aside for households at or under 25 percent of area median income and 177 at or under 30 percent. Completion is targeted for 2028. Once residents move across the lot, Palmer Court itself comes down and that site gets rebuilt with more of the same.

The fire at the North Union Apartments in Midvale started July 31 and burned for more than 24 hours, and investigators traced it to a mechanical problem in the attic. It emptied 220 occupied units. Habitat for Humanity of the Greater Salt Lake Area is now handing out donated furniture, household goods, diapers, wipes, personal care items, food and gift cards from its Salt Lake City warehouse, running by voucher into early October. Midvale keeps a resource list for displaced residents on the city website.

The Las Vegas doughnut chain opens its Sandy shop at 10235 South State Street on Saturday. A ribbon cutting runs at 9 with Sandy Mayor Monica Zoltanski among the speakers, and the doors open to everyone at 10. This location debuts the company's first Pinkycade, an arcade built into the shop. Anyone buying a half dozen or more during the opening gets a limited edition shirt while they last, and a Pink Ticket hidden in a doughnut is good for free doughnuts for a year.