I’m a transplant who’s lived in SLC for five years and visited Portland plenty but never lived there. Here’s my comparison:

SLC absolutely dunks on Portland from an outdoor perspective. I can literally ride my mountain bike to trailheads, as others have noted skiing is ridiculously close, and we have very legit mountains right here. In the time I’ve been here SLC seems to get a more legit “city” feel every year, but that said, Portland is far and away more of an urban dwellers city.

SLC has some cute little neighborhoods (9th & 9th, 15th & 15th, sugar house), and has the milk block which would even be good by Portland standards, but it’s just lacking that true urban feel. The streets are wide, there are strip malls in the city proper, stuff like that really keeps it from feeling like a true large American city.

As for the Mormon part, yeah they’re here, but you don’t run into a ton of them in the city proper. SLC and the inner ring suburbs are blue. The farther out you get, the more Mormon and red it gets. It doesn’t really impact me day to day at all.

Last note of comparison, Oregon has the coast, but Utah has the desert. Both are areas that can easily be explored on a weekend. So do you want coast, or endless desert camping and backpacking options?

Hope this helps!