March 1, 2025

 Red Reef Trail, Silver Reef Trail and Dino Tracks

On our way home we stopped at Leeds to hike the Red Reef Trail and while we were there we did the Silver Reef Trail and Dino Tracks.  The Red Reef Trail was awesome!  It was crowded, but even so it was definitely worth the hike!

Red Reef Trail

There is a fee at the parking area ($5 or America the Beautiful Pass) since it is part of the Red Cliffs Recreation Area. It is worth it and you will be lucky to find parking during the busy times! 

All trails says it is 2.2 miles out and back, 219 ft. elevation gain.  Most of the trail is easy but there are some challenging parts, depending on how far you go.  You can stop at any point if the challenge looks like too much.  This is where we ended up and as you can see, it is beautiful!  Really a great hike!

                                           

Here are photos from the entire hike.

  

 

We got to the parking lot about 10 am on a Saturday and there were parking spots available but by the time we left, at about noon, it was full. We followed signs on a well marked trail.

The stairs went up to the rest rooms, a campground, and some other hiking trails.

We followed the signs for the Red Reef trail and it took us across a little bridge and through a picnic area.

The trail is well used and they want you to stay on the path.  The has been restoration work done and so you see a lot of native plants along the way.

We continued on.

You can see there are a lot of people.  There was a large group right behind us that we tried to stay ahead of.

At this point there was a bit of a bottleneck, coming and going.  

I am sure this hike would be different at different times of the year, depending on the waterflow.  I would like to do it in the fall!

Here we are! The trail continues on using the notches you see in the rock.  Someone said there used to be a rope here that was helpful. But its no longer here. There were people continuing on without the rope but we decided to turn back here.

We passed this arched area on our way and you can hike up to it.  There were people there and on the way back there was someone playing a flute. I wasn't close enough to see it but it sounded like a south American/Peruvian pan flute. It was very cool and we were just lucky to be there at the right time to hear it.  

Silver Reef Trail and Dino Tracks

The Silver Reef Trail starts in the campground, near the restrooms.  It is short, less than a half mile to the lookout and back, 111 ft. elevation gain.

We wouldn't have gone out of our way for this hike, but since we were there for the Red Reef Trail and it was close, it was a good addition. 

                                           

Yes, this is the right trail. 

                                           

You head uphill. It is uphill all the way to the look out point.

We came to signs that pointed out the dinosaur tracks.  Otherwise you would miss them.

You also have a view and can see the campground.

What we didn't know is that the dinosaur tracks are a spur from the main trail. So after seeing the dinosaur tracks, we continued on what we thought was the trail, and it was some kind of a trail but eventually the trail was faint and we could see the "trail" wasn't taking us to where we wanted to go.  We continued anyway and scrambled up some rocks and ended up at the lookout area.  As you can see in the photos there are no trees and you can see for a distance, so we weren't lost, we were just off trail!

Wandering off trail and we didn't even realize it!

Views from the lookout area.

Because of our losing the trail we ended up doing a loop but that turned out to be a good way to go!

Friday, February 28, 2025

 3 itty-bitty but worthwhile hike-walks

The stairs at Tech Ridge . Red Hills Desert Garden . Dixie Rock

We didn't exert a lot of energy on hiking today, we did some other things as well like the temple and ice cream, but these walks were all worthwhile. It was 70 degrees and that felt hot out in the sun! 

The stairs at Tech Ridge 

333 stairs

The stairs are fairly new and I had really wanted to do this while we were in St. George.  It appears they are mainly used for exercise and there were quite a few people there. We parked at the bottom, just past a neighborhood of new townhouses. There is a path that starts near the bottom of the stairs that goes up to the Temple Quarry trail head if you want to do that hike.  Or you can drive to that trailhead. We walked over to the stairs from where we were parked and climbed the 333 stairs. At the top there are some benches. We took a walking path to the right. After a ways you can take a path that goes down and end up near the neighborhood so you could to a loop. The St. George Airport used to be at the top of this mesa but they moved it back in 2011 and are developing this area.

This is a bridge we walked over on our walk at the top of the stairs.

Red Hills Desert Garden

This was just a walk but we did it today and it was really good! And free! Very worthwhile. It was in Pioneer Park, where we wanted to do some other things.  This is such a great area to hike and explore. 

Dixie Rock

This was a short hike, not really a hike, but there was some scrambling up the rock. It was .59 miles, which included the walk from the parking lot, and 128 feet elevation gain. Lots of people, and kids hopping around like mountain goats.  It was fun to go up on top of Dixie Rock at sunset.  What a beautiful view of St. George.  You can see both temples.

You climb up a huge rock and cross the bridge to get on Dixie Rock.

The views

Thursday, February 27, 2025

3 Hikes in Snow Canyon

Cinder Cone Trail . White Rocks Amphitheater . Scout Cave

We were in St. George to hike and enjoy warm weather.  We were not disappointed.  We spent one day in Snow Canyon and decided to do these three hikes: Cinder Cone Trail, White Rocks Amphitheater, and Scout Cave.

Cinder Cone Trail.  This is a trail that spirals up an extinct volcano.  It is about 2 miles, out and back, and the elevation gain is about 500 feet.  I would say it is a moderately difficult hike because it gets steep at the top with loose gravel and is slippery.  But the rest of the trail is not difficult. You go thru some lava fields, spiral up the volcano and then you can hike around the perimeter and look down inside and see weeds or desert plants growing, you can even hike down but it is steep.  You can also look out and see the valley.  You have a 360 degree view!

Well marked trail.

We didn't see many hikers.

We saw a few of these signs.  Not sure what the dangerous animals were.  We didn't spot them.

No Shade on this hike!

 

Getting to the top!

Looking down into the ancient volcano.

Looking out one direction is Diamond Valley.  You have a good view in all directions.

White Rocks Amphitheater.  There are 2 trails that lead to White Rocks Amphitheater. Since we had just done the cinder cone hike, we started at the trailhead on highway 18 because we were close to that trailhead.  It was also the shorter hike.  The parking lot was just off the highway but I didn't see a sign marking it as the White Rocks Amphitheater trailhead.  

From this trailhead it is a 1 mile out and back trail. 

You can see the trail at the edge of the parking lot.

Some of the trail is rocky.

Some of the trail is sandy.

The trail we were on joined up with the trail to White Rocks Amphitheatre trail 

coming from the main area of Snow Canyon.  At this point you go right.  

And then there is this part of the trail!  

Which led to a sign that points you to White Rocks Amphitheater.

You climb up the rocks.  At this point we saw 

other hikers.  Many of them had hiking poles. 

We made it!

This is one side of the amphitheater. We hiked up the rocks behind Mark.

These are some of the rocks you can go up.

There was a little canyon on the other side.

There are some desert plants where there is soil.

And some pockets of water so it must have rained recently. 

We enjoyed this hike.  It was different than the other hikes in Snow Canyon. This would be a good hike for kids, especially the short trail we took. It is a very diverse place.

Scout Cave

All trails says 3.4 miles out and back. The park map says 6 miles.  It starts at the southern entrance to the park. There was construction and so the parking lot was closed so we had to park at the Jenny's Canyon trail head and walk back so add on another mile each way and we had a long hike.

 

There are rocks and sand on the trail.

You can see the beautiful red rocks in the distance .  We wondered exactly where we were headed and where the cave would be.

The trail divides here.  Left to Johnson Canyon and Arch, right to Scout Cave. We thought we would do the Johnson Canyon hike later, because it is not very long, but that never happened.

The trail

An interesting tree.

Eventually we hiked down into a large wash, with very little water but lots of vegetation and it was pretty and cool.  Then we passed some very large houses.  Right along the trail but up much higher.  We came to some steps and that was a good climb. 

The stairs.

 After that we went on what we though was switchbacks and it looked like a well used trail but it turned out we were on the wrong trail! We later saw a sign that said "illegal trail".  

The sign we saw after going on this trail!

We could see the cave but somehow we passed it.  We asked one of the few hikers we saw about the cave and he said it was right where we had come from.  Luckily we hadn't gone too far at that point so we went back and scrambled up the rocks to the cave. There is a little scrambling there at the end. The floor of the cave is flat and it is a big open room and you have a good view.

View looking out of the cave.

Me, in the cave.

Us, in the cave.

Going back seemed shorter than the hike to the cave.  Maybe because we just scrambled down the rocks and avoided the "illegal trail" we took earlier!