Snow in the forecast for Ruby Mountains, our planned destination. Sun for St. George so it was a no brainer – go south. We still had a couple of days with rain and a couple of days that had wind, but it was much better weather than the rest of Utah.
Doug made a booking at an RV park right in St. George. They didn’t have room for us in the regular park so we agreed to go in their “storage” area for two nights, with electric and water hook-ups. Tali wasn’t so thrilled with the gravel surface, especially since there were no other dog smells. The good point was that our neighbours were very quiet. (They were empty units.) The whole park looked a lot better on the internet than in real life, so we cancelled the rest of our booking and looked for a better place.
Here’s a photo of Wendy taken from Pioneer Park, on a ridge full of sandstone bluffs, perfect for kids to scramble on. In the background is downtown St. George, with our first RV park somewhere in the distance.
We relocated to the KOA, about a half hour east of St. George, which turned out to be a perfect location for us – right across from Red Rocks Recreation Area (hiking and biking) and a few minutes from Quail Creek State Park (birding).
We hiked in Snow Canyon State Park on three different days. The first day was unsettled, but we got in a short walk to some lava tubes before it rained.
We chose to explore the White Rocks area on another day. We hiked about half an hour to a natural amphitheatre. It was so windy we were almost blown off our feet. Doug noticed a canyon that looked like we could follow down to another trail. It was mostly walking, with a bit of scrambling, and it was out of the wind. Although the route wasn’t well travelled we could tell that others had used it.
Here is a photo after we got out of the canyon. You can see the “V” to the right of Doug.
We had perfect weather on the third day at Snow Canyon. The park is set up for people to take short loop hikes from different parking areas. We connected short trails to make a longer loop to make it a three and a half hour hike. The photo on the right shows Doug on the “Petrified Dunes” section.
We scrambled up an overlook for a quiet lunch in the shade. From there we could see our descent route and the trail back to the truck.
Doug was really happy to be able to get back on his bike in the outdoors. Our first warm-up rides were on the beautiful paved trails in St. George. Riding on trails came back to him easily. We also rode the trails in the Red Rocks Recreation area that were really close to our second campsite. The trailhead to the White Rim trail (photo below) was five minutes from our trailer.
Doug’s longest ride was the Church Rocks loop and back to the trailer for a 18 km trip. We loaded his bike in the truck for a different access to the Red Rock Recreation trails. Wendy drove the truck back to camp and did some birding on the way back.
We’ve now set up our base camp at Echo Bay, Lake Mead, Nevada for our next birding, hiking and biking adventures.
Travels with a Fox 