St. George:
An Oasis Wrapped in the Red Rocks of Southwestern Utah By Barbara Redding
After hiking amid the other-worldly rock formations of Utah’s Mighty 5 national parks last May, the plan was to kick off the hiking boots in St. George and recharge before flying home from Las Vegas. We ditched the boots, but we couldn’t sit still for long. This small desert-valley city in the southwestern corner of Utah offers some stunning surprises of its own. First, the geography is glorious–and I’m saying this after visiting Utah’s national parks. Red-rock cliffs and mesas of the Colorado Plateau tower over the city of about 100,000 people. Geological regions meld But there’s more. Just a short drive north, dense stands of ponderosa pine trees climb the slopes of the Pine Valley Mountains on the edge of the Grand Basin. In the opposite direction, the Mojave Desert stretches desolate and dusty all the way to California. The juxtaposition of three geological regions, coupled with the absence of the crowds we encountered at the national parks, made St. George a picture-perfect last stop on a two-week road trip through southern Utah. Mormon icon Brigham Young likely would have approved. He dispatched the first non-native settlers from Salt Lake City in 1861 to plant cotton. The crop never turned a profit for the Church of Latter-Day Saints, but St. George earned its nickname as Utah’s “Dixie” and its reputation as the state’s warm-weather retreat. One of the city’s first snowbirds, Young built a winter home here.
Photos: Hiking in Snow Canyon. @2020 Greater Zion Convention & Tourism Of ce. All Rights Reserved; Hot air balloon above St. George. @2020 Greater Zion Convention & Tourism Of ce. All Rights Reserved; Pioneer Park stroll. @2020 Greater Zion Convention & Tourism Of ce. All Rights Reserved; Sky Mountain Golf Course. @2020 Greater Zion Convention & Tourism Of ce. All Rights Reserved.
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