DAY 17
4/4/26. Saturday
Stats: 16 mi. AIS: 1:46 Speed: 9.2mph. Elev.:1367
We took a bicycle ride through Snow Canyon State Park making a loop riding the Whiptail loop to Hwy 18 then back to where we started. Snow Canyon starts in a tiny town (suburb now) of St George UT.
It was a bright, sunny calm morning. Super happy that the wind has finally blown through from that big storm that hit Utah this week. Lots of rain and/or snow or both.
The park entry for walking or biking is just $3/person. It was all climbing to the top of the state park. Most of it was all bike path until the last 1.5 mile very steep pitch. Something like 5 miles to the top.
Along the bike path we had gobs of e-bikes once again. Not quite the chaos of Zion but the e-less bikes were very, very few… 5-10 at most including us! As a matter of fact there was a very busy e-bike rental store in the little shopping plaza where we parked the van. It was busy.
We worked our way up taking a few stops. We hadn’t ridden very far when we ditched our bike jackets. Along the way there were sand dunes, rock climbers, lava flows, campground, petrified sand dunes, lava tubes. All of these had short or long hikes you could take to see the area. It was a biking day for us… so no hikes were taken today.
going up
Once we reached the top and left the State Park we intersected with Hwy 18. It’s a big highway with great shoulders but this highway had a bike path right next to it for our 5-6 mile descent back down to Red Mountain Rd.
along Hwy 18
The descent was fast and furious and in a few places the trail was really steep! Glad I was going down but heavy on the brakes. There were a few places we stopped to see if we could find our campsite looking across the Santa Clara River valley. I did finally spot it. It would have been probably 6 miles or so away from where we were looking.
Once we turned off the highway we took a bike path back to our van parking spot where we started. Loop complete. It was a pleasurable ride.
We are impressed with what we’ve seen of St George area so far. The county bike path system is wonderful. It seems with every new road or development they’ve built it includes a paved path on one or both sides. They connect to other trails in other developments or along the major arterials. We are camped and exploring north of St George proper. The homes are mostly the Southwest adobe style with one or two levels, flat roofs and blend in with the red rock surroundings. This high above the Virgin River the developments are mostly gated that we’ve seen. Nice landscaping and really nice looking places to live.
We changed out of biking clothes. A nice feature of living out of the van. We made our way downtown St George to checkout the Arts Festival in their town center. It was warm and busy with families and people. We quickly buzzed through the artists tents. The usual pottery, photography, art paintings, metal art, jewelry etc. However, there was one artist and her porcelain pottery that was unique that caught my eye. She used a Korean technique where she etched her art work into the porcelain then added the dye and wiped it off except where she etched. Her work was fine blue lines on her white pottery. That made the excursion worth it! After that it was the usual food trucks, live music, kids fun areas. Great weekend for this event. Enjoyed seeing all the people having a good time.
We stopped for a beer and to catch a little March Madness men’s semi-final game. Stayed long enough for Jim to know he wasn’t going to win his bracket. (Arizona was losing, badly, to Michigan). Back to last nights campsite looking toward the Snow Canyon, Red Mountain and The Pine Valley Mountains. We saved our spot with camp chairs and our rug. A few more campers had arrived during the day. Popular overlook!
Settled in for the night. Tomorrow is Easter and we will mark the day in Natures beauty. Our plan is to bicycle a bigger loop than today and come through the Snow Country state park in reverse.
cinnicrew 