While we are not presently in full time travel mode, we have stayed busy in the St George area.
We have been fortunate to spend time with family in our vacation rental at Arcadia, including some day trips into Snow Canyon State Park and Zion National park:
And as of December, we have a truck and 5th wheel again. Click here if you want to see the floor plan. We purchased both used. No renovation of the trailer this time, just some battery and solar upgrades and minor repairs. (click here to see what we did to our first trailer) This travel trailer is 4 ft shorter and several thousand pounds lighter than the one we had in 2020-21. That makes for less white-knuckle driving. Susie like this particular model since it has lots of windows in the back to enjoy the views.
Snow Canyon State Park
We did some winter camping in Snow Canyon State Park in January and February. We were able to test out towing the trailer with the truck, and test out all the systems on the trailer, except for the air conditioner. The views throughout Snow Canyon are stunning. Red sandstone, giving way to white sandstone towards the top of the park. Volcanic layers towards the top and there is even a nearby cinder cone.
It was cold while we were there. It rained some and even snowed a bit. But there were nice days too where we could do some rides on our e-bikes and hike in parts of the park that we hadn’t seen before. The truck and trailer performed quite well.
Zion National Park
At the end of February we spent 5 nights in Zion National Park and enjoyed lots of great hiking and bike riding.
Zion is crazy crowded in the summer, so winter and early spring are great times to visit. For most of the year, only shuttle busses run up and down the scenic drive and the park is brimming with visitors. The lodge and the trails are really busy. However from sometime in December to about March 1st the shuttle buses do not run and cars to go up the scenic drive. However, when the handful of small parking lots fill up, the rangers shut down the road to car traffic.
Winter naturally has fewer visitors. However since car traffic is limited by available parking, this also limited the number of people at the lodge and on the trails. We rode our ebikes to the lodge and further up the road to the trail heads as needed.
It can be downright cold, windy, rainy or even snowing at Zion in February, so it was possible that our time there would have been not so much fun. However, we had unusually warm and clear weather during our stay, so we had a wonderful time hiking and biking.
We ate lunch at the Lodge twice. $17 is a lot to pay for a hamburger but it was really good and large enough that we just split it.
The trails we hiked: Upper Emerald Pool, Canyon Overlook Trail, Watchman Trail and the hike to Scout Lookout via Western Rim Trail.
Scout Lookout is the last flat ground before the Angel’s Landing hike begins. Permission to hike Angel’s landing is governed by an online lottery system now. However, when we were at Scout Lookout there were no rangers and very few hikers heading up or down. We considered doing the hike, but since we have already done that part a couple times we were content to just eat our lunch and enjoy the view from Scout Lookout.
In late December we took a hike with our friends, the Harmons into a lesser-visited part of Zion National Park: Kolob Canyons. A bit windy and chilly but stunning views.
There is an Anazasi Petroglyph trail just outside Santa Clara, Utah that we hiked a couple times in December as well. Hundreds of ancient petroglyphs are visible on the rocks at the top of this hike.
This area around St George has unique beauty and history. We love to hike and there are so many wonderful places to explore.
Next up: Mexico for a few days with our son and his family in Puerto Penasco at the top of the Gulf of California, followed by some time in Hawaii (Kauai and Oahu) to visit friends. Then Susie will be in England and France this spring for some solo exploration and a long walk with some of her friends while I stick around St George to help with my mother.
In May/June Susie and I will be somewhere in Europe for another long walk in and perhaps somewhere else in the world for another long walk in the Fall.
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