One sunny Tuesday, a few weeks ago, we all piled into Ebony in the late afternoon to go on a hike. Mama Nomad had picked a place that would give us a good introduction to hiking in Utah. The place is called Pioneer Park.
Pioneer Park is located at 375 East Red Hills Parkway. This is at the edge of St. George, Utah. The reason it was a good introduction for hiking in Utah is that the park had a good mix of easy to medium hiking and climbing, a mix of paved and natural walkways, back country to roam in yet it had some bathrooms.
Each State in the Union treats parks, hiking and exploring differently. Some of them will put their parks on their websites, relay how long the hike is, directions on how to get there, establish defined pathways you are supposed to stay on and more. Others won’t even tell you about the parks, where they are located or any real info. You have to rely upon third parties for information.
Utah does list their parks on their websites, at least St. George does. They even have a parks and trail guide. You do not have specific directions to parks and trailheads. But you do have a map and they give you addresses for the parks.
The one thing that we have found to be mostly true is that the natural trails are not really marked. They seem to have taken the attitude that they will just allow visitors to roam wherever they please and follow a defined trail or blaze their own. We originally found this challenging because we were not sure where to start. There were natural trails going in multiple directions. So, we just picked one that headed in a general direction that looked interesting and proceeded.
After getting past the parking lot and initial sets of boulders, we found our own groove. Our whole family were like mountain goats hopping from rock to rock. We climbed up to one peak, jumped to other plateaus and continued journeying. And we spent significant amounts of time not even touching the ground.
Venturing around the park, we saw rocks that were like bowls with water in them, trees growing in small patches of dirt between boulders, found an old house that was built into the rocks and even found one rock that looked like a snake.
There were people from toddler up to elderly climbing on and walking around the rocks. If you wanted a challenge, you could hike to some of the boulders that were further in the back. But, for experienced hikers, I would rate this as an easy place. And it truly was a great introduction to Utah hiking. Rocks, dirt, sand and moisture react differently in various geographies. We were able to acclimate easily.
The whole family had a great time. We got some fantastic exercise, were not exhausted afterwards and enjoyed a beautiful sunny day. If you are in the St. George area, stop into Pioneer Park and hike a while. Safe Travels.
