SATURDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2024

(St. George, UT)

We weren’t exactly up and at ‘em, but at least we got a full night’s sleep. Due to arriving in Utah yesterday, we lost an hour as we travelled to St. George so it was around 1030 local time when we went to bed. I knew today was going to be hot, so the option of being out early was the wise one, but not really achievable after two days of travel.

Instead, I got up just set 8am, was suitably excited to look out of the window and see the red rocks, and then explored the coffee machine, resulting in sufficiently ok coffee to take back to bed for half an hour. Then it was showers and the slow task of trying to remember what to take on a hike, packing things for the day into the car, and driving to (yet another) Denny’s for breakfast. Amongst my breakfast items I chose a bowl of fruit, and the melon was delicious.

We drove through the red hills to Snow Canyon. Along the way we passed a lot of cyclists who were riding up to 100 miles as part of the Fall Tour…rather them than me. It is hilly as well as hot (6,810 feet of elevation gain along the course). At the entrance station there was a caution sign about tortoises. I’m not sure if the speed limit was for us, or if they have very fast tortoises, but we didn’t see any.

Our first stop was the parking area for the Hidden Pinyon Trail. It was already feeling toasty under the southern sun, so we put our newly acquired sunsun shirts on, to which I added my cool hat and a sun umbrella attached to my pack. I’ve not used it before, but it definitely helped to reduce the direct heat, although I did have to collapse it a bit to get through a narrower canyon section…

Even so, it was warm, and I’m not acclimatised yet, to either the heat or the altitude. Although the walk was lovely, and I was enjoying the scenery, the wiser choice was to cut the walk short and return to the car, and have an air conditioned drive through of the canyon instead.

After a short stop at the visitor centre, where we spotted a pair of Greater Roadrunners, we drove on up the canyon, stopping occasionally for photos. We drove past the cinder cone, responsible for the extensive amounts of lava, petrified dunes and red and white sandstone rock formations. Under cooler conditions it would have been lovely to do more hiking.

On our way back to the hotel we called in at a supermarket. It was a lovely supermarket (more of a Waitrose equivalent rather than our usual City Market experiences) and they had some very funny hallowe’en decorations located around the store. We picked up some melon for lunch, together with iced lattes, and some general supplies of bananas, crisps, cookies, Dairy Milk (expensive in America, but it’s not worth buying American chocolate!) and beer. The also sold alcohol free beer which made me happy, but I couldn’t found it at first. It was in the beer cave… This was a whole chiller room which you could go into to search for beer, and it was fabulously cold in there! I loved it. It was just like the feeling you get from cold water shock when you first get in, and then you feel invigorated after free minutes of submersion. Andrew thought it was too cold, and I don’t think my comparison made him any more likely to choose to go swimming in cold water. I wanted to stay for a while…

Instead we returned to the hotel, and ate our melon (I packed wooden cutlery, purchased many years ago in Zion), and then we went and sat out in the hotel’s Koy garden, a small shaded garden with a large fish pool, with a water feature that made it all very relaxing. We read books, and I edited the footage for today’s short hike. Unusual for us to sit and relax, but perhaps that’s what we needed after all of the travel. It was very pleasant.

[Editor’s note: video now stored here https://vimeo.com/1023605050.]

After showering and changing, we headed to Ancestor Square. St. George was founded in 1847, and these buildings date from the 1850s, as far as I can tell. They now function as a collection of bars and restaurants, and the atmosphere was relaxed and enjoyable on a pleasantly warm (77 degrees still, but the sun had set)  Saturday evening. We went to the Pizza Factory, were lucky to get seated straight away, and the pizza itself was extremely tasty. Perfect choice.

We fuelled up the car ready for tomorrow, then made our way back to the hotel for a nice cold (or in the case of one bottle, frozen!) beer and a relaxing evening.