Southern Utah Hiking

We had decided to do some hiking while in Southern Utah and so I had picked a few adventures for us to do. First up was Valley of Fire in Nevada - about 30 minutes from Vegas and a little over an hour from St. George. We headed out early Saturday morning because 1. It was going to be super hot that day (like mid 90s) and 2. We needed to get back to get ready for the temple trip.

Valley of Fire was certainly cool. There isn't a ton to explore, just a few quick little "hikes." But it was cool to see and a good morning adventure!

The desert bloom was in full effect with these beautiful white flowers! Loved them.

A fun and silly picture of us.

This spot in Valley of Fire is akin to "The Wave" in Arizona. The Wave is a hiking destination that you have to get a lottery permit for - it's pretty hard to get. I am sure The Wave is super impressive, but this spot in VofF was pretty awesome, too!

This was a cool and popular "photo-op" point - I had read about it on many blogs, posts, etc. We were running a bit out of time and so didn't do it quite properly (getting a top a rock to get the cool, wavy road), but it was still a cool picture!

Our next hike was our big, epic one - a 10-miler in a pretty remote canyon. The trailhead was about an hour from St. George, in Hildale (Warren Jeffs and his followers home town). The town was ultra-weird (!!) but the setting was gorgeous! The hike was the Water Canyon to Squirrel Creek loop. It was amazing and just so pretty! So pretty! Especially with all the extra water this year - it was amazing. It was quite tricky as it's not a super popular trail and I would have for certain gotten us forever lost. Ben used his GPS map of the trail and we still got lost a few times . . . One time we ended up on quite a precarious ledge of rock - finally and thankfully determining we had gotten off-course a bit. It turned out to be a quite more adventurous and longer than we had thought, but that was okay! It was a super great hike for sure. 

Here are the gazillion and one pictures from the hike:

The pictures are totally out of order, but whatever! Such a cool and unique place to explore. However, next time (for future reference) only hike to the White Domes and come back out Water Canyon. Squirrel creek was kind of lame . . . 

This trip felt like a good Spring Break vacation - as opposed to when spring break really was and how it was still winter-ish, ha!