Virgin River Trail
The river corridor · Easy, paved · Year round · Free
Start with the one you can do in street shoes. The paved Virgin River Trail runs the river corridor through the middle of St. George, west toward Confluence Park where the Santa Clara and Virgin rivers meet, and east toward Washington City. It is flat, it is shaded in stretches, and there are half a dozen places to get on it without paying for anything or driving far.
This is the trail that actually gets used. Morning walkers, runners, strollers, and people on bikes commuting across town, all year, including the months when nothing else outdoors is tolerable. If you are new here and want to understand the shape of the valley, ride it end to end once.
In July this is the only trail on the list I would send anybody to between ten in the morning and six at night, and even then I would send them at the river end where the cottonwoods are.
Pioneer Park and the Dixie Rock
375 East Red Hills Parkway · Easy scramble · Year round · Free
Pioneer Park is red sandstone on the ridge above downtown, and it is less a trail than a playground made of rock. Routes wander around the Sugarloaf and the Dixie Rock formations, through small arches, into narrow slots, and out onto ledges with the whole valley underneath you. Nothing is long. Everything is scenic.
The connected Owens Loop gives it a bit more structure if you want an actual circuit rather than a wander. Ten minutes from Main Street, free, no permit, and open whenever you feel like going. It is the first place I take somebody who says they do not really hike.
Sandstone is grippier than it looks until it is not. The rock at Pioneer Park is easy to climb up and much harder to climb down, and there are real drops here with no railings. Pick your line on the way up with the descent in mind, and keep small children within arm's reach near the ledges.
Red Hills Parkway Trail
The ridge above downtown · Easy · Year round · Free
The Red Hills Parkway Trail runs the ridge above the north side of town for roughly four miles, passing Pioneer Park, the Dixie Rock overlook, and the Red Hills Desert Garden along the way. On one side you have the city laid out below, on the other you have sandstone, and the whole thing sits above the traffic rather than in it.
It works as an out and back of whatever length you feel like, which is the real appeal. Half an hour before work, or the full four miles on a cool Saturday, from the same trailhead. The Desert Garden near the middle is worth the stop on its own, and it costs nothing.
Jenny's Canyon and the Petrified Dunes
Snow Canyon State Park, about 15 minutes · Easy to moderate · October through May · Day use fee
Snow Canyon holds roughly 38 miles of trail, and these two are the ones to do first. Jenny's Canyon is a short walk into a genuine slot in the sandstone, narrow enough to touch both walls, and it is over almost before it starts. The Petrified Dunes are the opposite: open, rolling waves of frozen sand you walk out across in whatever direction looks good.
Together they are under two miles and they show you what makes this park unusual. Jenny's Canyon closes seasonally for raptor nesting, which catches people out, so check before you drive. The whole park, including the lava tubes and the paved Whiptail route, is on the Snow Canyon guide.
Chuckwalla to Turtle Wall loop
Top of Bluff Street · Moderate · October through April · Free
This is the signature St. George desert hike and it starts from a signed lot with restrooms at the top of Bluff Street, past the Snow Canyon Parkway light. From the Chuckwalla trailhead the route links Turtle Wall, Paradise Rim, and Halfway Wash into a loop of about three and a half miles inside the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve.
You get slickrock, a couple of arches, black lava on the skyline, and the city below you for most of it. There is no shade to speak of and no water, which is the whole reason this is a cool season hike. Go at first light in October and you will understand why people move here.
The Red Cliffs Desert Reserve exists because of the desert tortoise. Stay on the trail, keep dogs leashed where the signs say so, and if you meet a tortoise, give it room and leave it exactly where it is.
Tempi'po'op, the petroglyph mesa
About 15 minutes west on Old Highway 91 · Moderate · Fall through spring · Free
The Anasazi Valley Trail, also called Tempi'po'op, climbs a low mesa above the Santa Clara River to panels of petroglyphs and the outlines of an ancestral Puebloan farmstead. It is about three and a half miles round trip on an old road bed, mostly gentle, with a short pitch to gain the mesa.
The payoff is standing in front of rock art that has been there for something like a thousand years, with the river cottonwoods below you and nothing else around. Treat it like the archaeological site it is: look, photograph, touch nothing, and leave the panels exactly as you found them. It sits on the Ivins and Santa Clara side of the valley, and it shows up on the Ivins hikes list too.
Red Reef and the water
Red Cliffs Recreation Area, northeast off Red Cliffs Drive · Moderate · Spring and fall · Day use fee
The BLM manages the Red Cliffs Recreation Area northeast of the city, and it is the one place on this list where water is part of the point. The Red Reef route follows a drainage up into the red sandstone with pools and small waterfalls along it, and there is a short scramble section that turns it from a walk into something you have to think about.
How much water is running depends entirely on the season and the year, so this is a check first hike rather than a show up hike. Spring after a wet winter is the best version of it. The access road and the parking area are small, which keeps the crowds honest.
This is drainage country in monsoon season. From July into September, afternoon storms can put water down a wash miles from where it is raining. Do not enter a narrow drainage with storms in the forecast, and never drive into a flooded crossing, no matter how shallow it looks.
The Cottonwood and Grapevine corridor
Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, north edge of the valley · Moderate to hard · October through April · Free
The hardest thing on this list is also the emptiest. The Red Cliffs Desert Reserve wraps the north edge of St. George and Washington with a web of trails through red rock, slickrock, and Mojave desert, and the Grapevine and Cottonwood corridors are where it stops being a city park and starts being real desert.
Longer distances, rougher footing, less signage, and genuinely nobody out there on a weekday. Carry a map that works without signal, carry more water than the distance suggests, and tell somebody where you went. Done right on a cold clear morning in January, it is the best hiking within twenty minutes of a hundred thousand people.
Before you go: four local notes
- Season first, distance second. Between June and September the honest window is sunrise to about nine, and the honest answer for the middle of the day is the river trail or nothing. October through April this whole list is comfortable.
- Water is the thing people get wrong. Low desert plus high UV plus dry air means you go through more than you expect and you notice it later than you expect. A liter for an hour of walking is not paranoid here.
- Most of this is tortoise habitat. The Red Cliffs Desert Reserve was created to protect the Mojave desert tortoise, which means staying on the trail is a rule, not a courtesy. Leash rules vary by trail, so read the board at the trailhead.
- Check before you drive. Jenny's Canyon closes seasonally, Red Reef depends on runoff, and BLM access roads change. Ten minutes of checking saves an hour of driving.
