Red rock formations are everywhere in and around St. George, described by mid-century author Juanita Brooks as a place where “… the good Lord took everything left over from the creation, dumped it here, then set it on fire.”
Early territorial scout and church leader Parley P. Pratt chimed in with his own view of our red rock terrain, calling our beautiful landscape, “… a wide expanse of chaotic matter presenting itself [as] huge hills, sandy deserts; cheerless, grassless plains; perpendicular rocks, loose barren clay, dissolving beds of sandstone … lying in inconceivable confusion – in short, a country in ruins dissolved by the pelting of a storm of ages, or turned inside out, upside down by terrible convulsions in some former age.”
No question, we have plenty of everything Brother Parley and Juanita Brooks saw, including huge lava flows at the base of Pine Valley Mountain and several (hopefully) extinct volcanoes, clearly visible along Hwy. 18. To the east of the Hurricane Cliffs are the colorful mesas and plateaus of Zion National Park, described by modern-day writers as, “famed steep-walled and narrow canyons carved by low volume streams with intermittent flow but carrying loads of abrasive silt and sand.”
In any direction, you’ll also see evidence of ancient land movement and erosion creating such distinctive landmarks as our amazing Snow Canyon State Park (featured in the blockbuster Hollywood version of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” as well as an internet presence created by The Piano Guys), Pine Valley Mountain and the above-ground Hurricane Fault line which runs about 50 miles through the county (most visibly along the I-15 freeway and on both sides of the highway leading to the City of Hurricane).
In a word, local residents and thousands of annual visitors call our area, “spectacular!” so, we think at least a portion of every vacationer’s time in this part of the world should be spent exploring any – or all of the following – state and national parks, most which can be found within a short driving distance – in all directions – from your vacation resort rental:
