Saturday June 10, 3.7mi/6.0km

Above E Fork Virgin River (797.0/4800ft) to Highway 9 / Finish (800.7/1234ft) (UT)

With such a short distance to hike today I didn’t bother getting an early start. I usually left camp at 7:30 and had fun hiking on slickrock most of the morning.

I had a little bit more climbing to do, but it was perfect weather and a nice morning to hike.

Pretty soon I was on top with a little plateau. Views ahead to the north:

For a long time I was hiking on this beautiful slickrock ridge.

It was some of my favorite type of hiking, it’s just like a huge sandstone sidewalk!

It seemed like a perfect way to end this trail considering I also started it on slickrock. The last mile was in a sandy wash, And all these little purple wildflowers were out.

It was surprisingly green, at times it almost felt like the Appalachian Trail. Except without the humidity, bugs, or crowds….so I guess not like the AT at all!

Just after 10am I arrived at the highway, and I started hitching at this little parking pull-off area.

This area is called Checkerboard Mesa, because apparently from the right angle the red and white rocks alternate in a checkerboard pattern.

After 45 minutes of hitching I got a ride from a guy from Saint George named Lyle.

He owns a local business and has lived there for many decades, so he knew a ton about the area and even gave me a little scenic tour on the long drive back to St George! The first part of the drive was in the national park, and we had to pass through a long tunnel to get down to the main park area.

It was one of the most fun hitches I’ve ever had, We talked a bunch about the local area, hiking, the desert, pretty much everything. Lyle dropped me off at the local Enterprise car rental. It was perfect timing since I arrived just 15 minutes before they closed, and they waived the one-way rental fee because they needed more cars in Moab anyway (which is where I was driving to).

I love that these modern cars have finally upgraded all their charging to USB-C. Perfect!

My first stop was to drive a few minutes to the Pizza Factory, where I devoured a salad, pizza, and too many lemonades.

One of the local places Lyle had told me about was called the Red Hills Desert Garden. It was free, so I took a quick stroll through there and saw many of the same plants I had been looking at these past two months. But now with names and background information!

There was this very large bird just standing perfectly still in the water. Strange guy.

I left the garden, and a little further down that same road was a rock feature called the “St. George Narrows”. Another couple was there too, and they clearly did not fit in the very small crack. It was probably only 12 inches/30cm wide.

I walked up to the top of those rocks and there was a nice view down to the city of St George.

I realized it was now mid-afternoon, and so I walked back to my rental car and started the 5-hour drive back to Moab.