Turnaround Point on Beck Hill
12/11/2021: This is a nice, scenic trail, although it has potential for being very heavily trafficked. It is very close to St. George and Santa Clara, so you are surrounded by city and roads. But there are just a few spots where you can see the towns, and they are off in the distance. And you won’t hear the traffic on the roads. This is a great hike to “get your feet wet” for hiking in St. George. You will get great vistas, especially near the top of Beck Hill.
We also took the Mojave Desert and Joshua Tree Road Scenic Backway OHV Trail to reach the trail. It was a fun drive, and I would do it again. I definitely recommend visiting the Beaver Dam Wash National Conservation Area at least once. There aren’t many trails, but you can drive it on the Lytle Ranch Road.
Marg’s Notes: Beautiful morning. Cold tho, ~25o. Headed towards St. George ~8:00, but took Exit 8 in AZ for HWY 91. Then took a right on an HOV road in The Beaver Dam Conservation Area. The road was graded & graveled. Rod loved it. To the top of the ridge was 11 miles. Supposedly the end of the road. However, the road kept going. So did we. It was a beautiful! drive. About 20 miles all told. Ended up back on Hwy 91. Rod took lots of pictures! Then we headed into St. George to the Chuckwalla Trail, which is basically in town. We hiked that trail to Beck Hill then looped back on Paradise Rim trail. We had a [snack] bar on Beck Hill. Again, beautiful views and lots of pics. Talked to a COVID denier woman named Vale. She gave us some hike suggestions… Total hike ~6.1 miles. Headed back on Hwy 91 and took another gravel road, Lytle Ranch Road. It got pretty steep & rough, so we turned around before the end. OK with me! Came back to Mesquite! Oh yeah, started our hike @ 10:45 MST. Utah is a different time zone from Mesquite!
Lasagna, salad, bread
Rod’s Ramblings from the Trail: Started our hike about 11:30 on the Chuckwalla Loop that I made on all trails. We just saw a bird fly over and it was a raptor, so I want to find out what kind of birds / raptors live around here. It was definitely not a red-tailed hawk. But it was just as big or close to it. [After researching, I think it might have been a Common Black Hawk at the far northwest end of its range.)
We drove the Mojave Desert and Joshua Tree Road Scenic Backway OHV Trail. The road is gravelly, but the Odyssey (2-wheel drive) would make it fine. On the OHV trail we saw many places that was BLM land with great campsites.
I suspect that this hike is a very heavily trafficked trail given its proximity to St George. However, today even on Saturday it's not too bad. We have seen less than 10 people but we've only been on the trail for about a half hour.
We met an anti-vaxer who recommended these areas/hikes:
We wound up going about 6 mi and it was a very nice hike. We saw probably 30 to 40 people over the 6 mi. Got some tips about where to go up in Northwest Zion but probably won't go there this trip because weather is going to be bad. All in all, I gave it 4 stars out of 5. I just don't like to see so many people, and it has to be something spectacular to view if there are a lot of people for me to give it a 5. But I would recommend doing this hike and it would make it into my AllTrails search criteria of 4 stars and above.