23 great things to do in St George, Utah!

hey everybody this is matt with we're in the rockies and i'm so excited because in this video i'm going to give you 18 things that you can do and five places that you can eat in and around st george utah first up is gun lock falls this is a state park that's just outside of st george it's actually a dam so the water isn't always running it just depends on if they need to release the water or not so before you go you want to check to make sure water is running but if it is it is a gorgeous sight we happened to visit on a time it was running and it was absolutely fantastic [Music] the area is named after gun lock bill who was a good hunter in the old days right by there is veo pies so you want to visit this on your way to or from gun lock if possible and this is quite a famous little pie location you can get some food there too but the famous thing is they're pies so they've got some cream pies and some other delicious stuff next up is aspiration trail this is a real interesting little hiking trail so it looks kind of barren and plain and it kind of is but it gets to a really nice overlook here with the american flag flying the big highlight of this trail is these rocks you can see that a lot of these rocks are painted and that's because they have inspirational messages and anybody can just create a rock and paint it and put whatever message they want down there and then they line the trail with these rocks and there's a big pile of them at the end of the trail so the big highlight here is simply just to discover some of these cool sayings and creative things that people have made so take a look at some of these and in the comments tell us which rock is the favorite one that you see on this video [Music] okay next step is to ride an atv so southern utah is a mecca for outdoor enthusiasts including dirt bikers and four-wheelers and people who like to ride razors and rangers so we rented ours from southern utah adventure center and from there you can drive out to this little valley called warner valley where you can see all sorts of interesting formations they have some dinosaur tracks and a fort you have some cool little hills you can drive around on now just up above warner valley is sand hollow state park and this is a place with sand dunes so it's really popular for people to go right on the sand dunes but we have a family of six so we needed a larger vehicle to accommodate us so they gave us this polaris ranger these aren't really built for sand dunes so we went over to this other area here and just explored around and every once in a while we'd stop and walk through some cool rocks again here's the fort that we saw and here's the dinosaur track so you can walk out to these cool dinosaur tracks which is really kind of amazing to think about actually mind-blowing to think about but this is just a great desert area to ride around okay another place to eat is the bearpaw cafe this is quite a popular spot and it's located in a little art district in downtown st george their famous thing is their stuffed french toast from what i understand and i tried it and it was delicious but they have lots of other things our kids really like the chocolate chip pancakes if you're a breakfast lover this is for you although the wait times do get kind of long around 40 minutes up next is the super crazy candy cliffs this looks like a big bowl of ice cream places like this would be national monuments probably in other states but here they're virtually unknown but you can just hike out on a little hike called yant flat and you get to the candy cliffs here which give you views of the valley surrounding and then look at all this crazy red rock that you can just climb around on this is really one of the coolest places we've been in southern utah there's so many locations like this around the west that are not located in a national park and that makes them really cool to visit because they're kind of off the beaten path another place that's not visited as much by outsiders because they're thinking of the national parks but snow canyon is a state park that is absolutely gorgeous again probably would be some sort of a national something or other in most states this is really a cool place because it has red rock and white rock and this black lava rock in fact there are lava tubes that you can climb into they're like caves you can just climb around in and then outdoors there's these formations that you can climb around on there's biking trails and there's places for the kids to play around in the sand dunes this by the way is named after pioneers with the last name snow it has nothing to do with actual snow of which it receives very little throughout the year what a cool place snow canyon is [Music] okay we have a couple of history sites on our list here so the first one is the brigham young winter home so brigham young is the famous prophet president of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints who led the church from the east across the great plains to the salt lake valley he's known as the american moses and a very famous western figure if you don't know anything about him stop in at the brigham young house and learn about him he spent most of his time in salt lake up in northern utah which is where the headquarters of the church are but he came down south during the winters because the warm weather was easier on his body next up is the famous tuacan amphitheater this is where they do plays in an outdoor setting surrounded by red rock walls this is a gorgeous amphitheater and really quite a famous one they received rights from disney to do many famous productions such as tarzan the little mermaid the wizard of oz and their most successful one joseph and the amazing technicolor dream coat okay what do you got got a coconut sugar cookie couldn't ask for a better place to watch a play [Music] okay our next stop is kolob canyons this is actually part of zion national park but it's a completely different section with a different entrance it's not connected to zion canyon and the entrance is pretty close to st george it's just located right on i-15 up the freeway from st george i mean these are some amazing slot canyons it's just crazy this is a lesser visited section of the park it's not nearly as crowded there's only one road that goes through it it only takes about 15 minutes to drive the road but then you can kind of do a couple of these hikes to get up through these slot canyons and check out the walls it's really an underrated way to see zion national park you can see this guy here is painting the canyon if you are interested in any art of the national parks i'm gonna put a link to some resources in the description okay next up is a quirky little spot called fossil falls so this is located on the virgin river the virgin river is actually the river that carves zion canyon but here's just kind of a lazy section of the river and it's a popular little spot for people to gather together to just sit in the water walk around float on the tubes or do long board surfing here's another place to eat breakfast this is black bear diner i believe this company started out in california but they've expanded to utah and other places in the west and it's really a popular breakfast spot they have some big breakfasts here you can see our kids are getting some pancakes my favorite one is the bear claw french toast right here the three most popular breakfast spots in st george our bear paw diner the black bear diner and something called the hash house a go-go which i haven't been to yet but they also have one in las vegas nevada okay up next is the red cliffs national conservation area i don't have a ton of video here and i'm not going to spend a lot of time on this but this is actually a really accessible fantastic place to hike around they have some dinosaur tracks here as well and they have this really cool hike where you have to kind of climb up the rocks with the river next to you and you need a rope to get around where you're going it's just a gorgeous canyon it's kind of a little spot and it's getting more and more crowded so you definitely want to check the website before you go up next is another historical site this is the st george tabernacle this was built by the early pioneers here as a place to gather together to hear speakers in larger congregations than their normal sunday congregations nowadays it's been restored and looks really beautiful it's still held for speeches or concerts every once in a while if you visit some missionaries we'll show you around it's free if you don't need reservations just show up anytime during the day the thing that blows me away about some of these is the craftsmanship of the early pioneers you could tell it was a labor of love for these people [Music] [Music] overlooking the city of saint george is pioneer park the famous thing to do here is to climb through this crack some people call it the saint george narrows but we've always just called it the crack and this little canyon cavern whatever you want to call it just continues to narrow down until you actually have to turn sideways to get through this thing it's so narrow that you actually need to be skinny enough to fit through it in fact i was skinny enough to fit through it when we were first married but unfortunately not anymore [Music] also part of pioneer park is this dixie rock which is also called the sugar loaf you can climb up on top of this thing and overlook the city and it's just kind of a fun place to scramble around and get some great views of the area it's a popular little spot to come at sunset especially and you can overlook the town of st george from here you can see the temple and you can see the tabernacle and you might find an artist doing their thing [Music] here's another little underrated spot in this area this is cedar breaks national monument so this is bryce canyon junior it's got a lot of these hoodoo features where the plateau is just kind of crumbling away and leaving behind some of these red rock formations this used to be visited in conjunction with bryce canyon and zion canyon and the north rim of the grand canyon by tour guides who would pick people up at the train station and drive them around in a tour bus in fact there was a big lodge here at cedar breaks back in the day for those tourists to stay at well i just gone now and now with the automobile a lot of people skip over cedar breaks as they're driving around southern utah but cedar breaks is closer to st george so it's a great alternative to bryce and it's actually more colorful in a lot of ways it has deeper reds and better white colors though it doesn't have as many of these hudu formations here's another spot you can eat this is viva chicken and their specialty is peruvian chicken so we got some beans and rice and chicken and fries they also have a lot of hot sauces that you can try and you know it's a nice alternative to the traditional america bear okay we're gonna stick with food here and bring up fizz so this is a local fan favorite these are mixed drinks mixed soda drinks i should say a lot of people in utah including myself we don't drink alcohols so for a lot of us our vice tends to be these sugary sodas and sugar cookies i don't know if these types of places are popular outside of utah but boy have they exploded in utah so it's real popular to get these mixed drinks with your sugar cookies or pretzels for a little treat up next is another history site so this is the jacob hamblin home jacob hamblin was an early missionary in this area but he was actually quite a rugged mountain man and traveled all over the southwest there's a town named after him called jacob lake arizona which is on the north rim of the grand canyon this guy has quite a story and was really really well respected was quite a legend back in the day actually and has been inducted into the oklahoma national cowboy hall of fame and museum it's worth stopping at and outside they also have some cotton that you can check out they have a little cotton farm a little cotton farm here it's kind of fun for the kids to look at if you've never touched cotton before it's really interesting it's just sticky and it's kind of hard to get the seeds out of it the pioneers actually grew cotton in this area which is why they have it here here's another church site so this is the st george temple this is a beautiful white building it was the first temple completed in the state of utah there are many temples dotting utah when in rome visit the vatican when in utah visit the temple you can't go in the temple unless you remember the church but they do have a visitor center with some fun activities for families speaking of the temple the pioneers got the foundation rocks for the temple from the nearby hills here and there is a hike that you can go on today called the temple quarry hike it's just a nice pretty flat easy height and it shows you some of these lava rocks nearby that they use for the foundation and it gets you to some nice overlooks of the city it's really quite a peaceful little hike probably lesser visited with some nice views our next stop is a much lesser visited place called gooseberry mesa here is a place where a lot of mountain bikers come it has tons of mountain biking trails if you go to the blm the bureau of land management website they have maps of the biking trails the roads to get there are pretty rough so we actually took a jeep tour through zion jeep tours while you're at the mesa you can see the western edge of zion national park look at these amazing cliffs and then it has its own cool canyons like this is called pastry canyon just wonderful overlooks of the surrounding desert our final stop is the world famous zion national park we have covered this a bunch on our channel that's because we love it so much and we want to help people travel to zion and know what to do and how to do it zion has gorgeous drives like this switchback drive that goes through a tunnel and takes you through some beautiful winding red rock perhaps the most famous hike is called the narrows this is where you walk up through a big slot canyon and you end up walking through the river [Music] there are kid friendly spots that you can climb around on the rocks the other world famous hike is angel's landing if you get to the top of angel's landing you get incredible views of the canyon below one of my favorites is the emerald pools hike where you're standing right next to these towering canyon walls zion canyon can get quite crowded as you can see here it's an incredibly popular place and with good reason so that's why we have created some travel guides to help you experience the best of southern utah so check out our site at whereintherockies.com i'll put the link in the description we have playlists for videos we have articles on our website we have travel guides you can buy for st george southern utah zion national park bryce the grand canyon along with audio tours for these places so that you'll love your trip if you like this video please click the like button thank you so much for watching we'll see you next time right

Channel: We're in the Rockies

Views: 154,747

Keywords: st george, saint george, utah, Saint George Temple, red cliffs, kolob canyon, tuacahn ampitheater, gunlock falls, snow canyon

Id: -G9hU55vgGs

Length: 16min 38sec (998 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 17 2021