Tom had an appointment with a new motorcycle, in St. George, so he planned a hike in the area that allowed him to bag a peak and still have time to pick up his bike. Although, we have lived in southern Utah for almost 25 years we had never hiked the Zen Trail, nor had we ever heard of Hippopotamus Caves . . . that was about to change thanks to Tom's early morning adventure. It was good to get back out there with Tom and "the Crew!"
This turned out to be a nice hike that allowed us to ease back into the outdoors. It was about 5.5 miles in length and had about a 1,000 ft of elevation gain that we completed in about three hours. If you'd like to see the loop route we took, you can click here for a link to Tom's Peakbagger.com post that will give you a topo map and GPS tracks of our trek.
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| We are working our way up the Zen Trail which will lead us to the top of Bloomington Hill |
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| The rock formations really surprised us |
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| Where is Kent going? |
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| A cave . . . actually there are three caves (all interconnected) that make up Hippopotamus Caves |
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| Tom is signing the geocache log in the largest room |
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| Exiting the caves . . . They are actually formed by large stones leaning against each other |
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| That's one big barrel cactus! |
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| There aren't many trees to block the views |
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| We took a break at the top of Bloomington Hill (3,470 ft) Tom & Kent are watching the riders on the Bearclaw Poppy Bike Trail |
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| Tom couldn't resist adding a rock to the pile marking the high point |
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| Looking north, over the boulders we wandered through, toward the Pine Valley Mountains |
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| The Zen Trail is a very popular mountain bike trail that meanders along the Bloomington Ridge . . . no riders up here today . . . just hikers and trail runners! |
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| March was a crazy month for us, we only had time for one hike . . . This Balanced Rock reminds us of how good it feels to be back out on the trail |
