St. George, Utah's Virgin River Trail System -- Network Of Paved Trails Makes For Gorgeous Settings For Walkers, Bicyclists

 

For years I drove through the city of St. George in southern Utah along I-15 on the way to Zion National Park without stopping to bike the paved trails in the city.

A friend sent a social media post about St. George's Virgin River Trail system -- and that knocked me into action today for a two-hour car trip to St. George to spend an afternoon wandering around on those gorgeous paved trails on my road bicycle.

The Virgin River Trail seems like a spine for a web of paved trails that spill into neighborhoods, along commercial roads and along waterways.

The difference of riding a bicycle on the road compared to biking on a paved trail is profound. It's two distinct experiences of aesthetics and safety. As a bicycling friend put it, "Not facing mortal threats makes for a much nicer ride."

With today's lovely sunny, 70-degree weather, there were all types of bicyclists out there, from boomers on e-bikes to teens on mini-motorcycle-looking two-wheelers.

Here's a beautiful screen grab from this video.

And this is some amazing bicycling in this video. 

The trail network included this cool extended mural depicted in this video.

There were all types of trails hooking into the Virgin River Trail and what I liked about them is that they led to parks, residential neighborhoods and even to businesses.

There were also parking lots sprinkled throughout the trail network.

And the scenery was wonderful.

So many roads in the city of Las Vegas and Clark County are six-lane highways with traffic lights. But I love this photo showing four lanes and a paved trail in the corridor. The bottom line for the city and Clark decades is that of designing roads for the high-speed convenience of motorists over the safety of walkers and bicyclists has produced the tragic and disturbing yet predictable outcomes of dead and injured walkers and bicyclists.

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