SUU Outdoors kicked off a fresh semester of Local Events and Programming activities with a moonlight hike to Red Hollow on Jan. 13.
SUU Outdoors offers plenty of opportunities for students to become engaged in the outdoors, many of which require registration. LEAP events, however, are weekly activities free of charge and open to all. These events include hikes, slacklining, disc golf and further undetermined outings.
“We’ve got lots of things,” said Event Coordinator Baylee Howe. “We’ve got a lot of people interested in hiking.”
The chosen hike this week was Red Hollow, a moderate 3-mile hike only a couple miles east of Cedar City. The trail drops behind the “Red Hill” and rises steadily along a dried creek bed, treating hikers to pleasant views of Cedar Canyon below. The path then spills onto a ridge from which one can descend into Thunderbird Gardens or continue east to Thor’s Hideout.
LEAP outing frequenter Britton “K” Wood said, “I definitely want to do more night hikes. It was cool.”
In the moonlight, distant wooded cabins shimmered from across the canyon as the group weaved through the ebony silhouettes of winter trees. Filing into Thor’s Hideout, they were greeted by a throne constructed out of stone slabs and dead wood engraved with “Thor.”
“We’re going to do some more hiking,” said Howe. “We’ll try to do moonlight hikes once a month when there’s a full moon.”
Students can also look forward to a climbing competition in March with further details to come, climbing clinics and outdoor education seminars.
“OES is our Outdoor Education Series,” Howe continued. “Those will be every other Thursday. We have some cool speakers coming in to talk about some of the outdoor things they love.”
Those seminars will be held at 6 p.m. at Basecamp in the Sharwan Smith Student Center.
The weekly hike set for Tuesday, Jan. 18 is slated to be Rainbow Canyon near Thunderbird Gardens. More information about LEAP can be found by inquiring at Basecamp.
Photos and Story by Jared Clawson
Cover Photo by Baylee Howe
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