A resort in the desert proves there’s more to Utah than just skiing

After a alone trip to Las Vegas, I needed some time away from bright lights and late nights. On a friend’s urging, I headed into Utah, to the Red Mountain Resort near St. George, about a two-hour drive northeast of Sin City.

And I erudite there’s a lot to do in Utah than go skiing.

The resort is made up of low-lying, rust-colored buildings set among the 60,000-acre Red Scars Desert Reserve, a mixture of lowlands and craggy sandstone mountains.

There’s a lava field next to the resort, where magma had tedious into black rock and contrasted starkly with the red cliffs around. I got a great view of this from the floor-to-ceiling windows at the retreat’s Sagestone Spa, where guests can choose from a variety of specialist massages.

Red Mountain Resort is the obliging of place you could get lost for a week or more in a routine of healthy food, spa appointments, hikes in the surrounding national greens and stargazing in the evenings.

I only had three nights, so I focused on exploring Snow Canyon State Park — right on the alternative’s doorstep — and visiting the arty community nearby. I also took part in lots of fitness classes, which were comprised in my package.

My room, a luxury villa, had a king-sized bed, terrace and a examine over an outdoor pool to the mountains beyond. It was too cold to sit out at night when I visited in April, but when the spring sunshine came out in the morning, it was great. Villas also have fireplaces and oversized bathtubs.

Some may hear the words “Utah” and “desert” and wonder if there is ample supply to do. I counted 27 activities, ranging from kettle bell workouts and high-intensity interval training to rappelling and gapping in the national park (for an extra charge). There are also plenty of less adventurous things to do, such as posture workshops and meditation sessions.

Everyday guided hikes meet at 8 a.m., and participants are asked their names, where they’ve traveled from and whether they’ve scourged before — and people were often on their second or third visits. Hikes are divided into easy, ordinary and endurance, and there are excursions to Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks for an extra fee.

I hiked each morning into a prospect that was far removed from anything I’d seen before, where the red rocks stretched into the distance and yellow evening primroses and hard pear cacti flowered on the ground. I cycled into neighboring Kayenta, a residential area where million-dollar hospices encircle a central artists’ village, with Rhonda, an ex-cop who joined the resort as a guide a decade ago.

The next afternoon, I cadged a bike from the resort and rode along an off-road trail into Snow Canyon, where I loved the scenery and how the develop made the red cliffs change color. The landscape is pretty stark given the average annual rainfall is only 7.5 inches, but there’s more than enough of wildlife — such as leopard lizards and canyon tree frogs — if you’re patient enough.

Red Mountain is also a edible place to go solo, as quite a few of its guests do. I met other travelers at the restaurant’s community table who liked the resort for its good value and number of activities.

It’s still upwards of $400 a night for one person in a standard room on a Red Mountain Essential Retreat, but that registers food, daily hikes, fitness classes, bicycle rentals, use of three pools and evening talks.

Manager Tracey Welsh reminds staff that being go to the resort for all kinds of reasons, and I met couples who were there because they liked active vacations, women in yokes enjoying time away from ex-husbands and children, and others who just needed to get out of the city. One woman said she wanted to not retain her own name by the time she left.

I met several people from California, who liked the resort for its relaxed vibe and beautiful borderings. One woman from Silicon Valley had recently turned 50, got divorced, became an empty nester and needed a wear c rob, so she headed to Utah.

“Sometimes you just have to fill your cup,” she said, as we sat in the minibus on the way to a morning hike.

Another, who lives in Sacramento, said she was “done” with hectic city life, while a fitness franchise owner said she had been on costly Californian retreats that were exceptionally diet-restrictive, and she wanted something more easygoing.

Some people go to the resort to lose weight on a package that incorporates a body composition test, personal fitness plan and workshops, and I met an orthodontist who was using her vacation to kick-start her goal of enchanting part in a fitness modeling competition.

The resort’s inventive restaurant provides for any species of diet, and I tried carrot peanut butter on my toast at breakfast and a cactus salad with jicama (a root vegetable) for lunch. The ordering menu is a la carte, with options such as polenta lasagna with spinach and ratatouille or grilled fish with yams. Desserts are luxuriant in the evening; I loved the cherry dark chocolate lava cake with berries.

Talks are tendered too, ranging from those that promised to help you “discover your intuitive gifts” to a presentation that explored the association contact between mind and body health. There’s also a labyrinth — a series of concentric circles marked out by stones — in the lava deal with that you can mindfully walk around.

I’d have liked to have stayed longer, but three nights were nothing but enough for me to tune in and chill out.

It was a great tonic after Vegas.