From our Incredible Hiking Director Cindy........

My humble journey with hiking started many years ago when we first moved to So. Utah. A good friend of my oldest son remembered me when a hiking guide opportunity became available at a little known establishment called The Body Shop Spa. Over time they evolved, as did I; and I landed happily and gratefully at Desert Cliffs. And I must say that from that very first day of strapping on a camelback and cinching on a good pair of Keen hiking sandals there has not been a morning when I havent uttered a prayer of gratitude that I was hiking another day. And my gratitude always included thanks for the great people that would come and stay and "play" with us.(working hard was the point...but we had fun doing it!!!) I soon discovered that there was rarely a hiker that couldnt be persuaded to move and hike just by the beauty or energy that our red rock can inspire. It has been my joy and my great privileged to spend a few hours a day with some of the most lovely people gracing this planet and sharing with them all there is to love here in Southern Utah. Hiking with Desert Cliffs has brought me more dear friendships, health benefits-both mental and physical, and deep pleasure than I can count or could have dreamed of. It may come as a surprise...but Im a women of few words...and heartfelt emotional words are the most difficult of all. I am leaving Desert Cliffs with such a profound feeling of sadness and a broken heart. My "bosses"--John and Leanne are family. We've been through thick and thin together. We share the same dreams and passions. We "get" each other and I love them. And the same can be said for our amazing hiking guides- my partners in crime...Nick and Cheryl and the recently departed Melanie! ....not to mention dear Lynette and Kim at the house!!! Oh how it hurts to part from ones family. There will be a void in my life when I pull out of here and head north. A void that feels unquenchable, resembling the feeling I had on that dang North Rim Trail of the Grand Canyon!! I will try to fill it with hope, and grandbaby #8, and learning new hikes as I brave the cold of the northern regions. I know I'll be returning to St George often...for I have adorable grandchildren living here...and as I have repeatedly told our guests...this desert gets in ones blood, never to leave the heart again. My heart will long for my red rock, the divine blue skies and the guests that return here feeling the same way I do about this place. For you must know that there is absolutely nothing like a good hike with great people under Desert Cliffs tutelage!! How grateful I am for the opportunity I've had working for Desert Cliffs...my dream job. We are a small band of folks who are committed to serving and helping our guests to have the best experiences possible here in the St George area. We've got a good thing going here with amazing cooks, guides and staff!! And I was nothing but blessed to be a part of it!! Thank you all for enriching my life in so many ways!!!

A tough Goodbye

This lady is an Angel.....I hate goodbyes and I am not good at them either. I am still pretending this is not happening, and I am trying let someone go who is and has been our #1 supporter of Desert Cliffs since the beginning. I can not express in words how much of an impact this woman has been on me and my husband since we decided to start Desert Cliffs. She is my 'Rock'. She is easy to talk to, she LOVES everyone, and she has taught me so much about being an honest, true, real person. I value her opinion and her advice in everything. I KNOW our past guests of Desert Cliffs will feel great sadness to not see her smiling, welcoming smile when they come back to visit. She makes a connection with people instantly and has an amazing love that EVERYONE can feel radiate from her, and when our guests leave at the end of their stay, they have a BEST friend for life. She is an amazing lady, and has sooooo much to offer the world, I guess I can be content with the fact that I KNOW wherever she goes, she will again be an angel in someone else's life. LOVE YOU CINDY!! Many people in Logan Utah will soon be so grateful you were sent into their lives! This is a post Cindy recently put on her blog (I am so grateful I can still read her incredible words because of her blog) http://www.cinhiker.blogspot.com :

"It turns out that this photo was taken on my last 'official' hike for Desert
Cliffs.Good 'ol Awesome Chasm.I didnt have a clue at the time that it
was my last. But if I had, I dont think I could have appreciated its beauty
any more than I did at that moment. Everyday that I hiked was a gift and a
blessing and a treasure. Every hikebrought peace, health and an appreciation
of the beauties of this world and the people in it.Every hike built
friendships as our feet carried us through the desert, forits a well proven
fact that hiking and talking are a perfect match. And talkingand sharing
one's life with others is cathartic, cleansing and good forones mental
health not to mention ones waist line. Im so glad that I weedled myself into
this shot. Im gratefulthat Cheryl took it. It will be poinient memory for
me from here on out.Trying to 'recap' my hiking career with Fitness
Ridge and then for Desert Cliffs will be like trying explain the color
blue.Trying to express in words what hiking and meeting the amazing folks I
have been blessed to meet would be as difficult as explaining all the hues of
red in the desert.Trying to express my emotions and gratitude for my hiking
guides and my bosses- who are more like family- for their friendships and
companionship on the trails is nearly an almost impossible task.Having the
best gig on the planet..working for the best people and meeting the best people
was heaven on earth. Here's hoping I can find heaven elsewhere somehow, some
way.Here's hoping I find blessings in some other form.... somewhere.... " posted by http://www.facebook.com/messages/577906759#!/profile.php?id=1521266580Cindy Stephenson

I wanna be like Mike.....

We love Mike, and we were so excited when his wife called last minute and said,"Mike needs to come or he'll go insane!!" So we booked him for the next week and now we get to enjoy him for 2 weeks!!

Mike and his wife Colleen came over 2 years ago for 4 weeks, and we thoroughly enjoyed them. They were hard workers, and just a delight to be around. I don't remember their weight loss, but Mike told me he wanted to thank us, because after that stay, he went to his High School reunion, and looked and felt GREAT!!!

We saw them both again the next year for two weeks, and now this time Mike came for two weeks. Mike started out strong the first day, and at circut/run class, when he was sprinting the first couple laps, I thought for sure he's going to slow down....I was wrong. I know he has had a great weight loss this week, because I can see it already, but we'll weigh him out next week and let you know his amazing results!

I had the opportunity to hike with him on Observation Point in Zion National Park. Here's something interesting about Mike, he doesn't like heights, and he doesn't necessarily like hiking (hahaha, we are a hiking spa:)). So as we are hiking up, Mike tells me the hikes he doesn't want to do (I think he thinks since he's a return guest he will get a say:)) the one hike with all the sand:)(we live in a desert).......oh and that one hike with all the scrambling Hell Canyon (that's a summer hike anyway), oh and he doesn't want to do the saddle (a favorite of most people):).....but we love Mike and we have MANY fun hikes, so it's not a problem.....then he is quiet for a while, and then he says, "Oh that's why I come...I come for the food.":) :) As we are hiking, Mike stays real close to the wall, and I comment and say, "Doesn't this beauty amaze you, don't you love this?" He says, "no not really".......when we get 2 miles from the top, I got a little nervous, because he was really feeling it, and looked as though he was ready to turn around. I really wanted to get him to the top, and I couldn't say, "The view at the top is amazing, and so worth it!!" But he kept going, and we made it to the top, he had no desire to look at the view, no desire to take his picture at the top, but I convinced him to get at least one!

Mike is a smart guy, he works hard, he has an amazing family, and sometimes he just doesn't take the time he needs for himself. Mike finds rejuvination here in our mountains even though he said at 30 years old he never would have thought he would be hiking like this at 50. But even Mike can not escape the fact that our mountains have power, they have healing, and they can bring a person the peace that they are looking for, and he will go home and feel ready to face the challenges that he has day to day, and next time Mike you better bring Colleen!:)

CONQUER YOURSELF!

Last week I took these two ladies on a hike I KNEW they would love!! It rained the day before, and the ground was still pretty wet, so I knew there may be a chance we would have to turn around and do something else. We reached the mountain, and the picture shows what we had to climb first.... this GIANT white sandstone mountain. When the sandstone is dry, it is like sandpaper, and grips right to your shoe.... that is why we 'LOVE' our sandstone mountains. But once that sandstone is wet, it is very slippery and that is why it was also named, 'Slickrock'! Well because these ladies LOVE a challenge, they still wanted to attempt it....attempt we did, but it was too slippery, so we had to turn around and we enjoyed a beautiful hike in Snow Canyon. But they both wanted to come back when it was dry and try it again.

This time I brought Cheryl, one of our very prepared hiking guides, and very 'SAFE' hiker. So off we went....up the mountain. The first part is very challenging when dry, and today although it was a warm, BEAUTIFUL day, there were still traces of wet rock in the shade, but we were very careful with our footing, and we made it to the top. We were very cautious, and the first mountain took us a little over an hour because of the elements (normally it would have taken us 40 min tops), but we CONQUERED!!

Once we were on top of the sandstone, we ran into snow, and it became a little more intense....but we got out of the snow real quick!

We stopped for a little doctoring. Jeanette became quickly acquainted with our yucca catcus plants here, and she needed a little doctoring. This is a horrible pic, I apologize, it is one I took with my phone, but it has Cheryl doing her thing, she is ultra prepared for everything!! The rest of the pics were taken by Cheryl.

THIS is AWESOME CHASM!! It is breathtaking, and beautiful!

This is Snow Canyon overlook, Cheryl said the first time she ever saw this, she sat down and cried because of the beauty. Pictures will never capture the magnitude of these mountains, and the powerful feeling you get when you are on top of this mountain looking down over Snow Canyon! We met up with Cindy and Mike who met us from the other side. Mike chose to follow Nick's (Desert Cliff's guide) advise and 'Hike to Hike again', and chose not to follow us crazy ladies!!:)

Jeanette is on her last week here, and we will miss her!! I can't wait to show her results and her before and after pics of just 4 weeks!! She worked hard!! notice the yucca plant in the front of the picture, this is the plant that kept stabbing Jeanette!

Jeanie is a firefighter from California, she is one tough lady, but has a heart of gold!

The end of the hike was following a horse trail back to our van, and we had to enjoy a snowball fight in the beautiful Snow on the other side!!

This hike we had to name after our two crazy and tough guests Jeanette and Jeanie, so it will be now known as The Crazy J's hike:). We hiked 6 miles with an elevation climb of 1200 ft, and most of that was done in the first mile!

OBSERVATION POINT!!

I would definitely pick this hike over Angel's Landing in Zion National Park, because I like a good LONG hike with LOTS of uphill, and this one has it!! This hike is 8 miles long and 3-4000 ft high. We started out the hike in snow! Someone made this cute Snowman along the way.

This is still the beginning of the hike, and as you can see the trail is covered in Snow, it wasn't bad because it was not packed down too much to make it slippery.

The snow makes it beautiful along the way, and it is hard to not feel like a kid again.

This is the trail still covered in snow, going through the canyon, if you look closely, you will see hikers, that is where the trail is heading!:)

After we got halfway, MUCH of the snow had melted, and we did make it up to the top!!

Jeannette was planning on doing this hike her very last week (next week), because it is the hardest one, but she did AMAZING. I would be very surprised if she didn't do both Angel's Landing and Observation point next week, she has gotten so strong the short 3 weeks she has been here!!

Once again the canyon on the way back

The snow was a little tricky by the water, we certainly did not want to fall through the ice and get our shoes wet! We made it without wet feet!:)

This is a great pic where you can see the top of Observation Point and be proud of what you did!

Coming down was a little tricky, but fun!:)

We had snow all the way back down to the bottom. It was a beautiful day, and a beautiful hike!!

ANGEL'S LANDING

We have a guest here for four weeks, and she is TOUGH, and very BRAVE. She wanted to hike Angel's Landing, so I checked it out and asked the the Ranger last week if it was going to be icy, and he said that it shouldn't be too bad. So we started on this hike which is a 5 mile hike and a climb of 1500 feet. We started out a little on the chilly side, but after a few minutes, we were warm.

I just love this hike, and especially the 'Walter's Wiggles' here. There are 22 of these switch backs....we were feeling really good here.

We made it to the top of Scout's landing in a little over an hour, it was a great pace, and of course even from Scout's landing the view is spectacular!!

But continuing on is what is INCREDIBLE...I could say that it's not for those scared of heights, but I have seen many people conquer their fear on this. The park has really made it very safe with chains that will be there for you to hang on to. We had to deal with a few icy patches that were not too bad, but we had to be very careful and choose our footing wisely.

We made it to the top and found this note under a rock...they hiked this three days before us.

This was on the back of the note, this girl had a fear of heights and made it to the top, but I wouldn't say that it was 'ice covered ground' more like 'ice covered patches', but really cool that she did this inspite of her fear of heights.

This is proof that we were at the top today!:)

What an incredible day!! Jeanette will also conquer Observation Point while she is here with us....CAN'T WAIT!!

Day 3 of "What to experience in a week"

Wednesday is usually tough for a lot of our guests, and although I did not think I would experience this, I did.:) I taught an early morning group kick, and then had a delicious bowl of oatmeal with cinnamon apples, and walnuts. I was not able to go on the hike with Desert Cliffs, but I was able to make it to the cooking demonstration at 12:30, I was feeling really tired, but the lunch was delicious, we made ourselves some homemade baked potato fries, and a turkey meatloaf...yummmmmm. Then I came home and decided I had to lay down for a half hour nap. Then it was off to circuit training, I wasn't sure how I'd do, but I made it through, was able to push myself. I did not lift as much as I did on Monday, but it felt good to work through being tired. Then it was off to treading on the eliptical. A great half hour workout that has interval training. I felt GREAT afterwards!!! We came back for dinner, and it was really good, chicken chili, a delicious (full of vegetables) quesadilla, and for dessert two gingersnap cookies and apple cider (perfect ending).