Shinob Kibe Cache Traditional Geocache

Max Bertola has a photo of the Shinob Kibe mesa (looking at it from the Washington Fields to the west of the mesa, looking east at the mesa) on his very fascinating Southern Utah web site at:

http://www.so-utah.com/zion/stgeorge/shinob.jpg

The Shinob Kibe mesa is named after one of the Paiute gods, Shinob. According to Max Bertola's web site, before Mormon settlers came to the area, when Navajos would raid the smaller Southern Paiute tribes to capture slaves, the Southern Paiutes would climb this small mesa for safety from the raiders. (See http://www.so-utah.com/zion/stgeorge/homepage.html, about two-thirds of the way down the page.)

For more information about the Southern Paiutes in Utah, see the Utah State Historical Society web page at:

http://www.utahhistorytogo.org/utespaigosh.html

Getting to the Trail Head

The trail head is located at the base of the mesa on the north not far above the river. To reach the trail head from Telegraph St. (the main east-west road through the town of Washington), turn south on 300 East. Continue south until you cross the Virgin River, then make a left turn (east) on Indian Springs Drive, then almost immediately, turn left again (north) on Red River Road. Follow the road north, and continue as it curves to the right, and later makes a sharp bend to the right, heading nearly due east, becoming Apache Drive. Continue on Apache Drive past the Anasazi Circle intersection (a cul de sac), then turn left (and go north) at the next paved intersection on Pocahontas Drive. Continue on Pocahontas Drive as it makes a bend, then when it ends at a "T" intersection with Uinta Drive, turn left (and go northwestward), then at the next intersection with Paiute Drive, turn right and go west-by-northwest on Paiute Drive all the way to where the pavement ends. You can park somewhere on the road near where Paiute Drive's pavement ends, or, you might continue onto the dirt road a bit.

Trail Head and Lower Trail

The trail head coordinates are, roughly, N 37° 7.373' W 113° 29.442'

You can use the following waypoint to aim for the well-defined upper trail portion: N 37° 7.176' W 113° 29.457'

Cache Container:

The cache used to be a metal ammo can/box, hidden in a nook between two very large sandstone boulders, but the traffic to the hiding spot wore a path that eventually led to ithe cache being vandalized several times. So the site was moved a little bit and the cache container is now a slightly smaller plastic jar. It shouldn't be hard to find with a little searching. When you're done, please replace the cache as it was when you found it, making sure the small rocks hide it well enough that vandals won't discover the cache.

I will leave the initial cache contents a mystery. Please log your find online and tell us what you took (if you take anything).

From the summit of the mesa, you have a full 360 degree panoramic view of Utah's Dixie, from Black Rock Mountain (among other hills and mountains) to the southwest, the Beaver Dam Mountains to the west, the City of St. George to the west (see the white "D" on the Black Ridge), the Washington Fields (you can also see the irrigation canals), Pine Valley Mountain and the Red Cliffs sandstone foothills to the north, Kolob and Zion National Park to the northwest and west, Little Creek mesa to the west, the red sandstone and sand dunes of Sand Mountain and the blue of Sand Hollow Reservoir to the southwest.

There is a large, concrete arrow on the ground near the summit. It is one of several historic aviation markers from the era around 1930. (For more information, see http://www.adg.us/article174.html). When you visit the cache, don't forget to also log your visit to the arrow, as it is a benchmark, Beacon HO0622 or 37B of the Los Angeles to Salt Lake City airway. Whoever built it must have packed the concrete in on pack animals. If you look closely near the corners of the central concrete pad, you can see the metal remains of the tower that once stood in the middle of the arrow.

Another concrete arrow at the Bloomington Overlook Cache points toward this arrow. This arrow points toward yet another arrow found near the Quail Creek Reservoir West Overlook cache.

There is a Washington City survey benchmark located along the rim of the south ridge about 450 feet or so to the west of the arrow, a round metal marker embedded in concrete.

Please take care when hiking to bring plenty of water. When I placed the cache (in the middle of summer here in the desert), I drank over a half-gallon of water while on the hike. (I do tend to drink a lot water more than most people, however.) I hope you enjoy the hike as much as I did. As I neared the top of the mesa in the morning, two parachute airplanes swooped down from the sky and buzzed over my head several times (50-100 feet above), passenger and pilot on each waving to me.

While this site is on public land, there are endangered species of plants in the area, the Dwarf Bearclaw Poppy (I don't know if there is a population on the mesa itself, but another web site does mention a Shinob Kibe population), so please don't trample indiscriminately. It is also rumored that the mesa is sacred to the Paiutes (and since it carries the name "Shinob" there is some evidence to support this) so please respect the land. Remember the Geocacher's credo, "Cache In, Trash Out."