Winchester

Views to the southwest from portions of the trail include this typical upland desert environment.

The Winchester trail is accessed on its east end from the Yellow Knolls trailhead parking area off the Cottonwood Road.  From its stepover on the south side of the road, the trail winds along an old two-track for two miles before terminating at the Winchester gate and step-over at the private land boundary immediately southeast of the community of Winchester Hills. The trail consists primarily of packed dirt and gravel but passes through some sections of rock and cinder.  The trail has numerous ups and downs but starts and ends at about 3900 feet of elevation.  Lightly used, the trail offers visitors a hilly but moderate to relatively easy hike or ride through dry shrubland areas with views of Arizona mountains to the south and Utah Hill and Red Mountain to the west.  After seasonal rains, the trail is often overgrown with grasses and weedy shrubs and some spotty places with abundant floral displays.  The two-track is an historical road used by early European pioneers to travel from Washington City and St. George to settlements to the northwest.  It now serves throughout much of its length as an occasionally-used maintenance road for power lines that cross the area.  The trail provides direct access to the south end of the Black Gulch trail and can be used to form excellent loop trail options with that route as well as the popular Yellow Knolls trail.  A direct northerly connection to the Lange’s Dugway trail is now overgrown and completely indistinguishable.  Visitors accessing the Winchester trail from the west end will cross private lands on unmaintained dirt roads and should respect private property including the equestrian center immediately to the south.  The trail, itself, lies entirely on lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management in the Red Cliffs NCA.

BLM website for Winchester

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