Summit of Ivins Benchmark looking over southwestern Utah and Ivins City, Beaver Dam Mountains far right on horizon.
Fred and Jeff at Ivins Benchmark, looking over Ivins, Utah to the Arizona border to the south. Red Mountain on the left, a good training hike.
Google Earth image of our GPS tracks in red traversing north to south to Ivins Benchmark along western cliffs of Red Mountain Wilderness.
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Trip Stats
Overview: This challenging out and back hike along the cliffs of the west side of Red Mountain Wilderness near St. George treks over a combination of ridges and grassy saddles with views of steep chasms and Gunlock Reservoir to a final fantastic view of Ivins, Utah. Location: Red Mountain Wilderness (BLM), southwestern Utah Distance/Elevation gain: 10.80 miles/3,200 cumulative gain. Minimal elevation: 4,005'. Vortex Trailhead: 4,111' Maximal Elevation: 5,432' on Ivins Benchmark summit Type: Class 2 scrambling, brief Class 3 without exposure, moderate navigation for most expedient route. Out and back. Driving: graded gravel road from just north of Gunlock State Park best traveled with high clearance car, but may be able to drive with standard passenger car if not wet. Coordinates Ivins Benchmark: 37.22339, -113.75507 Coordinates Vortex Trailhead: 37.28020, -113.73802 Date Hiked: 5/5/26 Geology: slickrock, sand and cliff terrain of Navajo Sandstone. CONSIDERATION: you must have navigation experience with topo maps and GPS as there is no trail beyond the cairned Vortex trail. The first half of the hike is not straightforward because you cannot see Ivins Benchmark, requiring topo map and cross-country experience for the most efficient approach. Ivins Benchmark comes into view the last 1/2 of the hike, where you head due south 180 degrees. Sue and Fred's Peakbagger Page Interactive Google Map showing our tracks in blue beginning at the Vortex Trailhead to the north, and hiking south to Ivins Benchmark.
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Sue and Fred
Exploration documentaries – "explorumentaries" list trip stats and highlights of each hike or bike ride, and add interesting history or geology. Years ago, I wrote these for friends and family to let them know what my husband, Fred and I were up to on weekends, and also to showcase the incredible land of the west. My favorite websites:
Beyond my Couch Daring Dayhikes Earthline: The American West Glenn Suokko - Vermont Artist MishMoments: Joy of Photography Rangewriter - What Comes Next? surgent.net (hiking) |
Our entire GPS tracks (upper map) and a close-up of the "better way" tracks in yellow on the first 1/3 of the hike, which traverses a cliff section below and to the west of a ridge (lower map). The trail begins at the northern Vortex Trailhead, goes south toward Ivins Benchmark. The green line represents the border of the Red Mountain Wilderness.
Descending from Ivins Benchmark - another five miles back to our car!
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May 2026
Fred and I are coming up with challenging hikes to train for our upcoming Switzerland/Italy Alps 8-day trek around the Matterhorn. Ivins Benchmark is a hike that's mentally as well as physically challenging, a tough day of route-finding, walking over infinite rocks causing sore feet, and wading through a few meadows of cheatgrass whose seed heads lodge in your socks, boots, and skin. This trek past the Vortex is harder than it looks on a map. You can't see Ivins Benchmark until you get halfway there, so experience with using a topo map to figure out the most efficient, energy-saving way to the summit is recommended. Our friends Jeff and Lindy, with whom we have hiked Grand Canyon rim to rim, joined us on this gnarly hike. We didn't quite tell them completely what to expect. I hope they will continue to hike with us after this one! The Vortex is a unique, fracture-lined sandstone pit that some call a "bowl", a little more than a mile from the trailhead. It looks like a much smaller version of Cosmic Ashtray in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Once you get past this cairned trail, you're on your own, for we happened to see only a handful of cairns past this feature. |
Vortex Trailhead sign at large parking lot.
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The Vortex, a weathered pit on the way to Ivins Benchmark, near Gunlock State Park, north of Ivins, Utah. Polygonal shapes in sandstone created by temperature differential (hot temperatures and very cool temperatures, especially after a cooling rainstorm) that causes fractures.
Just past the Vortex, heading south toward Ivins Benchmark, you pass a striking "cairn village" on the slickrock overlooking a deep canyon. Dozens of engineered rock piles of all shapes and sizes rise to cast shadows from the morning sun. This "village" grows more every time we hike this trail. There's even some new man-made rock towers on the walls above this cairn collection.
After this, you're on your own to walk generally south toward the benchmark. A small passage to the right at the bottom of a ridge just after the cairn village gets you to a few slick rock ramps to walk up to the next ridge that has a "notch" to what we found was the most difficult portion to navigate. As you can see on the topo maps above, we came back from the summit on the high ridge overlooking the flatter valley to the west, making for a difficult Class 3 descent back to this passageway. On the map, I have indicated a "better way" trail in yellow which treks through flatter terrain to avoid dealing with the steep ridge we navigated on the way back, and pointed out the "notch" on the ridge.
Once you hit the "notch" (37.26639 -113.75243), hike down into the rocky bowl below filled with junipers and pines, where you get pretty close to the edge of the Red Mountain plateau, cliffs dropping steeply below. Then, you walk up a grassy incline to the left to resume walking along the edge of with great views of Gunlock Reservoir.
If you get this far, you will see a few rises to the south, at ~ 180 degrees. Stay close to the western edge, alternately walking through grass meadows and on top of ridges.
About 1/2 way through, at about 2 1/2 miles, Ivins Benchmark, a tall dome almost 180 degrees south, is seen from the top of a long ridge that is just about as high as the benchmark. Stay on the ridge until you get just below the benchmark where you ascend to the left (east) of the flat bowl or valley just north of and at the foot of Ivins Benchmark for a more gradual approach to the summit.
The scramble up the slick rock steps to the summit is fun. The view from the summit is amazing, with red and orange sandstone cliffs and crags in all directions. To the north is Square Top Mountain which is actually worse to climb than Ivins Benchmark. Square Top has a plane wreckage on its summit. You can see Veyo Volcano also to the northeast, and the lower elevations of Red Mountain to the south above Ivins, our training hike on the Red Mountain Trail. The summit towers above the arts community of Kayenta and the hike to Hell Hole, as well as the alluvial fan sprawling down from the Fortitude hike in a steep cliff passage.
To our disappointment, there was no metal survey benchmark on the summit, but instead a large cairn with a wire-anchored old wooden stick stuck in the middle of it. I was hoping for a real survey marker but you will take what you get out in the wilderness. This summit is not an easy one to get to.
We followed the western ridge of Red Mountain on the way back, more or less, trying not to get sucked onto the flanks of the ridge and into the less-efficient up and down canyon walking.
Pretty wildflowers were occasional, cheatgrass was plentiful and annoying. We ended up ascending a ridge when we should have hung a left in flatter terrain (see "Better Way" on map above), necessitating a Class 2-3 descent off the steep and unnecessary ridge.
This was a tough, energy-consuming hike. It takes a lot more effort to get to a summit when there is no maintained path to it. I was tired at the end of this almost 11-mile journey, but we saw some amazing sights, and I got to cross another summit off of my list, and add it to my Peakbagger page!
Thank-you Jeff and Lindy, for hanging in there on this hike! I promise we won't do another one like this "one and done" hike! But at least we got out there to discover the beauty and full ruggedness of the not-often-traveled Red Mountain Wilderness.
After this, you're on your own to walk generally south toward the benchmark. A small passage to the right at the bottom of a ridge just after the cairn village gets you to a few slick rock ramps to walk up to the next ridge that has a "notch" to what we found was the most difficult portion to navigate. As you can see on the topo maps above, we came back from the summit on the high ridge overlooking the flatter valley to the west, making for a difficult Class 3 descent back to this passageway. On the map, I have indicated a "better way" trail in yellow which treks through flatter terrain to avoid dealing with the steep ridge we navigated on the way back, and pointed out the "notch" on the ridge.
Once you hit the "notch" (37.26639 -113.75243), hike down into the rocky bowl below filled with junipers and pines, where you get pretty close to the edge of the Red Mountain plateau, cliffs dropping steeply below. Then, you walk up a grassy incline to the left to resume walking along the edge of with great views of Gunlock Reservoir.
If you get this far, you will see a few rises to the south, at ~ 180 degrees. Stay close to the western edge, alternately walking through grass meadows and on top of ridges.
About 1/2 way through, at about 2 1/2 miles, Ivins Benchmark, a tall dome almost 180 degrees south, is seen from the top of a long ridge that is just about as high as the benchmark. Stay on the ridge until you get just below the benchmark where you ascend to the left (east) of the flat bowl or valley just north of and at the foot of Ivins Benchmark for a more gradual approach to the summit.
The scramble up the slick rock steps to the summit is fun. The view from the summit is amazing, with red and orange sandstone cliffs and crags in all directions. To the north is Square Top Mountain which is actually worse to climb than Ivins Benchmark. Square Top has a plane wreckage on its summit. You can see Veyo Volcano also to the northeast, and the lower elevations of Red Mountain to the south above Ivins, our training hike on the Red Mountain Trail. The summit towers above the arts community of Kayenta and the hike to Hell Hole, as well as the alluvial fan sprawling down from the Fortitude hike in a steep cliff passage.
To our disappointment, there was no metal survey benchmark on the summit, but instead a large cairn with a wire-anchored old wooden stick stuck in the middle of it. I was hoping for a real survey marker but you will take what you get out in the wilderness. This summit is not an easy one to get to.
We followed the western ridge of Red Mountain on the way back, more or less, trying not to get sucked onto the flanks of the ridge and into the less-efficient up and down canyon walking.
Pretty wildflowers were occasional, cheatgrass was plentiful and annoying. We ended up ascending a ridge when we should have hung a left in flatter terrain (see "Better Way" on map above), necessitating a Class 2-3 descent off the steep and unnecessary ridge.
This was a tough, energy-consuming hike. It takes a lot more effort to get to a summit when there is no maintained path to it. I was tired at the end of this almost 11-mile journey, but we saw some amazing sights, and I got to cross another summit off of my list, and add it to my Peakbagger page!
Thank-you Jeff and Lindy, for hanging in there on this hike! I promise we won't do another one like this "one and done" hike! But at least we got out there to discover the beauty and full ruggedness of the not-often-traveled Red Mountain Wilderness.
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Heading south on the Vortex Trail; turn-off to the Vortex is ~ 1 mile.
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The "cairn village" right past and southwest of the turn-off for the Vortex trail.
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Past "cairn village" walk slick rock ramps dotted with pines and junipers to the ridge on the right where a notch is the passage through; head south.
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View of Gunlock Reservoir as you descend from the notch to walk on flatter area next to cliffs.
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Continue south to a grassy pass, staying closer to the rim.
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Keeping to the right (west), closer to Red Mountain edge, walk through a beautiful pine and juniper forest, staying on top.
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Fun scrambling as you head south toward the summit on the right. |
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Stay on the ridge and approach a huge dark red cliff area to the right. |
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Heading due south, staying up on the ridge, starting to get glimpses of the terrain north of Ivins and Highway 91 winding up to the Beaver Dam Mountains to the west.
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There she is! Ivins Benchmark is the dome in shade.
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Gunlock Reservoir (right) gets smaller as you progress south.
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The flat grassy meadow at the foot of Ivins Benchmark. We walked across it to the left, then mounted the benchmark's northeast ridge which led right to the top.
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Some fun scrambling to the summit!
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From summit looking back (north) from our approach over two ridges in middle of photo with the grassy area between them. Square Top Mountain on left horizon. |
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Ivins Benchmark summit - 5,432'!! Sue, Jeff, Fred and Lindy!
clockwise, from top left: grizzly bear prickly pear cactus, shaggy fleabane, antelope horns milkweed.
clockwise, from top left: grizzly bear prickly pear cactus, shaggy fleabane, antelope horns milkweed.
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No metal survey marker here! And no summit register.
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A fantastic view of our city of Ivins to the left above Jeff, the Beaver Dam Wash National Conservation Area on right horizon.
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A hard-earned lunch at 5,432'. |
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Heading back on the long trek to Vortex Trailhead.
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Bonus photo of the Pine Valley Mountains from the top of Red Mountain near Snow Canyon State Park.