Snow Canyon
After leaving Nevada last night and getting set up at a gorgeous RV Park in Hurricane this morning, we opted to check out another state park, this time in Utah. After my last trip to this area four years ago, I vividly remember marveling over pictures my mom posted of Snow Canyon. I’ve been wanting to check it out ever since.
We arrived in the early afternoon with little semblance of a plan. The sun was blazing and the intense desert heat felt so damn good. We opted to loop a few trails together, and it didn’t take long to realize that this place was gonna be an absolute playground. The first leg of our route took us through a lava flow complete with many basalt tubes, some large enough to walk down into.
But the real adventure began when we reached the first of many massive petrified dunes. We were presented with this choice: keep following the sandy trail on the canyon floor or go off-book and get our hands dirty on the sandstone. Um, duh. The first dune we scaled had a couple class 3 sections and gave us an epic view of the entire park, including some transitional rock to the north that totally looked like a dreamsicle (ok, it was really hot, and I’m notoriously suggestible).
We walked down the crest of that dune in search of a route to regain the trail below. So much about this portion of the hike was reminiscent of my experience on Enchanted Rock last December, including the prolific sweating. After finding our way down, we hiked along the West Canyon Road to a connector trail over to the largest dune system in the park. We spent well over an hour exploring the cairned route over and around these massive chunks of sandstone, straying frequently to reach the high points. Perhaps the most fun part of the day for me was our steep off-route downclimb to the Butterfly Trail, which would lead us back toward the lava field. Gotta love it when improvised shortcuts aren’t, you know, completely irresponsible.
We called a bit of an audible at this point and decided to extend our hike by a couple miles, continuing northeast on the Whiterocks Trail. I’d been eying a particular peak up there all day, and, although I knew there wasn’t enough time today to climb it, I felt compelled to get a closer look and at least home in on a route up for my next visit to this awesome park. The trail turned out to be a complete doozy: deep sand and a large steep section that did not resemble the route on AllTrails in the slightest. At a certain point, I couldn’t stop envisioning Chevy Chase suffering through the desert in Vacation.
Finally, we reached the top of that ridge and saw the parking area in the distance. Dad had been hanging around all day rolling with the punches of our ever-evolving plans and was waiting for us in Bob the Jeep. Mom was completely over the sand at this point and bee-lined that direction. I decided to take one more short detour up to a massive amphitheater in the white rocks. It was totally worth it, as I’m pretty sure I spied a viable route up to that peak. Can’t wait to come back and bag it!
After day-dreaming of dreamsicles all afternoon, a trip to the Frostop in St. George was of paramount importance. The Oreo / peanut butter malt I ordered was straight-up life-changing. But not as much as I’m guessing tomorrow will be!
