Snow Canyon State Park in Utah - Hiking

Before checking out the hiking trails, here is a view from the Snow Canyon Scenic Overlook.  It's possible to drive to it or as we did, park near the north entrance of the park and walk part of the Gila trail to the overlook. 

A good perspective of Snow Canyon from the Overlook.

Snow Canyon State Park is a great place for hiking.  They have so many beautiful trails.  We got to do some great hiking in the park either in the afternoons after working in the mornings or on our days off.  Here are some of our favorites.

At the northern part of the park is the White Rocks trail.  Here are photos from that area where we could see snow up in the mountains.

On the way up to White Rocks

Me hiking up the back side of White Rocks with Rt. 18 in the distance.

Almost to the top!

Made it!

Enjoying a rest after the hike up!

The only road going through the park as we look south from White Rocks.

 After walking for what felt like forever in soft sand, we reached the end of the Red Sands trail.  Luckily there was a pool of water at the end to view.  Then we hiked back out on the soft sand back to the campground.  I felt like I brought pounds of sand back with me in my boots!

One trail which is closed seasonally is Johnson Canyon.  This canyon has the only natural water source in the park so it's closed off from March 15-September 15 to give the animals some privacy as they mate and raise their young.  Weekly there is a ranger led hike into this canyon so we signed up.  

One time we did the canyon hike it was led by a geologist from the local Dixie University.   Most of what she told us went right over my head but she loaned us these micro magnifying glasses to look closer at the sediment and lichen on the rocks.  

Here we could see some rain coming down and luckily off in the distance.

And a rainbow

Some graffiti high up on the rocks from the 1800's.   

Johnson Canyon Arch

Another evening we joined the hike led by Jenny Dawn, the park Naturalist.  She shared with us more information about the plants and animals in the canyon.  

Jenny Dawn leading a hike into Johnson Canyon

My favorite place to hike in the park is on Petrified Dunes.  The solid rock dunes have such interesting formations and it's fun to hike all over them.

View of the campground and Visitor's Center (my office) off in the distance on the upper left.

 The park has some lava tubes.  Here is a view of the opening to the biggest one.

Nancy climbing out of the lava tube. 
The rocks are very rough so I needed to be careful and not fall.  

Just can't get enough of this view!

Al playing around with his camera.

The West Canyon trail is along the base of the mountain in the distance.
We rode or bikes on that 8 mile round trip trail one day all the way to the end inside a canyon.

What forms that line in the sand?

Al trying to push a piece of petrified dune over.

Okay, never mind.  It looks better where it is.

Natural cave formed in the sandstone

Reflections

We had some rain storms come through and replenish the natural pools on the petrified sand dunes so we had to go up and check them out.

It's amazing that trees can grow up on top of the petrified dunes!

Looking north towards White Rocks

 Hiking around on the dunes was like being at a playground for me.

View of the pools of water from higher up on the petrified dunes.

 

Looks like a wave but the rocks can be deceiving.  

The park is so beautiful that Hollywood even filmed some movies there.

Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid movie.

And the view of the same area today.

Also in the area of Petrified Dunes is the Butterfly trail where a rock fell and landed in the shape of a butterfly.

Al's favorite hike is Padre Canyon.  It's a 7 mile round trip and 800' elevation hike from the campground.  For this hike we walked down Whiptail (paved) trail and past the southern entrance gate to the parking lot.  From there the trail goes past many blooming wild flowers and enters the canyon.  We hiked past Tuachan Ampitheater where we saw a camel (in a pen) and some pirate ships (props from a play).

Heading deeper into the canyon

The trail leads up and over the saddle (very) far off in the distace!

Getting closer but still a long way to go.....up!

View from where we came so far
and a rest break to catch my breath.

It was amazing to look back and see how far we hiked.

Tuachan Amphitheater is visible in the distance
as we make our way up the canyon wall.

 After going up and over the top of the saddle, then we headed down the other side on our way back to the campground.  From here, White Rocks are visible.

Pools of water remain after the recent storms.

Just a little further and the hike joins the Red Sands trail so it's walking on soft sand for about half a mile until it gets closer to the campground.

Hiking Padre with Al my best time was around 3.5 hours.  Al doing the hike without me his best time was 2.21 hours.  So far he's done this hike 7 times and I've done it 3 times.  It's a tough hike so we don't run in to many people out there on the trail.

One time we did the hike there was rain forecast for later that evening.  We started the trail and once we got deeper into the canyon we would make a decision to go up and over or turn around and come back.  We decided to go for it and then got some light rain on the way up.  On the down side, it started to rain harder.  Uh oh!  Then we ran into an older couple I checked in to the campground visiting from Holland.  They were 74 years old and doing the same hike but not prepared for rain.  Luckily the rain stopped and the four of us hiked back to the campground since we knew the way.  It was nice chatting with them and hearing about their trip to the United States.

One last trail we enjoyed was Chuckwalla.  There is a parking lot outside the park for this trail in the southern part of the park.  The best part of this trail was the spotting of desert tortoise.  Being in the visitor center guests told me they spotted tortoises but I hadn't seen any yet.  Hiking on the Chuckwalla trail for just 5 minutes we saw our first tortoise.  Then we saw two more as we hiked.

The trails in this area are closer to housing developments so the view is not as good but we were excited to see the desert tortoises.

There are other easier trails in the park such as Hidden Pinyon, Jenny's Canyon, Pioneer Names, and Sand Dunes. We've done all those too. 

If you made it this far, sorry about all the photos.  It's so beautiful and fun it was hard to choose photos to include from the over 300 I've taken on our hikes.