A Saturday in Snow Canyon State Park

Who knew that a short, Saturday afternoon hike in a state park could be so fun, educational, and exciting?!

This past Saturday (the 29th of March), Jeff, Mason and I decided to go out and enjoy the perfect St. George weather. We left the house only knowing that we'd be hiking, but weren't sure where we wanted to go, so we just drove to where we knew there were a lot of hikes that we hadn't been on yet. We ended up at Snow Canyon State Park at the White Rock trail.

First, a little history lesson that I learned on Saturday - and it fascinated me: Snow Canyon used to be inhabited by the Anasazi Indians way back in AD 200-1250. Later, Paiute Indians used it for hunting. Then in the mid-1800's, Mormon Pioneers discovered the canyon while searching for lost cattle. The canyon was renamed for Lorenzo and Erastus Snow (previously called Dixie State Park). "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was filmed in Snow Canyon!

So the White Rock hike that we went on starts out in an old field of lava flow - just miles and miles of black lava rock, with a trail carved right through the middle for hikers. You can see dormant volcanoes all over the place. Eventually the lava rock turns into sandstone, and you're walking on a white surface.

When we got to the end of the hike, we were surrounded by white - the walls around us, the ground we were standing on, and the white sand dunes to the right side of the trail. To the left, at the very end, there was an overlook where you could see Snow Canyon (middle picture).

Anyway, it was so much fun! We put Mason in the sand barefoot, up at the top of the dune, and he had such a blast crawling, rolling and jumping down to the bottom where Jeff was waiting for him. I'll eventually figure out how to include a video on here so you can see how much fun he had.

If anyone wants to come visit us out in St. George, there are so many amazing, wonderful, beautiful things to see and do!