October 4, 2019

Snow Canyon State Park

Hikers:   Mark & Lecia

We were in St. George to watch Landon run the marathon on Saturday and since we got there Friday afternoon we went to Snow Canyon for some hiking.  Neither Mark or I had ever been to Snow Canyon but we did some fun hikes.  One of the things I loved about the hiking trails was that they were well marked.  If it wasn't obvious where the trail went you would see a sign.

It didn't necessarily tell you the name of the trail but it let you know you were on the trail and at times that was really helpful.  Also the trails weren't crowded.  We did see other people but the further we got from the trail head the fewer people we saw.

Jenny's Canyon

This was a fun little hike, and I do mean little!  Only a half mile round trip.  Very family friendly.

You walk through sand.  At the end of the trail you can go left to a slot canyon and right to an overlook.

The small slot canyon is a fantastic reward for such a short hike.

This is a picture from the overlook.

The next hike was a combination of several trails: 

Petrified Dunes/Hidden Pinyon/West Canyon Road/Lava Flow Trail/Butterfly Trail

I don't know how far we went but we started out on the petrified dunes and that was an awesome place to walk and explore.  

We just walked along and then I noticed that there were these markers anchored in the rock and if you kept following them they eventually took you to the end of the rock. See the anchor with arrows in the next picture.  Well, if you look you can see one even further and so you know where to go.  I didn't even know if we could go down from this rock but there was a marker down there so we just kept going!

We went down from the rock, saw a trail sign and just kept going until we came to an overlook.  Then we backtracked a little took another trail for a short ways, Hidden Pinyon, that took us to the West Canyon Road that we could see from the overlook.   Lucky thing we had taken the map they gave us at the pay station.  Without it we couldn't have hiked the loop made up by all these trails.  Like I mentioned before, the trail markers were really helpful, but they didn't say what trail you were on.  

Interesting moss growing on some rocks.

After walking along the  West Canyon Road we finally came to the Lava Flow Trail.

We had to hike quite a ways on that trail before we came to the Lava Tubes.  We saw a couple of them.  One especially was quite impressive and I suppose people explore them but I am not sure how you get down there and we were happy to look at it from above.

We only saw a couple of the lava tubes before we turned onto the butterfly trail.  Maybe we missed some great things by not going all the way on the Lava Flow Trail, but our car was parked at the trail head to the butterfly trail.  It turned out to be an interesting trail through lava fields, and included going up some rock, and in an area with more vegetation we saw this cute rabbit!  He just sat there chewing while we looked at him.

Here's the map that we used to find the different trails and hike a loop.  We started at the parking lot for the petrified dunes and the butterfly trail head.

There is a variety of terrain we hiked through, even in the short distances we went.  All of them were quite sunny and we stopped a couple of times to empty sand from our shoes!

September 14, 2019

Pa'rus Trail

hikers:  Lecia, Mark

This is more of a walk than a trail.  It starts at the South Campground and goes to Canyon Junction.  It's paved all the way.  It would be fun to bike it. We walked it in the morning and there is not a lot of shade so I would not do it in the afternoon on a hot day.   I didn't take any pictures but here's a description of what we did.
We started at the visitor's center and got slightly off track by exploring the south side of the river where the watchman trail goes. This is a shady area along the river and there is access to the river that would be fun for kids.  But back to our walk along the Pa'rus trail. From the visitors center you go north and cross the road and the trail is on the north side of the river. We walked a couple of miles until we got to the Canyon Junction.  There is nice river access there as well.  We picked up the shuttle at Canyon Junction and rode it back to the visitors center, then we walked another half mile to get to our campground. 
Jacob had stayed at the campground and while we were walking he packed up the tent and all of our camping gear!  
This is a walk you could enjoy at night and have a good view of the night sky.  Maybe we can to that another day - I mean night.  

September 13, 2019

Canyon Overlook Trail

Hikers:  mark, lecia, jacob

This could have been a nice trail but it was way to crowded at sunset and DON'T take small children on this hike!   Don't let the 1 mile round trip/163 ft elevation change fool you into thinking its a good hike for kids.  We didn't have small children with us but my mom instincts remind me that this would not be a good place to hike with little kids.

This was our second hike in the day.  This trail was recommended for sunset and lots of people showed up at sunset.  The hike starts from a trail head just east of the tunnel on the east side of Zion Nation Park.  

We drove past the trail head and parking lot because it was upon us before we realized it and besides it was full.  We kept going until we found a place to park along the road.  

Then we walked back and came to this sign and kept 

walking for 500 feet until we came to the trail head.

This is the trail head.  

The point is: there is not a lot of parking.

The description of the trail says "long drop-offs, mostly fenced"  and be aware, steep drop offs."  Yep, this is true.

This sort of thing.

And this.

There's Jacob.  He would rather run a trail than hike it.

But I did let him get ahead even more than usual so I

 could get a picture after he rounded the bend.

Here's the view from the top!

As you can see there is some fencing.  What I am not showing you is the crowds 

of people all over the rocks, including some places where there is no fencing.   

This is the first time ever we have been on this trail and my recommendations are to go when it's not so busy, whenever that might be, maybe in the morning hours, and don't take small children.