Thursday, February 27, 2025

3 Hikes in Snow Canyon

Cinder Cone Trail . White Rocks Amphitheater . Scout Cave

We were in St. George to hike and enjoy warm weather.  We were not disappointed.  We spent one day in Snow Canyon and decided to do these three hikes: Cinder Cone Trail, White Rocks Amphitheater, and Scout Cave.

Cinder Cone Trail.  This is a trail that spirals up an extinct volcano.  It is about 2 miles, out and back, and the elevation gain is about 500 feet.  I would say it is a moderately difficult hike because it gets steep at the top with loose gravel and is slippery.  But the rest of the trail is not difficult. You go thru some lava fields, spiral up the volcano and then you can hike around the perimeter and look down inside and see weeds or desert plants growing, you can even hike down but it is steep.  You can also look out and see the valley.  You have a 360 degree view!

Well marked trail.

We didn't see many hikers.

We saw a few of these signs.  Not sure what the dangerous animals were.  We didn't spot them.

No Shade on this hike!

 

Getting to the top!

Looking down into the ancient volcano.

Looking out one direction is Diamond Valley.  You have a good view in all directions.

White Rocks Amphitheater.  There are 2 trails that lead to White Rocks Amphitheater. Since we had just done the cinder cone hike, we started at the trailhead on highway 18 because we were close to that trailhead.  It was also the shorter hike.  The parking lot was just off the highway but I didn't see a sign marking it as the White Rocks Amphitheater trailhead.  

From this trailhead it is a 1 mile out and back trail. 

You can see the trail at the edge of the parking lot.

Some of the trail is rocky.

Some of the trail is sandy.

The trail we were on joined up with the trail to White Rocks Amphitheatre trail 

coming from the main area of Snow Canyon.  At this point you go right.  

And then there is this part of the trail!  

Which led to a sign that points you to White Rocks Amphitheater.

You climb up the rocks.  At this point we saw 

other hikers.  Many of them had hiking poles. 

We made it!

This is one side of the amphitheater. We hiked up the rocks behind Mark.

These are some of the rocks you can go up.

There was a little canyon on the other side.

There are some desert plants where there is soil.

And some pockets of water so it must have rained recently. 

We enjoyed this hike.  It was different than the other hikes in Snow Canyon. This would be a good hike for kids, especially the short trail we took. It is a very diverse place.

Scout Cave

All trails says 3.4 miles out and back. The park map says 6 miles.  It starts at the southern entrance to the park. There was construction and so the parking lot was closed so we had to park at the Jenny's Canyon trail head and walk back so add on another mile each way and we had a long hike.

 

There are rocks and sand on the trail.

You can see the beautiful red rocks in the distance .  We wondered exactly where we were headed and where the cave would be.

The trail divides here.  Left to Johnson Canyon and Arch, right to Scout Cave. We thought we would do the Johnson Canyon hike later, because it is not very long, but that never happened.

The trail

An interesting tree.

Eventually we hiked down into a large wash, with very little water but lots of vegetation and it was pretty and cool.  Then we passed some very large houses.  Right along the trail but up much higher.  We came to some steps and that was a good climb. 

The stairs.

 After that we went on what we though was switchbacks and it looked like a well used trail but it turned out we were on the wrong trail! We later saw a sign that said "illegal trail".  

The sign we saw after going on this trail!

We could see the cave but somehow we passed it.  We asked one of the few hikers we saw about the cave and he said it was right where we had come from.  Luckily we hadn't gone too far at that point so we went back and scrambled up the rocks to the cave. There is a little scrambling there at the end. The floor of the cave is flat and it is a big open room and you have a good view.

View looking out of the cave.

Me, in the cave.

Us, in the cave.

Going back seemed shorter than the hike to the cave.  Maybe because we just scrambled down the rocks and avoided the "illegal trail" we took earlier! 

October 31, 2024 Ensign Peak and the radio towers

 Hell Canyon to Ensign Peak and the Radio Towers

hikers:  Mark & Lecia

distance: not really sure.  My phone died so strava quit recording! 8 miles, maybe more.

elevation gain: I don't know but it felt like a lot.  My phone died at 1628 ft, so it was more than that!

I have wanted to hike to Ensign Peak from Hell Canyon for a while and so we did that today, on Halloween! We happened to be "in the neighborhood" after viewing a cute Halloween parade!  After hiking to Ensign Peak, mark suggested going to the radio towers also, so we did.  It was quite a hike!  But I made it. There and back.

The cute Halloween parade.

We parked in a neighborhood above the state capital and and walked up the road, through a gated entrance to a newer neighborhood, where the trail started. 

There is also a trailhead on Victory Road. You park at the trail head on Victory road and head uphill. This is where the trails meet up.

It's a pretty view of the valley once you get up on the hillside.

You walk past the backyards of some large houses on your way to Hell Canyon.

That little sign in front of my shadow points the way to Hell Canyon.

Hell Canyon is a small canyon with a well used trail that has a sharp drop-off on one side.  

There was some fall color in the canyon.

After the canyon you come to a road that is used for service vehicles that go to the radio towers.  You cross the road the trail continues with lots of switchbacks and eventually you come to a trail that goes to Ensign Peak.  At that point we turned right and went to Ensign Peak.  If you turn left it will take you to the Bonneville Shoreline trail and also to the radio towers.  We didn't see many people until we started on the Ensign Peak trail.

View from Ensign Peak

After coming back down from Ensign Peak Mark suggested going to the radio towers.  He did this hike just a few months ago.  So we headed off to the radio towers.

Instead of going back down to Hell Canyon we headed up this steep hill to get to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. We followed the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and then turned off and onto a trail, not marked, to the radio towers. 

After a while I was sure Mark did not know where we were going, and I questioned him several times, but it turns out he did know where he was going. It was up a lot of up the hill only to see a valley and another hill.  Kind of like hiking the coastline in California.  Only drier and less vegetation.

This was my last photo before my phone died.  Once we got to the top of the hill there was another hill in front of us!

We finally made it to the towers. With a sign that said "Watch for snakes"  it wasn't really a welcoming place.  Mark took  pictures with his phone to prove we made it.

  A view of the  Salt Lake Valley.

This was definitely a difficult hike for me and don't do it in the summer as there is no shade.  On a crisp fall day, Halloween to be exact, that didn't matter because it was good weather for this hike. We hadn't seen any hikers but at the towers we saw a biker!!! I think he came up the service road.

After my complaining we headed down another way.  It was not up and down, it was just down and that would have been a difficult hike going the other direction.  So it is probably good we didn't go up that way. We eventually joined back to the Bonneville Shoreline trail, passed the fork for the trail we had taken on the way to the radio towers, and ended back at the Ensign Peak trail. We headed back towards Hell Canyon but instead of going through Hell Canyon we took the radio tower service road, until we got to the fancy neighborhood. There was a spur that took us between 2 houses and down to the trail on the hillside below the houses and we wound our way back to the car.

Since my phone died on the way up the hill to the radio tower, I don't have a complete map of where we went but this partially shows our path. This distance and elevation gain is also incomplete.

I didn't love this hike and wouldn't recommend it.  But if I hadn't done it I would never have known that.  It was a difficult hike and not really rewarding but its good to do hard things.  I made it!  I scouted out the trail and now I know to choose something else next time!