When I’m planning a road trip, especially a long-distance one, I have a tendency to seek out big name destinations. Since I enjoy nature photography, I often plan my route to include National Parks. They could be parks that I have not yet seen on past travels, or favorite locations that I’ve visited many times. As I scan over maps, my eyes tend to skip over little known places like state parks.
Recently Kathy and I visited friends in Pine Valley, a very small town (population 186 in 2010) in southwest Utah about 35 miles north of St. George. While showing us around the area, one of our stops was at Snow Canyon State Park. Compared to Yellowstone National Park’s 2.2 million acres, this 7400-acre park is rather small. Compared to the 105-acre farm that I grew up on, however, small is not a term that I would have applied to it.
The main attractions are the ancient sand dunes that have been transformed into orange and cream colored Navajo sand stone. You don’t have to look hard to see them. Cinder cones that erupted at a later date added occasional splashes of contrasting basalt. The rolling topography make this the kind of place where your mind quickly starts to play games of “What’s over the next hill?” or “What’s down in the next canyon?” We didn’t stay long enough to walk the 38 miles of hiking trails or ride the three-mile paved biking trail or the 15 miles of equestrian trails. Maybe next time.
Until you have a chance to visit, here are a couple sets of images that you can view from Snow Canyon State Park, Utah.
