Trails in Snow Canyon State Park, St George, Utah

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Trails in Snow Canyon State Park

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Snow Canyon State Park > Trails

Cliffs alongside the Three Ponds Trail

Snow Canyon is a small state park, less than 2 miles across but contains 16 miles of maintained, intersecting trails, all quite easy and which take visitors to all corners of the valley.

Three Ponds Trail: At 3.5 miles (one way), the Three Ponds Trail is one of the longer routes, and leads across sandy terrain to a narrow canyon containing a series of eroded potholes that harbor rainwater most of the year. It starts from a parking area opposite the park campground then winds through rocky ground with bushes and cacti, down to the main valley wash where it meets the West Canyon Trail. The path to the three ponds continues across another bushy area, passing outside of the state park boundary for a while then into a wide, sandy streamway which is followed towards the high cliffs that border the valley, where the wash narrows and becomes rockier. The trail ends at the first and largest of the rainwater pools, though the drainage can be followed some more, past various other small pools and dryfalls. The wash has deep, soft sand, making for rather tiring hiking for a mile or so. The surrounding high red/orange cliffs are quite impressive, in places split by huge vertical crevices, other places smooth and sheer, though the pools themselves are not particularly scenic, apt to be stagnant at some times of year. On this trail I saw a gila monster lizard, quite a rare species found only in the Mojave Desert and hence in Snow Canyon at the very northernmost limit of its range.

One of the three ponds

White Rocks Trail

Other Trails: West Canyon Trail is a gravel track which runs the whole length of the valley, from near the park entrance to the base of the high white cliffs which rise in the northwest corner. Two short walks in the south lead to Jenny's Canyon, a narrow slot-like ravine, and to Johnson Canyon which has a spring, lava flows and a sandstone arch. Towards the north, the White Rocks Trail passes lava caves, lava flows and white sandstone outcrops, and for all of its length offers excellent views along the valley.