St. George Weekend

[Udink]

I just had to get away from all the damned snow here in central Utah, so my family and I set out this weekend for St. George to hang out with some friends and enjoy the warm weather. I took off early from work and we pulled the kids out of school early and left Price a little after noon on Friday. We arrive in St. George to find some nice t-shirt weather and no snow! We didn't have a lot of time to play that evening, so we found a a park (Cottonwood Cove Park) for the kids to play at, then went to dinner with some friends.

My youngest at the park


My oldest at the park


Saturday morning we had breakfast with a huge group of geocachers, then I set off to do a few short solo hikes. First I hiked to Johnson Canyon to see the natural arch. It's just inside Snow Canyon State Park, but it's outside the fee area. I'm new to this whole "no off-trail hiking" thing, and I was disappointed that I couldn't (legally) hike up to the arch. Snow Spring was flowing and there was some water running through the bottom of the canyon. At the head of the canyon was a large pool of water. After Johnson Canyon, I drove to Ivins and did a few short hikes along the base of Red Mountain.

The start of the Johnson Canyon trail


Say what?!


Cliffs above Johnson Canyon


Johnson Arch


A face in the canyon walls


The pool at the head of Johnson Canyon


Looking up from the base of Red Mountain north of Ivins


View of Ivins from the base of Red Mountain


Red cliffs above Ivins, with snow-covered mountains in the background


Panorama of Snow Canyon State Park taken from an overlook near UT-18


I returned to the hotel to pick up the family, and we hit Cottonwood Cove Park once again, the did some geocaching and hiking just north of St. George Boulevard near the hotel. I was surprised to find some natural springs in the cliffs below Skyline Drive, at least some of which appear to come from a reservoir just north of the road.

The little one at the park


The big one on the climbing wall


Geocaching in St. George


A spring dripping from the cliffs above St. George Boulevard


The boys and me in St. George


On Sunday, we checked out of the hotel and drove to Snow Canyon State Park. I'd never been there, but had a pretty good idea of where to go after checking the area out in Google Earth and Panoramio. We made the short hike to Jenny's Canyon first, then played on the sand dunes for a short bit. The rain from the night before had soaked the dunes, and they weren't as fun as they would have been if dry. We found the official state park geocache, then hit the petrified dunes and the lava tubes.

Jenny's Canyon trail


My family in Jenny's Canyon


Family portrait at the head of Jenny's Canyon


Kiddos on the sand dunes


Playing in the sand


Wash at the edge of a lava flow


The boys climbing on the basalt


Petrified sand dunes


Water pooled up on the slickrock


The kids bounding across the slickrock


My wife atop a massive wave of sandstone


My youngest on the Butterfly Trail to the lava tubes


Family portrait at the lava tubes


At the lava tubes


The boys and me at the lava tubes


A family far away at the petrified dunes


Checking out some more lava tubes


My wife on the Butterfly Trail on the way back to the car


There's a shload more photos here:

[asdf]

awesome as always

That sx120 takes a great shot I need to pick one up.

[Pelon1]

Glad you had a good time down here in "Gods" country, sometimes we take for granted the things in our back yard!!

[accadacca]

Very cool. Thanks for the great ideas. Heading down that way in April.