Snow Canyon State Park

The cliffs of Snow Canyon are Navajo sandstone, the same rock that forms the great walls of nearby Zion, laid down as an enormous field of ancient dunes and later cemented into stone. Iron minerals stain it in bands of deep red and pale cream, and you can still read the sweeping cross-bedded lines of those long-vanished dunes frozen in the rock. In places the sandstone weathers into smooth slickrock domes that hikers love to roam.

Cutting across all this red and white are flows of black basalt, the remains of volcanic eruptions from cinder cones nearby that sent lava spilling down the canyon in the relatively recent geologic past. The contrast is striking: dark, rough lava rock resting against smooth, glowing sandstone. In a few spots the lava left tubes and caves where the surface hardened over still-flowing rock that later drained away.

The park is laced with short, rewarding trails suited to a wide range of visitors. Some lead across expanses of petrified dunes, where you walk over frozen waves of slickrock; others wind to small sand dunes, into lava tubes, or up to viewpoints over the canyon. Because most of the walking is easy to moderate and the distances are modest, it is a fine place to explore with children or on a relaxed half-day.

For the more adventurous, there are lava tubes to duck into and slickrock to scramble, and the park is popular with rock climbers on its sandstone walls. Throughout, one rule matters: stay off the dark, crusty cryptobiotic soil that forms in patches between the rocks. That living crust of bacteria and lichen holds the fragile desert together and takes decades to recover from a single footprint.

Snow Canyon sits in the Mojave Desert's northeastern edge, and its warm climate supports plants and animals found almost nowhere else in Utah. The signature creature is the Mojave desert tortoise, a protected species that shelters in burrows through the hottest and coldest months and emerges to graze on wildflowers in spring. Seeing one is a treat and a responsibility: never touch or move a tortoise, since a frightened one may release the water it needs to survive.

The park also holds roadrunners, lizards, jackrabbits, and, in the cool hours, the occasional gray fox or kit fox. In spring, after wet winters, the desert floor can flush with wildflowers, brittlebush, globemallow, and desert marigold, splashing color against the red rock. Birds are abundant in the cottonwood pockets and around water, making early morning a fine time for a quiet walk.

Because St. George is one of the hottest places in Utah, timing matters. Fall, winter, and spring are the ideal seasons here, with mild, sunny days perfect for hiking when much of the state is buried in snow. This is why St. George draws so many winter visitors, and Snow Canyon is one of its finest cool-season outings.

Summer is another story, with fierce heat that makes midday hiking genuinely dangerous. If you visit then, go at dawn or dusk, carry far more water than you think you need, and keep to shorter walks. In every season the light on the striped cliffs is loveliest early and late in the day, when the red rock deepens and the black lava throws long shadows across the canyon floor.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.