I found Snow Canyon, located just outside St. George, Utah, when looking on my Rand McNally as part of an “alternative to Moab” segment to my trip. I had planned to head to Monument Valley, Goosenecks State Park, Natural Bridges National Monument, and Canyonlands Needles District, as well as BLM campground in Moab. I decided to skip that route for a few reasons.
I have been there a dozen times or so. I am sure there are activities in the Moab area that I have not done and places in the area that I have not seen, and there is a great deal I have done/seen there that I would gladly do/see again. A second reason is I needed to pick up prescriptions. I like to stick with CVS as my pharmacy as it keeps things in one system as I roam about the country. There is no CVS near Moab. The third reason is simply less driving. By heading towards St. George area, I save about 400 miles of driving on my way to Great Basin National Park. And a fourth reason, to see new things.
My first new stop was Kanab. I stayed at a RV Campground there. I planned to do morning bike rides and afternoon hikes. There are a great number of attractive hikes in the Kanab area. I did my morning rides, but I skipped the hikes for one simple reason. Heat. The temperatures each day were into the mid 90s. I had no desire to do hikes of 2-4 hour duration in that environment. I add that those temps are about 15 degrees above normal for this time of year. On the plus side, the campground had a pool, which I used often to cool down.
My first “new” park was Pipe Springs National Monument. I was not familiar with it. It was not on my radar until I saw a sign for it on Highway 389, as I left Kanab, saying “Pipe Spring National Monument - 14 miles.” It was right on my way. I stopped there and spent about two hours. Immediately upon entering the visitor center I was greeted by a park ranger. She smiled and gave me a brief overview of the park. It’s a relatively small park, about 40 acres. She told me about its history as a meeting of cultures. Native Americans had lived there for thousands of years, due largely to the presence of the spring. The Mormons arrived and seized the spring, building a structure, Winsor Castle, right over the spring and restricting the use of it for their cattle and other needs. It was a mess. The US Government became involved because it wanted to put an end to the Mormon polygamous practice, of which this particular settlement had involvement. I watched the twenty-five minute video, which gave many more details than her introduction, and I toured the exhibits in the visitor center, which had even more detail.
In a nutshell, it seems to me that this situation represents what happened throughout the west. Some band of settlers arrived, wanted the land, and took it over forcefully. In this case, they did so by stealing the water, building right over the source in a way that prohibited the Kaibab Paiute Tribe from utilizing it.
I walked the grounds, through the farm area where the Mormons grew crops and housed cattle, toured the Winsor Castle with its rooms and furnishings, and saw where the spring came in. Then I did a half mile hike up a sandstone cliff that one sign said was composed of the same rock as that topping out the Vermillion Cliffs, which stretch for many miles near the Arizona-Utah border.
Later in the day I arrived at Snow Canyon. It is about 14 miles northwest of St. George. It seem the closer municipalities to it are Santa Clara and Ivins. It looks like there is a great deal of recent growth in these communities, a huge increase in population over the last ten years. Santa Clara and Ivins appear to be upscale communities. I am writing from the Santa Clara Library. It’s very nice, too. I have spent my afternoons here for the three days that I camped in the park.
The weather here is even hotter than in Kanab. On all three days, the built-in temperature reading in my van has been 100 or higher. Mornings have been in the low 60s. I did a two-hour hike yesterday and a 90-minute bike-ride today. It is a beautiful park with colorful geology in a variety of structure types.
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