Snow Canyon State Park is located just on the north side of St. George, Utah.   With Utah’s 5 high-profile National Parks and numerous State Parks, we had focused on traveling to the better-known hiking destinations.   We finally chose Snow Canyon on our third trip to the area and we were stunned by the rugged beauty of the park.  We chose to drive to a trailhead in the north end of the park and link a series of trails for a one-way hike.   We started at the Whiterocks parking area and worked our way south to the Hidden Pinyon Trail, about 8 miles of hiking.

The Whiterocks Trail took us to an area of white-colored slickrock surrounding a natural amphitheatre.

From Whiterocks to the Lava Flow, we hiked on sand and desert vegetation past lava tubes and ragged black a’a rock out to a viewpoint overlooking the Snow Creek Valley and the red bluffs to the west.

The Butterfly Trail took us over a series of slickrock hills to the Petrified Dunes area, the highlight of the whole area.

The trail follows a route across the red, layered slickrock hills.

Finally, a scramble down the rock to the paved trails in the Hidden Pinyon area led us to a Nature Trail loop, and back to the car.   Each part of this route is fascinating and worth some return visits.   A hidden gem in the desert hills of Utah.