Snow Canyon State Park near St. George, Utah is a great place for outdoor-minded people.   It has paved trails, hiking trails, and many rugged areas to explore.   It also has some very interesting slickrock scrambling opportunities.   We were lucky enough to be guided by a local hiker (Susan) up an unlikely route onto the flanks of Red Mountain.   The word “unlikely” is used to explain that the route is almost all scrambling, winding our way up ledges, ramps, and gullies to the top, then down by another unlikely route.   This is a route only for those who enjoy this kind of challenge.   The following photo shows the first part of the route up along the spine of a hill from right to left.

The cross-bedding and erosion of the sandstone creates a series of ledges that can be climbed.

Numerous viewpoints invite the scrambler out to the edge for a look down into the canyon.

The climb up is all steep slickrock scrambling, slow and careful work.   On the edge of the desert on exposed rock, this is also hot and demanding hiking.   We reached the top and enjoyed lunch at another viewpoint.

A rainstorm had passed through a few days earlier so potholes on top of the mountain were full of water, contrasting with the orange and white slickrock.

We skirted a number of ponds on top of the plateau on our loop route.

The route down was steep and required individuals to find a reasonable choice for each section, but the back of our shorts took a beating sitting and sliding down steep slickrock ramps, boulder slopes, ledges, and gullies.   A particularly long ramp of ledges brought us a long way down above the Three Ponds Trail.

The rock shapes in Snow Canyon are stunning.   To be able to hike over them is a great gift.

We spent a few hours scrambling over the rock on a unique route, one that could only be figured out from many days of exploration.   We were lucky to be able to follow Susan up to the top and back down on a fine September day.   Once we saw the possibilities and scanned the horizon from our high viewpoints, we realized that there are many more days of exploring for us in future visits to the Snow Canyon area.

a personal impression of Snow Canyon