St. George – our first stop in Utah, and the first of many amazing stops to come. We just loved southern Utah! The landscape is so different from what we are used to on the East Coast (Midwest? I’m never sure how Pittsburgh qualifies geographically..) that every stop felt like it was a treat to the senses.
In St. George, we stayed at Snow Canyon State Park. When we were RVing in New Mexico (so, about 4 months before this) a person we met told us a list of places he loved. I didn’t remember Snow Canyon specifically until I was trying to figure out where we were going to stay in Southwest Utah…and then I saw it on the map and had a lightbulb moment of “Oh! I’ve heard of this before – that guy in New Mexico told us about this!” so I decided to make a reservation.
The best news of all was that my best friend Brittany was traveling for work in Southern California, and she was able to take a flight into St. George for the weekend before she returned to Pittsburgh. She was going to stay with us in The Fox and I was so excited to see her. It’s so hard being away from friends and family, and by this point, we had been on the road and hadn’t seen her in 5 months! It was like a breath of fresh air to see my beautiful best friend again, and to be in such a beautiful place was icing on the cake.
The Campground
The campground at Snow Canyon State Park is water and electric only and had a dump station. The campground was well maintained, but…and I’m giving this a big BUT…the RV spaces are TINY. We knew this going in because we read reviews that told us about this, but the fact that the spaces were so narrow was shocking in person. It took us many tries to back in properly to the spot, and we were concerned we wouldn’t have room to put our slides out.
Thankfully, our neighbors had a small RV so we could put our slides out, but if you had 2 big RVs, both could not put their slides fully out. Our front door literally opened into a bush. Oh, and the RVs are so close that you can hear your neighbors talk and cough. From what I read, the reason why is because the park was designed a long time ago, before behemoth RVs (like ours…although admittedly they do come much larger than ours, too) existed. I suspect that they will redesign this at some point, because I can imagine camping without being able to put out your slides isn’t acceptable to most people.
If we had to do it all over again, we would have booked a site that didn’t have any hookups. They were much more spacious, and some of them were nestled right up against the red rocks. The water and electric sites were just all right next to each other in a row. This has been a consistent theme we’ve seen across state parks: the coolest sites have no hookups!
The Park
While we were staying at Snow Canyon State Park, the Ironman was going on and it went right through the park! It was so cool to see the athletes biking up the huge hill right by the campground.
The park also has lots of green space – we thought it was a nice contrast to our last location, which was all dust and rocks! It was so nice to see some green trees and green grass everyday, even if they only existed due to sprinkler systems. St. George is still in the desert, after all.
Right next to the campground was an awesome outdoor play area for kids. It was perfect for Calla – I think it was designed for ages 2-5, so maybe not the most entertaining for older kids. But Calla had a blast playing on it everyday. We really appreciate when anywhere we stay has a playground. It’s entertainment that isn’t US!
Snow Canyon is…well, a canyon, so there are rock walls all around it. This was great fun for all of us, but especially for Calla. She has no fear when it comes to climbing up the rocks and she is definitely more agile than her mother! If only she was a bit older, we could let her climb and play by herself. But we have to climb up with her so she doesn’t fall on the way down.
Being in a canyon usually means awesome hiking nearby. Snow Canyon State Park had a lot of great trails – they were well marked and easy to follow. A lot of them were sandy, which is not my favorite type of hike…but the views were worth trudging through the sand. Britt and I hiked by ourselves and we also did a ranger-led hike into a part of the canyon that is normally closed. It was on this hike that we learned that Snow Canyon is named after one of it’s early explorers…Erastus Snow. We heard from a few people that Snow Canyon is like a mini Zion National Park. We didn’t go to Zion, so I can’t comment on the similarities…but it’s something to keep in mind if Zion is something you want to see but you’d rather be near a metro area. Snow Canyon may fit your bill.
Snow Canyon was amazingly beautiful. The red rock, the yuccas, green space, and petrified lava flows all added up to spectacular scenery that would soon become the norm in Utah – but this was our first taste of it, and we will never forget it!
Date Visited: May 2018