Snow Canyon

Saturday was a beautiful day for a bike ride.  The weather was so perfect.  It was in the lower 70’s all day.  We loaded up our bikes and headed up Snow Canyon.  A state park that is about 20 minutes from our home.  When you enter the park you are immediately surrounded by the steep red cliffs that this part of Southern Utah is so famous for.  We parked, unloaded our bikes and picked an 8 miles gravel and dirt path to take our ride on.  It was said to be an easy ride.  Although I have only ridden on paved pathways before, so for me it was challenging.  It just took a little  more of an effort and some of the soft sandy places on the path were difficult at times, but it was fun.  Over all I snapped about 70 pictures!  YES, it was beautiful that is why so many. 

scenes like this  was ahead of us on the trail, around every turn you came upon there was something a little different to see.

 

 

 

I turned around after about a  mile and caught a glimpse of the valley below us, St. George and Santa Clara.

 

Still finding some of the desert in bloom

 

 

Now it gets very interesting…I zoomed in on some hikers across the way.  WAY ACROSS the WAY!

 

Red rock and white rock seem to have been placed here side by side out of no where.  It is amazing to see the striking difference between the color of the hills and wonder how it happened.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each piece of this world is so different, no matter which way you turn you look at a story of time.  Layers upon layers of rock that seem to have been a bed of an underwater world when time, wind, rain, and water weather itself into the cliffs and bedrock.

I just couldn’t get over the beauty and peaceful serenity of this canyon.  Once in a while another biker would pass us by and nod and we would nod and smile back.   Words aren’t spoken, it is almost as if you are in another world where you shouldn’t break the silence.  When you speak it is in a whisper……because the mountains are listening……

We silently rode back to the parking lot where our truck was.  For some reason, I was not completely up to par to do the 8 miles up and back so we turned around after 6.  

I rested at a picnic table and had a cool refreshing drink before heading over to another trail.  This time to stretch my legs a bit.

If you look closely, this path had a stake in the ground that had a picture of a shoe and a mark through it (NO TRAIL),  I don’t think too many people took note.  There were a lot of foot prints….

  We came upon fields of lava that were so beautiful.  A lava cavern that undoubtedly was the source of the fields of lava.  Bob was dying to go into the caves but I told him NO WAY HOSA’ you will have to come back with someone who will be able to get you out of the hole once you are stuck and that person is NOT ME!  I am such a poor sport!

I do have to admit that it looked inviting.  Scary, but adventurous.  See Huhoney looking into the cavern.  Later  on the way back we noticed some empty water bottles and thought how inconsiderate someone was to have left them so

like good doobies we picked up the plastic water bottles and dumped out the water remaining in a couple half full bottles….no sooner did we do that and 3 people emerged for the CAVERN! LOL SORRY! we thought that someone left there garbage behind and we were cleaning up, so we gave them a new bottle of water we were carrying around!  We were told that the cavern went back about 150 feet and was very COOL to go into!  At that point HUHONEY was so ready to venture into the lava spout cavern I had to almost hog tie him!

I am such a poor sport!  Need I remind you that CELL PHONES have no service under ground in the cavern and that without a flash light I was NOT going into the unknown!  He would have to get one of his sons to go with him…..LOL

half way up this photo just right of center is where our truck is parked.  We walked about 3 miles on this little adventure.  It was a good stretch for our legs that just biked about 12 miles!

 

just a little bit further honey, you can to it!  the stairs looked very ominous to me….PHEW I did it!

On our way down to the valley, we stopped and watched some young people repel down the cliffs.  They were just setting up their ropes when we first had started our bike ride about 3 hours earlier.  It was amazing what these young people were doing.  I totally admire their skills and BRAVERY! (be sure to click on each photo to ENLARGE and get the total effect of their climb!)

 

You have to actually squint to see the tiny spec of a person in the center of these pictures…that is how massive this cliff was.

I don’t know how far up they were but I am guessing over 500 ft.  It was pretty amazing to watch.  Their group actually did 2 climbs.  The one hole in the wall on the left straight up and the other was the triangle where they had ropes repelling down the right side of the triangle from about 3/4 of the way up.  It was a great show!

I don’t think I would have it in me to do it.  I am a little afraid of heights…I wish I weren’t but I am…I am good about embracing it and continually do things that scare the hebie-geebies out of me just to say I am EMBRACING my fear!

Coming home at the end of a perfect day left us once again with a beautiful orange and pink sunset.  God is great isn’t he?  I am sooooo BLESSED!  Thanks for joining me today  and sharing my adventure and blessings with me. SMILES ACROSS THE MILES…..lindalu