Visiting Utah’s Snow Canyon State Park

I’ve found this to be an unpopular opinion, but I personally love doing the scenic classes on my Peloton. If you’re not familiar, you have a few options on what you can “look at” while you’re working out. Most people prefer a live class with someone coaching and encouraging you that play music in the background. I like to control my own music and like to feel like I’m “traveling” while I work out, so the scenic classes are by far those I take most frequently.

On a scenic ride on the bike in 2021, I clicked on one for a state park in Utah called Snow Canyon State Park. The views were beautiful from the bike path and so I looked it up while riding. I found it wasn’t far from Zion National Park and told myself next time I was in the area I was going to visit.

Flash forward to Spring of 2024 and I did just that. While planning our trip to Utah, this was something I had high on my list to do. I didn’t need to spend hours here, but I at least wanted to check it out.

So on our first day of our long Utah weekend I got to visit. We had a few hours in the afternoon to stop on our way to the lodge, and it was just enough time to check out two trails and the scenic drive in the park.

Pioneer Names Trail

Our first stop was the Pioneer Names Trail. It’s right off of the main road that goes through the park. It’s a relatively short trail (.4 miles) but what piqued my interest about it was that has names of pioneers traveling westward who wrote their names on the rock wall as early as 1881. It’s said they used the axel grease to write them.

We didn’t have cell service while we were in the park, and I had briefly seen the names in a photo, but wasn’t sure exactly where on the trail they were. We walked one end of the trail to the other and back and saw quite a few climbers, but weren’t finding the names. I figured that they needed to be big enough to see them from the trail, so I took another look and on the face of the large climbing wall under an overhang is where I saw them. It’s a balance though between appreciating history and the people who traveled through there while also desiring to make sure moving forward we don’t leave a trace while visiting these places.

Jenny’s Canyon Trail

This is another short hike right off of the main road. We were able to snag a parking spot right at the beginning of it and venture back the dirt and sand path toward the canyon. What you’ll find is that in under a 1/2 mile hike, you get a spectacular view of a slot canyon that you’d never know was there.

It was just prior to sunset when we arrived so the park was not crowded at all. We were able to have the entire slot canyon to ourselves and just take in the height of the walls and the rock faces that had been carved by water over many years. It almost felt too good to be true that something this magnificent was so easy to access.

If you find yourself in the area, this park is surely worth the stop. I’d love to go back and do more of the hiking trails because the scenery with it’s oranges and burnt reds was just so beautiful. If you want to check out some other places that are within a few hours, some suggestions are below!