Enjoying Snow Canyon...whatever the weather!

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."

~John Ruskin

I'm cannot say that I have gotten to the point of totally agreeing with this quote, but last week we had chances to experiment on some of it and sunshine and rain, in moderation of course, were both greatly enjoyed out at Snow Canyon.  Saturday evening we went out to the Overlook to read the Sunday School lesson and got so distracted by the rain that it just didn't happen.  We could see some amazing waterfalls coming off the cliffs.  Then we decided to go over to Kayenta (along with a lot of other people) and the waterfalls over there were going like crazy...had no camera of any kind with us unfortunately.  Monday morning it was raining again and since Paul couldn't really work, we just decided to take a walk out at Snow Canyon.  We had on our rain gear and had a great walk.  We went up the West Canyon gravel road and saw so many waterfalls! Then we went across the Lava Tube trail and back down the paved trail where we saw more waterfalls on that side of the canyon. The camera got too humidified and quit working, so we didn't get hardly any pictures...again.  We ended up enjoying it so much that we just barely got back in time for me to get ready and get to work on time.  We decided we would come back out on our bikes in the evening with both cameras.  (I need to replace both semi-working cameras with a waterproof one.)

In the evening the crossing was flooded from all the water that had come down during the day.  It was just sprinkling (sometimes pretty heavy) while we were there.  We rode up the paved trail and locked up the bikes and hiked up on top of one of the petrified sand dunes to see all of the rain pools.  So pretty! Then we got back on the bikes and rode to the top/back of the West Canyon road.  The wash was running like crazy until we got to the very top and it kind of ran out.  Several road crossings had water damage.  It was a beautiful ride.

Another morning before school I went out and hiked up to White Rocks to see the water there.  There were still little waterfalls running down the rocks.  Lots of sand had been washed down and was so saturated that if you stepped in it you could sink in pretty deep and might loose a shoe.  The water was seeping out of it to fill up the pools.

Saturday morning the sun was out and Paul was at a Camporee, so I walked in at the North end and took the Lava Tube trail and then the Butterfly trail and got up on top of the other petrified sand dunes to look around.  The water is fast disappearing, but there was still plenty of signs of its' passing.  It was a great hike.  It was a GREAT week at Snow Canyon.  So glad we live close to such an amazing place.