Snow Canyon State Park | |
Utah State Park | |
Snow Canyon State Park
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Named for: Lorenzo and Erastus Snow | |
Country | United States |
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State | Utah |
County | Washington |
Location | Ivins |
- coordinates | 37°12′11″N 113°38′29″W / 37.20306°N 113.64139°WCoordinates: 37°12′11″N 113°38′29″W / 37.20306°N 113.64139°W |
Highest point | |
- elevation | 5,023 ft (1,531 m) |
Lowest point | |
- elevation | 3,150 ft (960 m) |
Area | 7,400 acres (2,995 ha) |
Founded | 1958 |
Management | Utah State Parks |
Visitation | 344,915 (2011) |
IUCN category | V - Protected Landscape/Seascape |
Snow Canyon State Park is a state park of Utah, USA, featuring a canyon carved from the red and white Navajo sandstone in the Red Mountains. The park is located near Ivins, Utah and St. George in Washington County. Other geological features of the state park include extinct cinder cones, lava tubes, lava flows, and sand dunes.
Snow Canyon is named after early Mormon settlers Lorenzo and Erastus Snow. It was designated as a Utah State Park in 1958.
Two canyons, West Canyon and Snow Canyon, begin side-by-side at the north gouging deeply into the sandstone of the Red Mountains, each canyon then running southward, slowly converging then finally meeting in the middle of the park. From there Snow Canyon continues south-by-southeastward as a single, larger canyon. Near the park's southern entrance, the canyon ends, its mouth opening out onto the Santa Clara bench near Ivins, Utah.
A paved two-lane road (formerly SR-300) enters the park from Ivins on the south, winds up the canyon a ways, then climbs up the eastern edge to the bench above Snow Canyon, where the road joins State Route 18. Ancient lava flows spill over the eastern edges of Snow Canyon from above, where the road climbs out of the canyon.
The park boundaries extend northeastward, across State Route 18, to encompass two cinder cones along the western edge of Diamond Valley.
The highest point in the park, according to a U.S. Geological Survey topographical map, is a peak 5,024 feet (1,531 m) in elevation nearly due west of the southern cinder cone, standing above the eastern edge of the east fork of Snow Canyon.