Snow Canyon Arizona

Snow Canyon has bee the site of Hollywood films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the Electric Horseman, and Jeremiah Johnson.  This park was originally called Dixie State Park but was later renamed for Lorenzo and Erastus Snow, who were prominent pioneering Utah leaders.

Wind transported more than 183 million years ago, tiny grains of quartzite sand which covered much of what is now know as UTAH.  These sand dunes, up to 2,500 feet thick, eventually were cemented into stone.  The colors of stones we have seen in this park was absolutely stunning.  Colors were from burnt orange to creamy white and let us not forget to mention Navajo sandstone.  This park is what remains of the once desert sand sea.  Over time this sea of sand was shaped into the sandstone to form the beautiful canyons we enjoyed. 27,000 ago nearby cinder cones erupted, causing lava to flow down these canyons, filling this with basalt. Basalt is a fine-grained, hard rock that forms when bits of lava shoot out of volcanoes, so it's one kind of igneous rock.  When the lava cools quickly, it turns into basalt. Usually, basalt is black or gray. Basalt is a mixture of feldspar and pyroxene, a rock made mainly of silica and oxygen.

Snow Canyon is home to a diversity of plant and wildlife that only grows here and not in the state.  This canyon is located at the intersection of the Mojave Desert.

While visiting this beautiful park I spotted quail and some kind of bluebird.  The picture below is not mine but I wanted you to see what I actually saw.  My pictures are below the first one. 

Traveling companions out west.  We have had a great time and thanks to Mark and Sherry Anderson for going with us and making this awesome trip happen.