Climbing the Scout Cave Path in Snow Canyon State Park is a rewarding journey for guests searching for a brief, scenic trek in southern Utah. The simple-going path winds by beautiful pink rock landscapes, providing panoramic views of the encompassing desert cliffs and distinctive sandstone formations. The trail regularly leads hikers to Scout Cave, a pure alcove the place the rock partitions create cool shade and provide a quiet spot to discover or take photographs. Alongside the path, hikers will encounter the park’s signature pink and white cliffs, making it an ideal hike for households, photographers, and out of doors fanatics. With its scenic views and geological curiosity, the Scout Cave Path is without doubt one of the hottest hikes in Snow Canyon State Park, supreme for these trying to expertise the great thing about Utah’s pink rock surroundings.
Trailhead elevation 3,150′
Do not miss sundown from the cave
Climbing to Scout Cave
I’ve simply arrange camp on the Snow Canyon State Park Campground, recent off backpacking Zion’s unbelievable West Rim Path. On the lookout for a couple of extra miles and a sundown view, I determine to deal with the most effective hikes within the park—the Scout Cave Path. Parking on the Johnson Canyon/Scout Cave lot on the west facet of Snow Canyon Drive, I cross the street to the trailhead and set out.
It’s a sizzling late-September night, with the temperature nonetheless nicely above 90 levels. From the beginning, the path heads east for about 0.3 miles earlier than reaching a signed junction with the Scout Cave Path, the place I flip proper. The trail alternates between compact sand and sharp volcanic rock, surrounded by the park’s signature sandstone cliffs and darkish lava flows—a basic Snow Canyon mountain climbing panorama.
The route is straightforward to observe however rocky sufficient to demand consideration. I’ve already stumbled a couple of occasions inside the first mile, because of the uneven volcanic terrain. A bit over a mile from the trailhead, I drop by a lava subject and look again at Johnson Canyon glowing within the late solar. It’s a good looking view, however with the sunshine fading quick, I push on towards the cave.
Quickly the path crosses a slender wash and skirts a sandy bench lined with cottonwoods—the one stretch providing a little bit of shade. I re-enter the wash, and the teardrop-shaped opening of Scout Cave seems within the distance, nonetheless a few mile away.
After working round a dry falls, I climb a staircase of 112 steps and attain a junction: left provides an extended however gentler route, whereas proper is shorter with a quick scramble. I take the appropriate fork and shortly arrive at Scout Cave, simply because the day begins to chill.
The cave itself is spectacular—a excessive, rounded alcove lower into the sandstone with sweeping views of Snow Canyon beneath. I loosen up within the shady again of the cavern, watching pigeons dart out and in of their nests. Although Scout Cave has no confirmed archaeological significance, the realm was as soon as inhabited by the Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) from round 200 to 1250 AD and later by the Southern Paiute from about 1200 AD by the mid-1800s. Each cultures used the canyon for searching, gathering, and crafting instruments, and whereas there’s no proof the cave was lived in or ceremonial, they virtually actually knew of it.
A household from Salt Lake Metropolis stops by for photographs, and we chat about favourite Snow Canyon hikes and close by spots to discover. I point out the Lava Tubes and Pioneer Names Trails, then stick round for some time, taking photos because the solar slips behind the Beaver Dam Mountains to the west.
After one final photograph about twenty minutes after sundown, I begin the hike again. The return is simply as scenic, although the darkish volcanic rock retains me cautious within the fading gentle. My headlamp proves very helpful. Again at camp, I stretch out beneath a sky stuffed with stars—one other good Southern Utah journey within the books. Tomorrow, I’ll meet up with my dad and head north to Nice Basin Nationwide Park for a couple of days of mountain climbing, cave excursions, and Milky Approach images. I can’t wait. Any time that I can spend out right here with my dad is a present.
