Sand Hollow

Visited: September 2017 (and May 2017)

The first time I saw a photo of this park while wandering around on Google Earth (my main indoor hobby), I audibly said "WHAT" really loudly. At my old office job. Which mainly involved answering phones. Whoops.

This place is unreal. Bright orange sandstone in crystal blue green waters. It boggles the brain. There shouldn't be a lake in those conditions! Well, there isn't. Not naturally. It's a reservoir, fed by Quail Creek Reservoir across the way. Even in September, I was able to see the waterfalls cascading through the sandstone into the lake from some man made tubes. Fun and spectacular nonetheless. And vital for the residents of St. George.

I camped here after an adventure hiking Kanarraville Falls with my brother from another mother Meegah and my husband Paul in May, and just stopped by after teaching a school in Hurricane.

When I camped, we used the dispersed campground on the far end of the lake. This meant there were no hookups for RVs, and no designated spots. Plunk your tent in the sand, and you get a picnic table if you're lucky. This also somehow meant absolutely no accountability for your own litter, and the place was TRASHED. I had just gotten a brand new trash grabber (I'm a nerd I'm aware ok let's move on) and went on a QUEST to get it all. Diving into bushes, probably encroaching on people's personal space to get wrappers and bottles and cigarette butts and abandoned flip flops. Once the area was purged of rogue litter, I waded in the lake at sunset, and may have had a late night swim 

And we ate GOOD that night. Meegah makes a mean roasted corn.

The next morning, we went to check out the place on the map called "Jumping Cliffs". I grew up in the high desert of New Mexico, and yet we had two cliff jumping spots in under an hour's drive from us. One wayyyy up in the mountains, from a rhyolite cliff into a freezing stream that had formed a mega deep pool, and one off sandstone cliffs into Abiqui Reservoir, with cliff options from 20-30 feet at both. So when I saw this sign...

I knew I had to jump right in! We were there on a Monday morning, so we had the cliffs to ourselves. In my excitement, I had left my trash grabber and bags, and still lament the piles trash I was not able to clean from the cliffs. If any of ya'll can take that on this summer, that would be grrrrrrrrreat. There are lots of cliff heights to choose from, I think my highest cliff was about 30 feet or so. The boys chickened out wayyyy earlier than that :P But had fun on the floatie and warming up on the rocks. You can see out to Zion NP from the top of the jumping rocks.

I considered jumping in September, I had packed a swimsuit for a hot spring on our way down to Saint George, but I saw when I drove in that Swimmer's Itch was out, and I was not interested. Swimmer's Itch is a parasite released from snails in shallow marshy water.

Don't look down...

Many people at Sand Hollow have a watercraft or OHV (there are some dunes for this), but all I had was a swimsuit, some camp chairs, a beat up tent, and some roasted corn and was happy as a clam. I plan to go back over and over and over again.