Sand Hollow State Park, Back Again 4 Years Later

Sand Hollow State Park was the first park we visited with Adler as full time RVers. That was June of 2022. Bud has been wanting to come back to southwestern Utah, so here we are again.

This time around our trip here was much more of an ordeal. First, Matey had been acting odd for a couple of days.

These are still images from a minute long video I took to show the vet how he couldn’t seem to relax outside on his bed like he usually does. We were afraid he was in pain.

Matey goes to Banfield Vet Hospitals as they are a nationwide chain. There was one on our way here, on the outskirts of Las Vegas, so I got an appointment for noon on Thursday. Pulling the trailer through town and into their parking lot was not fun. Then we found the only way they could diagnose his hind parts was to take an x-ray, and it would take 2 to 3 hours to get the results from a radiologist. They did it and put a rush on it and we left there at about 2:45. But now we know that Matey has some degeneration in his discs, but that is not the cause of his behavior. The vet was certain he was not in pain (he’s on an anti inflammatory) and his behavior is the result of his ongoing dementia.

Now that we are up where it is cooler I can let Matey rest outside in the stroller, where he can be outside as he likes but still feel secure, and he is resting easy again.

But we still had two and a half hours of driving. Getting out of Las Vegas was no treat and we were very glad to get back to the Virgin River Canyon on I 15, which we remembered from four years ago. As you approach it looks like the road disappears into the mountain, but instead you enter the canyon.

The speed limit drops from 75 mph to 55 mph as you wind up the canyon…

alongside the Virgin River.

We also lost an hour going from Nevada to Utah, so we finally got here at 6:15 PM, Mountain Daylight Time. We’d left our site at ten in the morning, so that was a long day.

But now we are here and it is as nice a campground as I remembered.

We have a large site with full hookups.

And the sand is as red as I remember,

the reservoir as pretty and blue,

and the surrounding mountains just as colorful.

And this time I answered some of my questions. Why would you put a reservoir in a sandy valley?

What is that building just below the dam.

And why are they pumping water from that building into the reservoir?

This is all part of the water management system for Washington County, home of the fastest growing city in the United States, St. George, Utah.

Water from the Virgin River is piped into Sand Hollow Reservoir. Some of that water is piped out to a water treatment facility, but much of it does sink into the sand. This is a Managed Aquifer Recharge system and the water from Sand Hollow Reservoir has raised the water level in wells down grade from it.

And the building below the dam is a groundwater treatment plant, because the groundwater here has some dissolved heavy metals from the surrounding rocks and those have to be removed before the water can be used. Then the treated water goes into the reservoir along with the Virgin River Water to be used or to re-enter the aquifer (probably a shallower aquifer, but I couldn’t confirm that).

Today we took a drive to those colorful mountains.

We drove up the very pretty Oak Grove Road.

We drove past gorgeous red hills,

whose rock formations were as interesting as they were colorful.

The road went up a long way…

and ended at the Oak Grove Campground.

There were oaks,

and reservable campsites.

Also some great views…

of the Pine Valley Mountains.

We stopped at Leeds Creek to give Matey a drink.

I stuck my hand in the water and can attest that it is snowmelt from those mountains.

When we started back down we realized how high we’d come. We were up to about 6300 feet and the temperature was around 60 degrees. Back at camp we’re at 3,000 feet and about 72 degrees.

This little trailer was about three quarters of the way up the road. That part of the road was narrow enough that one car had to pull over if you met someone going the opposite direction.

And up just before this section, nestled in the red rocks,

was this motorhome. At least the road was a bit wider here.

On the way down I managed to get a picture of these folks practicing repelling down this red rock wall.

We are enjoying our return to this beautiful part of the country.