Dave and Jan’s daughter-in-law, Meagan, expressed interest some time back in going together to some of the sights to be enjoyed in the Cedar City area (where she, Stephen, and their two children have lived for around a year and a half now). One sight which she indicated she would be interested in seeing was Snow Canyon, not far from St. George. Snow Canyon, for anyone who is wondering, is not named for its snow, but it is named after one of Utah’s early settlers by the name of Snow. So May 6th seemed like a good date to head for Snow Canyon – though it happened to be the day St. George was hosting a major race event which altered traffic routes for much of the city. So when the family had traveled the circuitous route to get to the north entrance of the State Park, the entrance was blocked to provide safety for cyclists who were participating in the day’s events. Fortunately, there was a small parking area along the highway past the park entrance which provided access to a trail to the White Rocks area of the park.

Wild flowers along the route added beauty and interest to the trail – as wild flowers always do!

And Ryan stopped for a short time on geological evidence of past volcanic activity in the area – contrasting with the white rocks.

A sandy wash provided a suitable environment for a lunch break where lunch spots were in short supply.

The white rock formations which were the trail’s destination provided a good climb and good views of other canyon features.

When the day’s race activities were coming to an end, access to the main park opened up for an interesting walk at Jenny’s Canyon.

The slot canyon portion of Jenney’s Canyon provided lots of interesting geology of special interest to Ryan and Erin.

Snow Canyon is filled with interesting geological features and various colors which provide, for Dave and Jan, clear evidence of the Lord’s ingenuity in reforming the earth with the waters of the flood of Noah’s day.

Genesis 7:10-12 (NASB)
¹⁰  It came about after the seven days, that the water of the flood came upon the earth.
¹¹  In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.
¹²  The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.

Snow Canyon is a beautiful example of the Lord’s ability to create amazing beauty even in an act of divine judgment!

Dave and Jan have looked forward to the return of weather warm enough to permit them to resume camping outings – and the time finally arrived the last week of April. Studying a brochure on state parks in northeastern Nevada, they decided to try an outing at Echo Canyon State Park – twelve miles east of the former silver-mining town of Pioche. When they arrived near the park and were met by a bright red sign which said “CLOSED,” they decided to drive on anyhow to see what they could of the park. Driving through the park they saw plenty of evidence of recent flooding. Driving back through the park they stopped along the road near one of the park’s campgrounds so they could walk through and see what they might have enjoyed – learning in the process that the campground was being used by quite a few campers. So they picked a site and set up camp, and were glad that they did.

Dave enjoyed an afternoon bike ride around the lake at the park on the road which topped the dam which backed up the reservoir, then up a very sandy trail in a juniper forest. After dinner, he and Jan walked the road with its nice view of the somewhat muddy lake.

The next day (Friday) it was time to explore the Ash Canyon Trail, beginning at the trailhead at the upper part of the campground. It turned out to be quite a pleasant surprise.

Topping the hill above the campground, Ash Canyon began to come into view – turning into a rocky wonderland!

The trail dropped, precipitously in places, deeper and deeper into the canyon with its many interesting rock formations.

There were some canyon depths to which the trail never dropped – continuing along rock walls at higher elevations.

After a mile or two the trail descended onto the valley floor of Echo Canyon where the river had recently overflowed the road.

Echo Canyon apparently earned its name because of rocky canyon walls which bounce sounds back to their source.

Walking along the road through the canyon returned the hikers back to their campground where water sports are available at the lake.

While Dave and Jan find plenty of activities to fill their time with productive and enjoyable activities – caring for grandchildren, doing yard work, church activities, and some assistance with books at Stephen’s restaurant – they are very happy for opportunities to explore the ever-growing list of interesting places within a short drive from town in the “color country” of Southwest Utah.

While Dave and Jan are living many miles away from their four Crandall grandsons (Andrew and Alissa’s boys – Levi, Elijah, Silas and Ephraim) in South Dakota (with whom they hope to spend some time in weeks or months ahead), they enjoy times with Stephen and Meagan’s son (Ryan) and daughter (Erin) who moved to Cedar City a year and a half ago so Stephen could take on the challenge of managing the historic Top Spot Drive Inn restaurant and (very challenging) gas station (with its “out of compliance” gas pumps). So when Ryan and Erin stayed for the week-end with Dave and Jan, while their parents were celebrating their eleventh wedding anniversary, they enjoyed a visit to Cathedral Gorge – a Nevada State Park near the town of Panaca around 85 miles west of Cedar City.

Cathedral Gorge State Park is, perhaps, best know for its “slot canyons” which Ryan and Erin had a fun time exploring.

April 1st provided another opportunity to spend time with Ryan and Erin, so the family drove around 60 miles north on I-15 to Beaver City – a small town (c. 8,000 population) with a fun city park and The Creamery with its many flavors of great ice cream.

Resurrection Sunday brought the family together at Dave and Jan’s for dinner and a rare family photo in the living room.

And the third week of April Meagan pulled off a joint birthday party for Ryan (9) and Erin (6) and around 40 guests (young and older) at Cedar City’s Discovery Park, where Ryan and Erin received a table full of birthday gifts – enough to keep them busy for the next few days (or weeks)!

So we hope you and yours have been having as much fun as Dave and Jan have. As Solomon wrote in Proverbs 17:6, “Grandchildren are the crown of old men” [as well as their much younger wives!]. Dave and Jan are blessed to have children and grandchildren to add variety and excitement to their lives.

With an unusually snowy season in the Cedar City area this past winter, Dave and Jan decided to try hiking with snowshoes for the first time. So they rented snowshoes from a local sports shop and headed up to the Markagunt Plateau with their neighbor, Kathleen, to try the snowshoes out. Driving between snow banks along the highway as high, at times, as eight or ten feet, they found there weren’t too many places they could even pull off the road, but they eventually found a wide spot near the Duck Creek Forest Service campground where there was room to park their car.

Wondering whether snowshoes would allow them to hike across country over two or three feet of fresh snow they soon discovered that snow conditions were not going to make that a sensible experience – unless they wanted each step to sink knee deep into the snow. So they chose a “groomed” forest road for their adventure.

The road was a familiar one over which Dave and Jan had travelled by car and Dave had ridden his mountain bike, but the scenery was entirely different with the forest floor and many of its trees plastered with snow.

Snow shoeing on groomed snow, it turned out, was not much different than hiking on packed snow in regular hiking boots. Dave, Jan and Kathleen were agreed that, though the road they travelled was an uphill walk for the most part, it was an easy and very pleasant experience.

The top of the road provided a nice view of an expansive meadow area through which the road passes right to Navajo Lake or straight ahead (more or less) to the Cascade Falls trailhead and a crossing of the 30+ mile long Virgin River Rim trail.

The weather was crisp and beautiful, and the hike was a very pleasant experience – definitely something to be repeated. It was a good opportunity to say “YES” to the Lord’s question to Job, “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?” (Job 38:22) – though there is far more to the investigation of the wonders of the snow than snowshoeing on snowy fields reveals (see theJohn1010project.com “awesome wonders” video “The Jewels of Winter” for more amazing detail)!

The fall and winter seasons of 2022/2023 in Cedar City have seen a very healthy snowfall after years of drier weather and the challenges of drought. So Dave has had many opportunities to shovel some snow.

Not too far south of Cedar City the Mohave Dessert provides much warmer weather and much less likelihood of snow, so Dave and Jan headed south (around 35-40 miles) to a scenic area north of St. George known as Red Cliffs. The Red Cliffs area includes a popular small Forest Service campground (used by reservation only), some day use facilities (with limited parking on site), and miles of trails for hikers and cyclists to enjoy. Dave and Jan’s previous visit to the area took them hiking on the White Reef trail which connects with other trails leading back to the Red Cliffs campground. Because they had parked their car some distance away on a dirt parking lot just west of the 15 Freeway, they did not venture into the Cottonwood Canyon wilderness trail which begins at the campground, but this time they came with the intention of exploring the canyon – a very interesting experience.

Just inside the canyon entrance they saw a long-dead tree which looked very much like a fossilized elephant head.

Canyon walls soon began closing in on the trail into the canyon, revealing some very colorful displays of Navajo Sandstone rock.

A pleasant stream of cool, clear water flowed through the canyon – eventually feeding into the lake at Quail Creek State Park.

A small waterfall flowed over the red rock farther up the trail before very long.

Canyon walls continued to display varied and interesting red rock formations.

As canyon walls continued closing in there was a good sized pool and a challenging rock passage for hikers on the trail.

Before much further along the trail the water of the creek was pretty much filling the canyon.

And soon the hiker’s choices were either walk or swim in the creek, or turn around and hike back out of the canyon.

On his way out of the canyon Jan used her phone to catch Dave rounding a rock corner where only a rope kept him from a swim!

Dave and Jan are very happy to be living in an area where there is such beautiful and varied scenery to enjoy – beauty and variety for which they are deeply grateful to the Lord as the creator and sculptor of the “color country” which surrounds Cedar City.

Following years of drought conditions in Southwest Utah, the Cedar City area this year has enjoyed numerous weather events which have ended talk, for the time being, of drought. There have been some rains, but there have been some significant snow events as well – so Dave has been getting quite a bit of exercise shoveling snow (which he enjoys). Cedar Mountain has been covered with snow much of the season.

Snowy conditions have focused attention on the city’s paved recreation trails for many of the walks/hikes Dave and Jan enjoy.

But ten miles west of Cedar City is a range of peaks known as Three Peaks Recreation Area which dries up more quickly than the much higher mountains east of Cedar City, so Dave decided one Saturday to check out its trails to see if they were dry enough to hike, and the trail up Rocky Peak was almost completely dry.

The Three Peaks area is dotted with Utah Juniper trees (along with some Pinon Pines). Cedar City would have been more properly named Juniper City if the early settlers had realized that the trees they were seeing were not Cedars. Dave enjoys the Junipers, even after they have lost their foliage, because they continue to be quite scenic when they are bare “skeletons.”

From the top of Rocky Peak the view back to Cedar City in the east is a nice view of the mountains east of town.

After a picnic lunch in the campground below Rocky Peak, Dave discovered another trailhead of which he hadn’t been aware.

The Twilight Zone trail turned out to be primarily a bike path originating 3.2 miles back at the Mountain Bike Trailhead from which Dave (and, at least once, his grandson Ryan) have ridden some of the many trails which originate at that spot. It turned out to be a pleasant walk along a trail which was fairly dry – through there were a few muddy and snowy patches.

It was a nice day for a hike along a trail where mud and snow were not prohibitive – a trail Dave plans to return to for a bike ride in warmer, drier and maybe even sunnier weather. Dave is almost always alert to the creative genius the Lord has exercised in all that He has made for mankind to enjoy in beautiful places – including beautiful places around Cedar City.

Winter weather in southwest Utah creates some challenges when it comes to exercise, but Dave and Jan enjoy the season. One exercise comes from the challenge of snow removal – and living on a corner lot provides more sidewalk space to clear when it snows – as it has done several times during the 2022/2023 winter season.

Jan enjoyed introducing one of our good neighbors to cross-country skiing on the golf course across the street from our houses.

While the ladies were skiing, the grandchildren were having fun sledding down the hill at the golf course with a boy from the neighborhood – joined eventually by the neighbor who had taken off the skis for some sledding fun on her own and with Dave and Jan’s granddaughter Erin.

Ryan took a break from sledding with the neighbor boy to climb to the top of the hill as “king on the mountain.”

On another day Dave and Jan enjoyed a hike along the beautiful mountains east of town along the East Bench trail.

Snow-covered mountains across the valley to the west of town invite further exploration in a warmer season, so there are lots of recreation opportunities in the Cedar City area for the enjoyment of residents all year long.

Dave and Jan are very grateful for the Lord’s gracious provision of a beautiful setting to enjoy during their retirement years!

Dave and Jan are enjoying the cooler weather which comes with the fall and winter season in Cedar City. With temperatures ranging between the mid thirties during the days and the teens or twenties during the nights (with some cooler nights getting below ten degrees), Dave doesn’t get much outdoor bike riding in because it is hard to keep fingers from frost bite when it gets below forty degrees. But Dave rides his “trainer” bike (his 58-year-old Bianchi “ten speed” – serving as a stationary bike) for six miles in the garage most mornings and many evenings. There are still some cool walks and even hikes to be enjoyed, there is snow to shovel (which Dave enjoys), and there is cross-country skiing to enjoy either up on the Markagunt Plateau (10,000 foot elevation) or, when there is a good snow accumulation in town (as there has already been several times this season), right across the street on the Rocky Ridge Golf Course.

One of the things which Dave and Jan found very appealing about Cedar City during their early visits to town before moving from California is the system of paved walking and biking trails in the city. The Coal Creek Trail passes through the east side of town just three or four blocks from the house they live in, tying together several of the city’s nice parks. And at Cedar Canyon Park the Coal Creek Trail turns up beautiful Cedar Canyon, or forks south to become the East Bench Trail which skirts the eastern part of the city. Trail crews are out with their snow removal equipment early on snowy days to make the trails accessible for people who enjoy taking a brisk walk in scenic beauty without leaving town. So Dave enjoyed a five-mile walk from home recently on the bike trail he enjoys riding in warmer weather.

Cedar Mountain rises up in the background from Cedar Canyon Park – through which Coal Creek flows down from the mountains on the east of town – though the creek is largely frozen during much of the fall and winter season.

The trail passes through scenic terrain, characteristic of “color country,” between snowy canyon walls with their north exposure and canyon walls whose south exposure tends to clear of snow more quickly.

Two fairly robust water falls flow through the canyon year round – though the cool weather sometimes slows their flow considerably.

Snowy scenes probably mean more to people who know the Lord as their Savior and recognize the Bible as God’s inspired word because of the Lord’s challenge to His ancient servant Job in Job 38:22: “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, Or have you seen the storehouses of the hail?” For a fascinating description of the storehouses of the snow go on the internet to John1010Project.com and watch the video “The Jewels of Winter.” Snowy scenes are beautiful, but the Lord’s creativity in the details is (as always) amazing!

With the fall season kicking into gear Dave and Jan headed for the Beaver City area for a final camping outing before getting their camping trailer winterized. Hoping to camp at the Little Cottonwood Forest Service Campground, they discovered that it was already closed for the season, but a Forest Service employee recommended nearby Little Reservoir Campground. It was a very good recommendation.

An evening drive revealed some beautiful lakes in the area – beautified by the golden colors of innumerable Aspen trees.

The next day’s hike to Spruce Lake was a little underwhelming with respect to the lake itself, but the fall colors were spectacular.

A private picnic at another campground which was closed for the season included more bright fall colors to enjoy – followed by a long loop drive on a good dirt road to the top of the Tushar Mountains with views of the Kents Lakes (upper lake pictured) along the way.

Closer to home Dave and Jan and a neighbor enjoyed the fall colors at Navajo Lake and Aspen Mirror Lake on Cedar Mountain.

As the Apostle Paul observed in his message to the citizens of Lystra (Acts 14:17), the Lord has left earth’s citizens with a clear witness of His goodness by supplying rains from heaven and fruitful seasons. Besides the satisfaction He provides for human hearts by the food and gladness He sends into our lives, He displays His goodness in the beauty of each of the seasons!

The road to Bryce Canyon from Cedar City travels through Red Canyon – a drive Dave and Jan have taken quite a few times since moving to Utah. But, except for stops a time or two at the visitors’ center at Red Canyon and a short hike with Andrew and Alissa’s family two years back in nearby Losee Canyon, they had never camped at Red Canyon or explored the trails in the area. So this year was the time to learn more – and it was time well spent!

Views from the campground itself already provided very beautiful scenes of the area’s abundant red rocks!

And an evening hike from the campground after setting up and eating dinner was already a scenic and satisfying experience.

The next day was an opportunity to take the Thunder Mountain trail up into the heights above the Red Canyon. After hiking around a mile there was a sign marking the entrance to Red Rock Canyon with some spectacular red rock “hoodos.”

The voices Dave and Jan began hearing as they approached the steep ascent to the heights turned out to be the voices of cyclists on their mountain bikes. It was amazing to see cyclists climbing and descending such steep trails, but there were quite a few of them – including some women who were on multi-day treks through the region. And there were horse riders on the trail as well!

The day was a beautiful day for the hike, and the scenery was breathtakingly beautiful in almost every direction.

Jan found a comfortable place to relax following lunch at an elevation somewhere in the neighborhood of 8,500 to 9,000 ft. where panoramic views made the effort to climb to the top of the ridge well worth while – with many miles of additional trails to travel for the really ambitious (including the mountain bicyclists and the horse riders).

Because there are many additional trails to explore in the Red Canyon area, Dave and Jan expect to return for more discoveries in months and years ahead – if the Lord’s return doesn’t bring this troubled age to an end, as many believe it well might. If the Lord’s return does interrupt future adventures in Red Canyon we have been assured that there are even better adventures ahead for those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior! Dave and Jan hope that includes you!