Why do I love kayaking at Sand Hollow Reservoir in Utah?
So many reasons!
See what I discovered when I chased the sun to Sand Hollow Reservoir. You’re going to love it too!
Also check out the BONUS video and FREE resource below to help you live life more ABUNDANTLY.
This is post 9 of 13 in the First Kayaking Adventures Series: The View from My Kayak.
Hey Friend, welcome! In this series I share how I overcame obstacles and ventured out on my first few kayak excursions. There were victories, mishaps, danger, glorious moments as well as some great life lessons learned along the way. In the end I climbed the mountain of doubt and uncertainty and gained confidence and achievement. I hope to inspire you to go after your own dreams with courage and creativity to make them happen. Life is too short to only wish for the life you long for. Instead, pick up that dream, dust it off, and start living it.
If you haven’t had a chance to read my previous posts in this series, check them out! See the end of this post for a navigation guide to all posts in this series.
What it took to get away.
Just two days after kayaking in the Great Salt Lake in Utah, my adventurous friend Des and I chased the sun and warmer weather to Sand Hollow State Park in southern Utah. At the end of November in Utah we knew we were pushing our luck with the weather. But we felt like there was still one more good kayak day left. We just had to figure out how to make it work.
Our original plan was to go north to Pineview Reservoir and Causey Reservoir, but as temperatures dropped to 45 degrees, we realized our race against the cold was lost.
But down south the temperatures were still in the low 70’s and only a 4 hour drive away. That sounded promising!
Now, Des and I didn’t take off on overnight adventures without our families very often. With younger children at home and regular mom commitments, getting away was hard. So to take off overnight on a whim like this was new for us. And only possible because our AMAZING husbands encouraged us to go. They picked up the slack while we were gone and made it possible for us to follow this kayaking dream.
I’ll actually talk about that beautiful thing called SACRIFICE that we do in families in a later post. For now, THANKS to our AWESOME HUSBANDS!
It exceeded all my expectations.
After a 4 hour drive full of great girl-talk and tears (great heart-to-hearts seem to always involve cleansing tears!) we arrived at Sand Hollow State Park about 3:00 in the afternoon.
I was literally shaking as we unloaded our gear and got our kayaks on the red-sand shore at the boat ramp. It was like Christmas morning! I was so excited!
I’d never been to Sand Hollow Reservoir before and I’d only seen it in pictures. Our family loves hiking through the red rock canyons when we vacation St. George, just 20 minutes away from Sand Hollow. But (insert epic music playing in the background) …to get to kayak through these red rock canyons would be…my ultimate-most-epic-favorite-thing-to-do!
Once out on the water I was not disappointed! All my hopes and expectations were exceeded. All my senses were on fire. I could not drink it all in fast enough!
- sunlight piercing deep into the water and glittering off its surface
- satisfying pull of the paddle through clear water
- sun warm on my skin and washing everything golden.
- huge expanse of blue sky above
- flocks of birds (grebes) fluttering and splashing lightly as they run across water
- monster red rocks plunging into dark depths beneath my boat
- glimpses of the underwater world of huge boulders and cliffs dropping off into watery canyons we kayaked over
- color of red-orange rocks melting into emerald water
- liquid orange, yellow, and red reflecting on the water
Here are a few more pictures to help you see just how beautiful this place is.
The wind picked up near evening.
As we attempted to kayak around the red-rock island from the left, the wind was really blowing, creating white caps on the water. It was hard paddling! For a time there we felt like we were on a white-water river as we maneuvered between the red cliffs.
The wind was howling and the waves were crashing against the shore. For a second or two it was a little scary. But mostly I was hooting and laughing my head off loving every minute of it!
My adrenalin pumped as I paddled hard to keep the kayak steady. Check out those waves! I know, not class III or anything, but they were pretty exciting to us. It made me think I would like whitewater kayaking sometime.
Once we rounded the island the giant red rocks protected us from the wind and the setting sun lit everything on fire. The colors really came alive.
We knew it was time to head in as the sun started disappearing behind the red rocks.
Time to go.
Last parting shot of a glorious day. The best part was we had the whole next day to explore the other side of the reservoir! We pulled the kayaks out of the water feeling so filled, invigorated, and satisfied.
Little did we know at that moment the struggle we would soon have getting those kayaks secure on my car.
It turned cold as the sun started going down, especially since we were wet from our white-water escapade earlier. We had to steady our freezing fingers to tie the kayaks on top of the car which proved NOT as easy as we expected.
We were shivering.
One by one all the boats emptied from the lake and we were left alone still trying to secure the kayaks on top of my car. In the dark. And nothing was working. It was a close-to-panic moment for both of us.
In my next post in this series, #10, I’ll tell how we got out of that unexpected scary moment – thanks to some greatly needed and appreciated help!
Why is Sand Hollow one of the best kayak destinations in Utah?
Besides the amazing qualities listed above, here are 5 more reasons why Sand Hollow is, in my humble opinion, one of the best kayaking destinations in Utah:
Read the rest of the articles in this series:
- Pick Up that Dream, Dust it Off, and Start Living It! My Story of Choosing to Live My Dream.
- First Solo Kayak Trip: 3 Steps to Start Living Your Dream
- Close Call to Catastrophe and What I Learned When Things Went Wrong .
- Payson Lakes in the Fall: Finding Places of Connection and Wholeness
- 3 Life Lessons I Learned Paddling Provo River Alone for the First Time
- Paddling Utah Lake: Getting Un-Stuck in Life
- Kayaking the Great Salt Lake: Paddling through a Sea of Clouds
- I Blame Them for this Crazy Obsession
- Chasing the Sun to Sand Hollow Day 1: Why Sand Hollow is One of the Best Kayak Destinations in Utah
- Getting Past Panic at Sand Hollow Reservoir
- Chasing the Sun to Sand Hollow Day 2: The Joy of Being Surprised by the Unexpected
- The One Thing That Makes it Possible to PursueYour Dreams
- Life Seasons: Six Things You Can Do Right Now When Your Dream Feels Out of Reach
Do want to make some of your dreams come true?
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