The day before we decided to summit Signal Peak, a 10,300 ft summit outside of the red rock desert of St. George, Utah we had ran muddy but warm trails on the nearby Gooseberry Mesa.
When people think of Southern Utah they imagine the red rock deserts and hot summers generally ignoring the high desert and mountain peaks towering through the iron colored sand. But, we have some great mountains here giving us a good variety of play time in the winter and a refuge from the blistering summer heat.
The way up to the trail head starting in a rain storm that quickly turned to snow and covered the dirt road. We stopped about a half mile from the official trail once the snow became too much for the 4WD.
We started our attempt to summit the peak with snow falling lightly around us. The snow fell softly as we crunched our way up the snow pack following the trail as best we could. Awarded with beautiful views we continued on up the steep slopes mountain. The higher we got the steeper the slopes became and softer the snow got. Our progress slowed and we eventually had to call it a day after 2,000 feet of vert and reaching 8,000 feet and short of our goal.
Ambitious? Ya, maybe a little but we had a great day and the Yukon Charlie snowshoes and poles worked great until our legs gave out from exhaustion.
 I guess we’ll have to head back to the winter wonderland and give it another go!
