Wednesday April 19th 2017

Today was a beautiful day. Yesterday’s wind was gone and the temperature peaked in the mid 80s with full sunshine. I took advantage of the good weather to tour the Valley of Fire State Park.

The valley floor transitions quickly to rock.

These rock structures are called beehives.

Valley of Fire State Park is Nevada’s first State Park. It was established in 1935 to protect the outstanding scenic, geological and archaeological attributes. The park is located about 40 miles north of Las Vegas. It can be accessed from I-15 or from the Lake Mead National Recreation area. I entered from I-15 on a very dramatic approach. The road crosses the desert climbing gradually then goes up onto the ridge around the valley area. The decent into the state park is steep and through a narrow canyon area. After the registration booth the valley area opens up again.

Stairs up to some ancient petroglyphs. 

Petroglyphs on the stone face.

I’ve included many different pictures in this blog entry to attempt to show the diversity of the terrain. I drove deep into the park and walked a couple of trails. In the areas of red rock the trails are covered in red sand. In the areas of white rock the trails are covered in white sand. The sand makes walking in some areas very taxing. If there isn’t sand, you are scrambling over bedrock.

Narrow steep winding park road. Meeting a rental RV was not fun.

There were many visitors to the park today. Find a place to park in the parking areas took some patience. Many of the visitors were speaking non-native languages. Around here, I consider Spanish as well as English a native language. The other thing that stands out are all the rental motorhomes that are traveling the park roads. Experienced RVers would stay away. I didn’t see any privately owned motorhomes on the side roads. I suspect the rear overhang on some of the bigger RVs bottomed out going through some of the washes that turn the park roads into roller coaster paths.

White sand on along the trail in the area of the white rocks.

Steep decent into a bowl area that has been used for several movies. 

Overall I spent about 4 hours in the park. I got back to my RV home in time to rest before going to the Las Vegas strip for the evening. I had a ticket to Absinthe. It was similar to the first time I saw the show when it was new. I recall three of the acts. The tight rope walking final was probably exactly the same act. The jokes and by play with the audience were different but just as raunchy.