Desert Southwest - The Checklist Edition - Valley of Fire State Park - September 2014

Return to alavigne.net home

NOTE: You have javascript disabled in your browser. This presentation will continue to function, but with only basic capabilities. In order to view this presentation will full capabilities, please enable javascript in your browser, then refresh this page.

[< Prev. Chapter]

[page 1] [page 2] [page 3] [page 4]

[Next Page >]

Valley of Fire

Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada

Sunday, September 28

By the time we had arrived at Valley of Fire State Park, forty-five minutes after our failed drive to the start of the Moapa Peak route, night had fallen. We discovered that the park's campgrounds were full. Under expert guidance from Roland, we backtracked out of the park and found a suitable spot a short way off of the highway leading into the park. There, in the open desert, we pitched our tents for the night.

We rose with the arrivial of morning twilight, and were packed up to leave by the time the sun poked over the eastern horizon. Rather than have breakfast on the stony ground, we decided to drive into Valley of Fire and have breakfast at one of the park's very nice picnic facilities.

courtesy PChen

At-large camping

The Van carries much

courtesy RHanel

Packing up, middle of nowhere

Valley of Fire State Park

Atlatl Rock Picnic Area

We sketched out our plan for the day while eating breakfast, surrounded by the deep red sandstone of the Atlatl Rock picnic area. As you may recall from the narrative on the day before, we had opted out of climbing nearby Moapa Peak and had instead decided to spend the morning and early afternoon in Valley of Fire State Park. The park offers many easy, short walks, and we decided to just wander about and knock off some of these walks until the time came for us to head back into the Las Vegas area.

After breakfast, we walked up to view petroglyphs, carved into a crag of sandstone overlooking the picnic area. The park had constructed a metal stairway to overcome the scramble one would have to make to get up to the petroglyphs, and also a plexiglass panel to prevent visitors from defacing them. Looking at the damage already done to the petroglyphs by idiots unknown, it seems they were a little too late. It is quite a shame that we need to erect barriers to protect historical artifacts such as this.

Technicality Run Amok

Atlatl Rock

Atlatl Rock View

courtesy JInnes

courtesy RHanel

Atlatl Rock Petroglyphs

Atlatl Rock

After consulting a nearby interpretive sign for the trail network (which provided inexplicably detailed minutae such as I've never seen for trail descriptions), we drove off from the picnic area. We were still on the outskirts of the main concentration of the park's colorful formations, and, looking over the landscape, we could see the beginnings of these formations, poking up through much more drab "regular" desert rock. Quite striking.

The Fire of Valley of Fire

Our first hike was a tiny one - the "Petrified Logs Loop". It led over a fairly flat 0.3 miles (0.5km) loop of nondescript desert terrain. Partway along, a few fenced-in plots of land protected two petrified tree trunks. Most of the trunks were still embedded in the rock - only a strip of the trunks were exposed at the surface. Interesting, but not nearly as hands-on or as extensive as some of the petrified forest areas we'd seen in the Escalante area of Southern Utah.

courtesy JInnes

courtesy RHanel

Petrified Logs Loop

Embedded Log

After the petrified logs loop, we continued east along the main park road to the vaguely 50's-styled visitor center. Here, we did another tiny trail - this one only 0.1 miles long - to see a formation called Balancing Rock. By the way, did you know that 94 feet of the Balancing Rock trail is between 21% and 31% grade, and has an average cross-slope of 3.6%? Neither did I.

courtesy JInnes

Balancing Rock

courtesy RHanel

Balancing Rock

[< Prev. Chapter]

[page 1] [page 2] [page 3] [page 4]

[Next Page >]

Send feedback or leave comments (note: comments in message board below are separate from those in above message board)

send feedback |

homemade custom message board

(11 messages)
(last message posted on Thu. Jan. 29, 15:15 EST 2015 by George)