Frozen Sand Dunes In The HOT Nevada Desert - Red Rock Canyon & The Valley of Fire

 

Go ahead - you can touch these frozen sand dunes.

Standing slack jawed in the 109 degree heat at the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area it was hard to imagine anything being frozen at any time in this natural oven. That is probably why I got such a kick out of the description of the beautiful red and tan sandstone formations surrounding me – “frozen sand dunes”.

During our recent work-cation to a jewelry show in Las Vegas, Julie was busy working the search engine on her phone to find places to visit that would expose us to the incredible natural wonders that are just a short trip from the non-stop neon spectacle of the Vegas Strip. Our plane had not touched down before she had our first day trip all mapped out for us.

Red Rock Canyon is just 24 miles from the Strip and is well worth the drive. One of the best things about Red Rock is that if you have absolutely no desire to exit your vehicle and take advantage of one or more of the 26 different hikes and trails, you can get a great impression by simply driving around the one way 13 mile scenic drive. TIP: visiting the Nevada desert in blast furnace season, er I mean summer, is an experience to be sure, but one might be better served doing so in cooler times.

My original intent was to do the loop and call it a day, but once we encountered all those frozen dunes, we just had to pull over for a full immersion experience. Mostly by chance we found a very heat friendly place to stop; Red Spring Picnic Area. This offers a great compromise between being car potatoes and throwing caution to the wind and taking on a 10 mile desert hike. Red Spring has bathrooms, water, shaded picnic tables and best of all – a boardwalk that loops around the area and gives some great scenery and photo ops in just a little over half a mile. For the ambitious there are trails that go off into the desert, but we stuck to the boardwalk.

The Boardwalk in Red Rock Canyon is great.

The boardwalk serves at least two purposes. First, it provides the opportunity for just about anyone to experience the area because it is ADA compliant. Secondly, it helps preserve the fragile desert flora and fauna by allowing visitors to walk or roll around the area without doing damage to any plant life or leaving a trail. Our heads were swiveling this way and that as we tried to take in as much as we could of the rock formations, petroglyphs, and desert scenery. If you go to Red Rock Canyon, you will want to stop here.

Our next desert trip was to the Valley of Fire State Park and we were both very pleased that we visited this park after Red Rock for the simple reason that Valley of Fire is bigger and better. It is a wee bit more of a drive to get here, VOF is about 50 miles NE of Vegas but the reward for doubling your drive time is at a bare minimum a payback of triple the natural eye candy. Red Rock was mainly red sandstone with some tan for contrast. VOF has that and much more – purples, browns, whites, grays, oranges and more shades of red/pink.

Much greater variety of colors in the Valley of Fire.

We knew things were going to be great when we were greeted at the entrance to the visitor center by a small herd of mountain goats. We had seen signs warning of their presence all around the Vegas area and bingo – here was a troop of them welcoming us to the Valley of Fire.

Some four legged ambassadors outside the Visitor Center.

I would highly recommend stopping at the visitor centers when you visit any of the parks around Vegas. Every one we stopped at on our trip offered more information on what we were looking at and what we might see as well as the opportunity to top off our water bottles and recycle some previously consumed water. The rangers are fountains of information and love the opportunity to share their knowledge when you ask questions.

If ever there was a time on this trip I missed my motorcycle it was the Valley of Fire. The road that winds through the 46,000 acres was like a paved roller coaster with dips, dives, and curves. Staying on the road and in the correct lane presented a huge challenge for me because of the never ending visual stimuli. It was like taking in a silent display of fireworks with both of us saying, “Oh, look at that” or “look over here, wow.” Try as I might, I cannot accurately recall how many times we pulled over during our drive through and around the VOF; six, eight, or twelve? Sometimes we would just look out the windows, but most often we would take a short walk away from the parking lot and back. If I recall, the temperature that day was 111. In fact, we saw more than one of the many hiking trails that are in the park blocked off with barricades and signs warning people NOT to venture into the desert because of the heat. At one of the particularly beautiful stops, we actually started walking toward an intriguing rock formation and the promise of a fantastic view, but after 30 yards or so we looked at each other and decided to head back to the car.

As we made our way back to our hotel, we took full advantage of the fact that going a different way on the same road yields a whole new perspective and allows you to see things you missed going the other way. Our necks got a proper work out and our eyes were full of the wonders as we returned to Vegas for a scheduled dinner reservation – the result of more of Julie’s hard work on her search engine. Have you ever had a Korean chocolate dumpling? Yum.