Nevada’s Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area and Valley of Fire State Park
Nov. 2021
While we are not fans of the city of Las Vegas, we really do like the natural areas that are quite close to the city. Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area is just west of the city and is very popular with rock climbers. We saw a lot of climbers on the days we visited in early November. We had to get a timed entry pass for $2 from Recreation.gov for the scenic drive. However, because we have an annual National Parks pass, we didn’t have to pay the additional $15 fee to get into the park.
This was at the first stop on the scenic drive, Calico I. There were trails from here, and we saw some rock climbers, here, too.
We drove to another parking area a little further down, and decided to walk a little way on the Calico Hills trail, so we could see the red rocks up close. The colors were gorgeous! I thought this spot was interesting because you could see where a big boulder broke clean off and tumbled down.
Calico Hills trail. It was still pretty warm this time of year. The sky was SO blue!
Most of the red rocks are at the beginning of the scenic drive. We made one more stop on the drive where we had a picnic lunch. There were more trails in this area, too, including a super short trail to some petroglyphs. After we finished the drive, we turned left out of the park and headed to a separate part that does not have an entrance fee, on the back side of the red rocks, called Calico Basin/Red Spring. There was a lot of fall color from the ash trees. We walked the boardwalk trail right by the picnic area.
It was getting pretty warm, so we decided to come back another morning to hike on a different trail in the Calico Basin area, called Kraft Boulders.
I counted 7 climbers on this rock!
When we came back in the morning, the sun was lighting up the Calico Basin side of the red rocks, so we could see the colors better.
From here, we moved to a campground in Lake Mead National Recreation Area east of Las Vegas, so that we were close to Valley of Fire State Park. We would have loved to stay at the state park campground, but Nevada state parks are all first-come, first-served, and we wanted to make sure we had a place to camp lined up ahead of time. We had been to Valley of Fire once before, in early September, when it was still over 100 F, and too hot for hiking. We decided to return in cooler weather. It was still warm in November, but not uncomfortable.
We hiked to the Fire Wave, rocks of colorful swirls in stripes of red, pink, and white.
We actually hiked to the Fire Wave twice. The first time, we took the trail that’s across the road from the parking lot. The second time, we took a more scenic route through the Pink Canyon, which is part of the Seven Wonders Loop, and which isn’t marked, but which has a couple parking spots by the side of the road at Wash 4.
There’s so much more to see at this park. We ate a picnic lunch at a group of rock formations called the Seven Sisters. We also saw Elephant Rock, the Beehives, Arch Rock, and Atlatl Rock, which is covered in Petroglyphs.
Some of the Seven Sisters
While we were staying at the Echo Bay area of Lake Mead, we visited a nearby spot within the Recreation Area called Redstone. It had a picnic area and trails among the rocks. We had fun walking around here.
