The Better Stuff (Vegas Trip Part 2)

The very best parts of the vacation were the days we spent outside of Vegas.  We found a wetlands to 'hike' through (on mostly paved pathways, which makes me think more of city sidewalks than remote trails), spent quite a bit of two days hiking different parts of Red Rock Canyon, and did a little driving through the Desert National Wildlife Refuge.

Fun fact: the Desert National Wildlife Refuge is next door to Area 51, and our drive was accompanied by muffled random booms coming from 'the neighbor's place'.


Clark County Wetlands Park

I kinda wish I could have a larger than life dragonfly to adorn the entrance to my garden.  

Or maybe our pond, once we actually get it dug.

A wetlands in the desert looks way different than a wetlands does in Michigan.  This 'lake' (or was it a pond?) which was the largest body of water there, was not even the size of my (1/4 acre) garden.  The little bit of green you see around the edges of the lake/pond were as green as the flora got.  It was really weird walking through a wetlands and looking at plants in shades of grey, yellow and brown.

Jackrabbit under the tree.

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

We spent the better part of two days hiking at Red Rock Canyon.  The first day was cut short a bit, as DH got something through the sole of his shoe that would intermittently poke into his foot quite painfully.  All we managed the first day was hiking the "moderate 2.2 mile" Keystone Thrust trail.  The moderate rating was debatable;  we seemed to really have a tough time with this hike.  We got out of breath quite frequently.  Good thing the views were interesting, as we had to stop often to catch our breath, wait for our hearts to stop pounding like jackhammers, and take gulps of the water we'd brought along.

One view from the Keystone Thrust trail.

Another view.

A small hike down a wash in another part of the park yielded less view, but other interesting things.  Shortly after we entered the wash, a handful of quail came out of the brush about 5 yards in front of us and walked down the wash a ways.  They blended in with the rocks really well, and were hard to see when not in motion.

.

There was also quite a variety of neat looking rocks scattered throughout the wash.  Many with stripes or rings, some with spots, and others that had both rings and spots. Some of the spotted rocks had divots where the spots were, leading us to guess that the spots were deposits of some sort of water soluble mineral .

Very cool (and huge, about 6' long and 3' wide) stripey and speckled rock.

Rock with purple polka dots.

We had also wanted to hike the Ice Box Canyon trail, but with the mysterious thing (which turned out to be a 1/2 inch piece of glass) stuck in his shoe, I vetoed anymore hiking for DH until we could remove the pokey thing from his footwear.  And good thing, because when we took his shoe off, we found that that piece of glass had not only bruised his heel from repetitive poking, but it had also managed to pierce the callus on his heel.  

When we went back, a couple of days later, my intent was to hike Ice Box Canyon.  DH was hesitant, given our struggles with being old and fat on the Keystone Thrust Trail, which had been rated as moderate.  The trail map had Ice Box Canyon rated as strenuous, with 'boulder hopping' through a good portion of the canyon.

Boulder hopping was exactly the phrase that had me so interested.  Like I said in the previous post, I'm 46 going on 6, LOL.  I promised DH that if he was willing to at least start the trail, we could turn back at any point that he wanted.  As it turned out, the further we hiked, the more into it he got, and we ended up going way past the designated end of the trail (at a waterfall) and exploring our way to the back of the canyon until we couldn't go any further without doing some rock climbing.  We're too old, fat, and gear less to attempt free climbing. Were I 40 lbs lighter with rock climbing gear in tow, I definitely would have tried it.  ;0)  Because for me, age is still mostly relative. DH, on the other hand, is getting older faster these days.

Hiking across the desert towards Ice Box Canyon

Looking back as we start to climb into the canyon.

Wall we are hiking towards.

Looking back again as the trail gets more rocky.

The mouth of the canyon is behind us.

He's not ready to turn back, despite the much larger rocks to traverse.

This is a waterfall; the park brochure (with hiking trail descriptions) said so.  

Actually, as we hiked close to it, we could hear water running.

It just doesn't look like an impressive waterfall.

Looking down the trail as it continues past the waterfall.

Guess where we headed next.

Down! (Yes, it was steep.)

The rocks got even bigger, but that didn't stop us.

The trail continued over the 'smaller' rocks on each side of this massive chunk.

End of the road.  The shadowy area towards the bottom of the picture was actually so big I could stand up in it. No more trail without a way to scale that rock above my head. We decided rock climbing was not part of our day.

I love hiking through wilderness areas.  In a way, it takes me back to the days of being a kid with nothing more important to do than poke around outside all day looking to see what is over that hill or beyond that clump of trees.

Desert National Wildlife Refuge

Our final desert adventure for this trip was to drive through (a small part of, since DH discovered our truck was getting low on gas) the Desert National Wildlife Refuge.  If you want to see more than Joshua trees, small cacti, and endless gravel going for miles and miles toward the mountains in the distance, this is probably not a vacation destination for you.  On the other hand, if you enjoy off roading or two-tracking, put the DNWR on your list! The very narrow one lane roads look like they have literally been scraped out of the desert floor and go for miles without intersecting.

We followed one road as it went towards, and then way up into, the hills before it petered off down to nothing you could think about driving a (rented) truck through without possibly doing some serious body damage.  Maybe something smaller with an articulated suspension, but not a full size (rented, did I mention belonging to a rental company?) pickup truck.  Hmm.  Maybe next time, if there is a next time in Vegas.