A HIKE IN RED ROCK CANYON

During my first visit to Las Vegas, I never found my way to it – to this day I don’t know how I could have missed it – and ended up looking at houses in a new subdivision instead. My wife thought it was not too bad a substitute.

Red Rock Canyon is a spectacular National Conservation Area just 20 miles west of Las Vegas, and, as I now know, easily reached by taking Charleston Boulevard west. During my visit to the area in February 2003, I took a day off gambling and spent it hiking in the Canyon.

While my pictures below were taken mostly with bonsai in mind, the following links will give much additional information about the park.

http://www.sunsetcities.com/redrock.html
http://www.desertusa.com/redrock/
http://www.redrockcanyonlv.org/
http://www.redrockcanyon.blm.gov/

The most striking feature and the one that gave the canyon its name is the sandstone rock of the Calico Hills.

Having toured the Canyon several times by car and stopping only at the numerous sight seeing spots, I decided to spend a day exploring some of the trails on foot.

I chose the moderate trail. Due to taking many side trips to inspect interesting plants and spending a lot of time photographing, the hike took me almost four hours to complete.

Lastly, a few general views.