Travel Review: Valley of Fire, Nevada
Entry Fee: $10 per NV vehicle, $15 per non-NV vehicles
Parking: Free parking lots at most points of interest.
Recently, we've been to a few places where we explored multiple points of interest in a day instead of sticking to one long trail. So this review is a little bit different! Instead of a review of a single trail, this is going to be a review of a whole park!
The Valley of Fire is a Nevada State Park about an hour drive northeast of Las Vegas. It's known for its interesting red/orange Aztec Sandstone outcrops. It's a small enough park to do within a day, possibly two if you want to do some of the longer hiking trails. It is also very close to the north end of Lake Mead and could be coupled with a trip to the lake as well.
A good place to stop to get more information on what to do in the park is the Valley of Fire Visitor Center which is in the middle of the park, just off of the Valley of Fire Highway. They had little cards you could grab that suggested what to stop at if you only had a few hours, half a day, or a full day in the park. Plus, they had some exhibits that provided information on how the park's rock formations were created over time.
Coming from Vegas, the entrance will be at the southwest end of the park. You'll pass through a gate where you'll pay the $10 or $15 entry fee and then you're in!
Pretty soon after the entrance, there is a scenic drive turnoff to the left that basically loops around back to the main road a little bit further down. We took this turn off and I'd say it's worth it. Part of the scenic drive is along a dirt road so you'll have to go slow, and we passed a group of desert bighorn sheep who were grazing and crossing the road so be sure to keep an eye out for wildlife in the area.
Along this loop, you'll see a few points of interest including Arch Rock and Atlatl Rock. There are also a couple of campground sites along this route. The Atlatl Rock is particularly interesting. The rock has a set of stairs that lead you up to some Petroglyphs carved into the rocks from ancient tribes of the area. The historical nature of the sight is really cool. Plus, the elevated platform gives you a nice view of the area.
At the intersection where the scenic drive loop brings you back to the main highway, there is an option to go straight and take a short drive up to the Petrified Logs Loop. It's a very easy, very short 0.3 mile loop that brings you past some petrified logs. The logs themselves are surrounded by fencing to preserve them, and there is some signage explaining what and where these logs came from. There are only a few of them so it's not super impressive, but still interesting to learn about.
After the petrified logs loop, we stopped at the visitor center which is at the intersection of Valley of Fire Highway and Mouse's Tank Road. We then continued up Mouse's Tank Road and took the turn off for Fire Canyon/Silica Dome. Fire Canyon is a great lookout point with some unique red and tan rock colors that create an interesting landscape (It is also a place once used in one of the Star Trek films). It looks like there is a trail you can take further into the canyon from the parking lot, but we just walked out to the lookout point and enjoyed the view.
There are a number of other trails and points of interest on Mouse's Tank Road, but the only other stop we made on this trip was at the north end at The White Domes trail. It's about a mile loop that is moderately difficult and features some very cool rock formations plus some old movie set locations. We sadly did not venture the whole way around the loop because of the heat that day, but still got to see some of the landscape. Also, the first part of the loop is very sandy which made walking a little bit more difficult and reflected a lot of heat back up at us, so be prepared to trudge through some sand at the beginning of this trail.
Back down at the intersection of Mouse's Tank Road and Valley of Fire Highway (where the visitor center is located), there are more points of interest further down Valley of Fire Highway to the east, such at Elephant Rock. But we didn't have time for the eastern part of the park, so our last stop was on the way out as we headed back toward the park entrance. Because we took the scenic drive loop at the start of our trip, we missed the Beehives which are on the main road that the loop skips over. The Beehives are a group of outcrops that feature dome-shaped rocks that resemble beehives (hence the name). There was no single path to take in the area so we wandered amongst the outcrops for a little while to take in the views.
If we had more time in the park, we would definitely have done and seen more. But fortunately, Valley of Fire has great views even from the car. So even if you are only just driving through, you can still experience some amazing landscapes and rock formations.
Bottom Line: A desert park in Nevada with very cool rock formations and landscapes. Whether driving through or stopping to hike, the whole park can pretty much be seen in a day or so.
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