An Afternoon Jaunt to the Valley of Fire
Michael James Gets Back To Nature…and Donuts…in the Valley Of Fire
The best part about Las Vegas is that everybody does Vegas differently. Some go to clubs, some binge on gambling, others on food, and everyone participates in something they enjoy.
When planning trips with my wife (who is not a hard-core gambler), we look for a lot of touristy things to occupy the time. Years ago, we drove through Red Rock Canyon, and when we retold the story, someone said: “Red Rock is nice, but why did you choose that over the Valley of Fire?”.
Like any good pet, I looked at him and cocked my neck with my ears up. I later researched it and mentally filed Valley of Fire in the “We’ll get there sometime” part of the brain. A half dozen or so trips later, we stopped putting it off and made it the highlight of the second day of our April trip.
The whole point of the drive is to look at nature-y stuff. Luckily, it was about 65 degrees that day (which seems like a LONG time ago, actually) and mostly cloudy. So, getting out of the car as often as we wanted to was not an issue. The park is about an hour’s drive northeast from the center of the strip. As a first-time visitor, it was easy to wonder how such stunning natural wonders could be nearby.
As with Red Rock Canyon, a person can spend as much or as little time as they want at Valley of Fire. The park road is like an upside-down T. Drive across the width of the park, double back halfway, then drive north.
From the west, the first stop was at the Beehives.
A person can choose to hike trails or the areas around designated parking spots. At the far east of the park is Elephant Rock. Signs indicated a hike of about a quarter mile (upward slope) to get there. At that moment, the sun decided to come out. Great for the pic I wanted to take, but not so much for the hike to take it.
As we doubled back, then north towards the top end of the park, my wife said that she wanted to look at the petroglyphs.
The problem was that because of the rain that weekend, the clay had become a hardened, slippery muck. If you read my full trip report, I had indicated that my wife injured her knee (and ultimately had surgery to repair it in June) walking this trail. It was ultimately a reminder that nature doesn’t care if you are a tourist that lives 1,500 miles away.
Depending on your point of view, a positive or negative is that there isn’t any vending inside the park. So, you need to bring your own food. Luckily, we had stopped at the Donut Bar in Downtown after breakfast…and had these babies in the car.
So after a stop at the picnic area for an intense burst of energy, we continued towards the north end. Here, the red rocks became sandier as we approached Fire Canyon.
The last stop north was an opportunity to look far into the distance. I climbed about a half-mile up and around some rocks to get as distant of a look as I could.
Luckily, we finished the self-guided tour just in time, because as we were on the road heading back to I-15, the skies opened up. A torrential downpour caused parts of the road to fill with standing water. We had no problem getting back to the freeway, but had we been inside the park when the rain hit; I don’t know if the roads would have gotten worse.
We spent three hours at Valley Of Fire Park at a cost of $10 per person. Including the drive time, it was an inexpensive five hours without plugging a slot machine or omnipresent casino noise. So if you’re looking for a daytime activity that doesn’t involve digging into your pocket every 90 minutes, Valley of Fire State Park is a great option.
Michael James is a true Vegas Nerd. First falling in love after hearing details of an aunt’s visit in the ’70s, and nurtured when the gambling bug hit as casinos started opening on every street corner across the country in the ’90s. When not reading Vegas blogs and message boards, he’s a metals buyer by day and a competitive bowler by night in Milwaukee.
6 thoughts on “An Afternoon Jaunt to the Valley of Fire”
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Just beautiful. I have to get here someday!
Funny you mention “someday”… This is clearly an destination without a time limit (as a show or attraction might be). However, it was the “It will always be there” part that took me 17 Las Vegas visits before I made it up there.
Don’t wait for someday. Do it next time!
Good article (although I am not convinced by those doughnuts), it is definitely worth the effort to drive out of town to check out, especially if you are from somewhere non-Deserty.
Another extension to a trip to VofF is to loop back through the Lake Mead park rather than just taking the freeway back to Vegas, some of the side roads lead to modern day Ghost Towns where the receding water has left some formerly prime waterfront real estate high and dry.
There’s an interesting little local history museum in the small town (Overton?) just north of where the VofF and Lake Mead parks join.
Eventually you end up in Boulder City so can include the Hoover Dam as a final stop.
We had considered something like that, but (as a tourist) we had other things to do that day, including dinner at Vic and Anthony’s and tickets for Raiding the Rock Vault. As a matter of fact, finishing our tour of the park when we did allowed us to take a quick, refreshing nap before heading out for the evening.
So is Red Rock and Valley of Fire diff? I’ve done ATV’s and Baja chase in Valley of Fire and scooters and mini cars in Red Rock. I guess they are diff hence the names.
Yes they are different, though similar concept.
Red Rock Canyon is about 15 miles west of The Strip on Charleston.