25 October ‘06
Today it was off to Red Rock Canyon. Just 10 miles from Las Vegas, the mountains rise to a great colorful spectacle, formed along a fault zone with peaks over 8,000 feet. Huge cliffs and ravines of grey, white and red rock bands, all heavily eroded. The wide plains beneath the hills are studded with Joshua trees and other desert plants, contributing to a most impressive site. We first arrived at the visitors center and then off to see those beautiful red mountains. The closer we got, the more detail you could see in those rocks. There were also rock climbers, climbing and repelling all those rocks. We met a couple from Holland that were climbing. They travel each year to find new locations to climb, in as many countries as possible. The canyon has 13 miles of roadway that takes you through many different looks throughout the valley and mountains. At one stop, we decided to hike across the plain and into another beautiful canyon that split one of the mountains. We really enjoyed the hike but were a little disappointed that we didn’t see any animal life. Just after the “Gold and Silver Rush” of this area, the prospectors would turn their burros loose rather than try to take them back from where ever they had originally come from. Now you can find the ancestors of those burros running all over these hills and plains. In one way it is too bad that we are here in the winter because of the shorter days, but on the other hand, the heat of the summers is more than we want to go hiking in. Oh well, with the temp at 75 and us with so many more sites to see, we will take what we can.
Today it was off to Red Rock Canyon. Just 10 miles from Las Vegas, the mountains rise to a great colorful spectacle, formed along a fault zone with peaks over 8,000 feet. Huge cliffs and ravines of grey, white and red rock bands, all heavily eroded. The wide plains beneath the hills are studded with Joshua trees and other desert plants, contributing to a most impressive site. We first arrived at the visitors center and then off to see those beautiful red mountains. The closer we got, the more detail you could see in those rocks. There were also rock climbers, climbing and repelling all those rocks. We met a couple from Holland that were climbing. They travel each year to find new locations to climb, in as many countries as possible. The canyon has 13 miles of roadway that takes you through many different looks throughout the valley and mountains. At one stop, we decided to hike across the plain and into another beautiful canyon that split one of the mountains. We really enjoyed the hike but were a little disappointed that we didn’t see any animal life. Just after the “Gold and Silver Rush” of this area, the prospectors would turn their burros loose rather than try to take them back from where ever they had originally come from. Now you can find the ancestors of those burros running all over these hills and plains. In one way it is too bad that we are here in the winter because of the shorter days, but on the other hand, the heat of the summers is more than we want to go hiking in. Oh well, with the temp at 75 and us with so many more sites to see, we will take what we can.