Date: December 27, 2020
Place: Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, Las Vegas, Nevada
Coordinates: 36.162277, -115.450337
Length: 2.8 miles
Level: moderate
On the second day of our family trip of winter 2020 to the Las Vegas area we went to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. The dripping rain we experienced at the end of our Calico Hills hike there was the last precipitation we saw on that day. We had our lunch picnic near the trailhead of the next trail we wanted to hike - that of the Calico Tanks, which goes up over the Calico Hills. A small resident of the area came over to check us out - it was a cute little rock wren.
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| Rock Wren |
It was a bit breezy and quite chilly still, so we ate quickly and prepared for the hike. We would get warm on the walk, I told the chikas, convincing myself as well.
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| Our hike as captured by my GPS |
The thick blanket of clouds still hung low when we started up the Calico Tanks Trail. We weren't going up just yet, just into and around the northwest tip of the Calico Hills.
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| Calico Tanks Trail |
Flanking the lower part of the trail was thick and tall vegetation, which included some really nice pinyon pine trees. The pines had a couple of good cone years - last years cones were hanging open on the tips of some branches while this year's developing cones were budding at the tips of others. There will be a good pine nut yield next year too.
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| Pinyon Pine |
Other bushes filled the space between the pinyon pines and the yuccas. I didn't recognize most of the local bushes but they were nice to see.
The trail snaked between the cream-colored edge of the Calico Hills and all of a sudden we were walking on a gravel wash bed between rock walls.
We passed below two large pinyon pine trees where the wash started curving to the right. On one of the wash banks was a collection of cairns made by visitors. I've seen this trend of cairn making in other places, including Yosemite, and I don't like it. The human-made cairns spoils for me the sense of wilderness. More importantly, moving the stones to build them disturb the little animals that take shelter under these stones.
Soon we started ascending. Most of the time we were still walking inside the wash bed but on occasions the trail would take a small detour on the rocky banks of the wash. In some places it was prudent to use the hands but for the most part it was easy enough to climb without support.
Every now and then I would turn around and look behind. The view was always spectacular, but in one place I was particularly inspired by how the curve of a nearby rock aligned perfectly with the curve of a far away peak.
At times, the trail was sandy. A very soft, fine sand that felt very nice to my touch. I thought it would have been nice to go barefoot there, but I didn't.
Just as soon as the sand appeared it was left behind, and a jumble of broken rocks took its place as the trail's substrate. We needed to take better care with our steps now.
The ascend wasn't very steep but it didn't take very long to gain some good altitude. In one of the places I stopped to look back I found that we were about level with the lowest of the clouds that hung by the peaks on the northwest.
The wash kept moving between layers of red and white Aztec Sandstone. In places, the rock walls extended high above the wash bed and the trail, forming a canyon. Each step up meant climbing small ledges and dry cascades. I could imagine how this place would look likeduring a flash flood.
Here to, there were plenty of interesting and beautiful weathering patterns of the rock. This included the lined circle holes, although they were much smaller up on the hills.
The rock layer changed again from red to white and the trail elevated from the wash bed onto the side slope. The chikas asked for a break so we found a place off trail where we could sit for a little bit to drink and to catch our breath.
Right next to us were a few clusters of agave, each with one or two dry post-bloom individuals surrounded by their green and very healthy looking offshoots.
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| Mohave Agave, Agave utahensis |
It didn't take long after resuming our hike before we were once again walking through the red Aztec sandstone formation. The pillars of the sandstone reminded me very much the pillars I saw at the Red Rock Canyon State Park in California. It occurred to me that they might actually belong to the same time period but I need to confirm that.
We moved on forward and after some more uphill walk we reached again the white layer of Aztec sandstone. It looked like there wasn't much more elevation to gain - we were nearing the highest part of the Calico Hills.
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| Calico Tanks Trail |
Even up high on the hills I saw a number of good size trees, many of them looking old and gnarled like the juniper in the photo below. Extreme conditions grow hardy trees.
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| Juniper |
The last bit of trail involved climbing down into a large depression which, as was evident from the markings on the rock and from the type of vegetation that grew there, was also a seasonal pond. Now it was dry of course, and there was no issue of getting our feet wet.
Climbing down there was a bit of a challenge because the rock was sleek and the footholds were shallow. We carefully scrambled down the natural rock dam to the bottom of the dry pond.
Getting up the dry waterfall on the other side was a similar task, having to use all of our limbs to get up safely. What's not seen in these photos are the other people that were there beside us. We were not the only hikers on this trail and I did have to maneuver the camera so to not capture other humans on this hiking trail. It wasn't too crowded though.
The trail's end was on the rocks up that dry waterfall. The view that opened before our eyes when we got up there was gorgeous. My first attention however, was given to the beautiful shrubs that grew in the rock cracks before the cliff's edge.
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| Mohave Agave, Agave utahensis |
We settled on the rocks near the edge of the cliff at the end of the trail. Below us was a big drop and the view was open to the south and to the east. T the south was a nice, almost wild desert view with only a few human settlements on the plateau below.
On the east however, was the city of Las Vegas., spread out on a huge area of a desert plateau that was the basin of the Las Vegas Wash.
Most of Las Vegas is a wide sprawl of one or two story residential neighborhoods without any special mark or uniqueness to them. Most of the residents of these neighborhoods are people who work at The Strip - the small area of downtown Las Vegas where the huge casino hotels are, the destination of nearly all of Las Vegas' visitors. The Strip was very visible with its high rise hotels. I regarded with aloofness the city from my high seat at Calico Tanks trail end. On this trip there we stayed at an AirBNB in a residential neighborhood in the south of Las Vegas, and did not visit The Strip even once. Two years later I would go through Las Vegas again with my chikas and my sister's family, with all intention of experiencing The Strip and some of its urban attractions. That's a very different kind of vacation experience, and although it has its merits, I personally prefer sitting on a rock at the edge of a cliff high in the desert wilderness, a good distance from the city.
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| Las Vegas |
Pappa Quail and the younger chika took the time to rest a bit and the elder chika explored the rock crevices and tested her bouldering skills. I edged my way along the cliff, trying to get some more view to the northeast. Above the cliff was a large overhanging rock that looked like a sphinx' head.
The view wasn't open all the way to the north but I did get to see the backside of the Calico Hills and the ridge of La Madre Mountains behind them. The northeastern slopes looked considerable more rugged and steeper than the southwestern slopes of those hills.
Eventually I too settled down to rest a bit and eat my snack. Nearby grew a beavertail cactus that looked a bit thin for water, but still green and healthy.
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| Beavertail Cactus, Opuntia sp. |
Eventually it was time to head back. Once again we had to scramble through the rocks, this time coming down the dry, yet sleek waterfall into the dry wash basin, then up the natural rock dam and out to the wash itself.
From the high point of the trail we had a nice view of the mountains n the northwest. The clouds were still ganging low on these mountains but higher up in the sky the blanket of clouds was already breaking up with patches ob blue sky showing through.
We descended quickly through the canyon, most of the time on the wash bed itself. We didn't stop much on the way down, but I paused every now and then to take some photos.
The way down gave me a different look int the depth of the canyon and the nicely protected pinyon pines, junipers and other trees that thrived within the narrow walled shelter.
I don't know how I missed it on the way up: a sun shaped glyph etched in a rock at the bottom of the wash. I stepped off trail and into the wash bed to take a closer look. It was a single figure there and I'm not sure it was of native origin or something that a modern visitor did. Anyway, I found it interesting.
We were nearing the mouth of the canyon. The clouds played a moving patchwork with the sky and for some time the cloud cover was complete again and the sky dark as if before raining.
It didn't rain anymore that day though, and eventually sunlight did come through the clouds here and there, illuminating the rocks with a soft afternoon light.
At one time the patch of sunlight was so close to us that we almost got the feel of direct sunlight. That would have been the first time that day, but it was not to be. It was already too late in the afternoon for the sunlight to shine directly into the canyon, where we were.
By the time we were low enough and in a flat enough do get direct sunlight, the sun once again was hidden behind the clouds. I consoled myself with another alignment photo of the near rock and the far mountain as I did on the way up, and this time I moved sideways to break the alignment of their skylines.
We reached the bottom of the wash and passed again under the two sentinel pinyon pine trees. We were nearing the end of the hike.
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| Double Tree |
Pappa Quail and the chika rushed ahead and I lingered a bit behind to catch the shallow part of the canyon in a people-free photo.
Ahead of us were the north part of the Rainbow Mountains that lined the west side of the park. Our car route out of the park would go right below them but we would not have the time to do anymore hike that day. The short winter day was nearing its end.
The sun was struggling again through the clouds and the illumination improved for a while. Pappa Quail captured a sole Woodhouse's Jay that was perched on a yucca plant near the trail.
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| Woodhouse's Scrub Jay |
We were rounding again the northwest tip of the Calico Hills and this time I paid attention to the clear seem between the white and the red Aztec sandstone layers. Geology isn't a specialty of mine but I sure enjoy seeing the exposed beauty of geological features in the desert.
The wash opened up and the last part of our hike we walked on a wide gravel wash bed. I turned around to look again at Turtlehead Peak that was before us in the beginning. Our map showed that there was a trail leading to its summit but that hike would not happen on this trip.
Just before reaching the parking lot I paused before the two large rocks that seemed to lean on each other, like stone human heads guarding the trail. They probably started as a single boulder that rolled there and then cracked in two. It was still fun to let my imagination go into wild places with the rock formations.
At the end of this hike we drove back to our lodge in Las Vegas to spend the rest of the day with dinner and family time. We had a very good day in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, but once again, we saw only one part of it. It was no surprise then, that three days later when we considered our options, we decided to go again to this park and hike some trails on its northwest side, near the Rainbow Mountains.
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