The Trail at the End of the Road: the White Domes of the Valley of Fire State Park

 

 

Date: December 28, 2024

Place:Valley of Fire State Park, Las Vegas, Nevada

Coordinates: 36.486245, -114.532956

Length: 1.1 miles

Level: moderate

 

 

The Valley of Fire State Park was one of our destinations on our winter of 2020 family vacation in the Las Vegas Area. Because of it was more distant than our other destinations, we had dedicated only one day to explore it, and into this one day we tried to cram as many hikes and sightseeing as we could. After hiking the Mouse's Tank Trail, the Rainbow Vista Trail and The Fire Wave with and added loop trail we still had enough daylight left for another short hike, and we decided to go to the end of the park's road and explore a bit on the White Domes Trail.

Our hike as captured by my GPS

The rock wren waiting at the parking lot became almost a cliche - sure enough, the bird was waiting for us as we got our of the car in the White Domes parking area. 

Rock Wren

The White Domes are a formation of white Aztec sandstone, formed from giant dunes that dominated the area in the Jurassic era - said the information sign by the trailhead. The shaping of the domes was caused by erosion and weathering. The sun was already far on the west when we arrived and the late afternoon lighting gave the place a serene and somewhat eerie feel. 

Not having time to do any long exploration of the area, we simply followed the loop trail illustrated on the information sign. We started by descending the steep sand slope between two of the massive dome rocks. 

A few plants grew at the bottom of the cliffs, mostly on the west side of the sandy path. Prominent among these plants were Mohave yucca that looked very healthy and happy. 

The sandy path between the White Domes was already completely shaded - the sun was too low in the west and I wondered how much we'd get to see. The hilltops were illuminated still.

I admire pretty and/or interesting rocks and often see familiar shapes in them. This one in the photo below reminded me of a whale, or a submarine. 

At the bottom of the sandy slope we wondered around looking at the rocks and other interesting things. Surprisingly, there were quite a few people along this trail with us, enough to make it challenging to take people free shots. 

Naturally, I focused on the plants too. I found some more of the Utah mortonia there, the same strange plant that I saw earlier on the trail of The Fire Wave. 

Utah Mortonia, Mortonia utahensis

My attention was drawn to the remains of what looked like a historic structure. A sign next to it revealed that the relic was actually fairly recent - it was what's left of a movie set from 1965. 

Remains from the set of the movie "The Professionals" 

The unique geology of the Valley of Fire attracted not only tourists and hikers but also film makers. According to the information sign, over 45 movies or television series were filmed within the park's boundaries, some of them in the very locale we were at, the White Domes.

After enough exploration of the old movie set area we moved westward into the shallow wash where the trail continued.

The wash didn't stay shallow for long: the sandstone walls rose high above the wash bed and it looked like we were about to enter a very narrow passage that would allow two way traffic only at a very close body proximity.

On normal days that wouldn't have been too much of a problem but we were there at the height of the pandemic and people were wary of being too close to other people. We therefore, waited patiently until the narrows were vacant before making our own passage through.

The narrows were not very long and as much as we enjoyed sliding sideways between the stone walls, we soon were out in the open again.

Out of the narrows the trail continued in the wash a little bit, then took a turn to the north. We shared the trail with quite a few other hikers, some of whom enjoyed rock climbing as well. 

The way back north didn't feature uniquely spectacular formations but it was rich with pretty sights nonetheless, including this colorful layered rock in the photo below.

The western arm of the loop trail on which we were going north ascended mildly between domes of the white sandstone and rugged buttes and protrusions of the red sandstone. 

In parts we walked on sand and in other parts we climbed rocky steps, going from one colorful layer of rock to another. Pappa Quail and the chikas were quick and I didn't linger too much behind to try and figure out the continuation of the rock layers between different monuments. 

I did pay attention to the special features as they appeared on my path, such as the arches and holes in the sandstone face, caused by erosion and weathering. 

There were places where the trail cut through more open areas with wide fields of sand dotted by shrubs. Some of the hikers were checking out the rock monuments more closely, regardless of the diminishing daylight. 

One of the last rock features we saw before completing the hike was an arch in the slope of one of the white domes. The arch was large enough for a person to go through and some people did, in fact, get up there and went through the arch. 

Ascending the west arm of the loop trail was on a very mild slope so it was almost a surprise when we reached the crest and found out how high we really were. 

I loved the illumination patterns created by the light shining through the small holes in the cloud cover, especially when the light shone a single rock monument amidst a bunch of shaded features.  

The trail continued north past the staging area in a mild ascending slope. My family was already around the white dome and out of my view - I assumed they had found the way down to the road. 

Past the white dome was indeed the trail down to the road, but there were also more erosion holes in the pink layer behind it. 

After descending I turned around and looked bak and there I saw him - the rock man, his giant red head rising from the pink layer, smiling contently at the red dome before him. 

A short walk along the road brought us back to the parking lot. We had finished our last hike of the day, and the last I'd do in the Valley of Fire for a long while. Since we still had some daylight time, we drove off to check out another monument with petroglyphs on the other side of the park. That one was just a short walk and a climb up some metal stairs to the rock canvas with the petroglyphs, but on the way there we got to see the bighorn sheep again. 

Bighorn Ram

This time it was a small herd, made entirely of rams. They crossed the road nonchalantly completely uncaring about the humans in the wheeled metal box that were trying to get through. Not that we minded of course. We loved seeing these magnificent animals. 

It wasn't a rock wren that waited for us in the parking area of the petroglyph monument, but a Say's phoebe. Even clichés can vary. 

Say's Phoebe

Two years later I wend back to the Valley of Fire on a road trip that I did with the same youth that I took to the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks in the summer of 2020. This time our destination was the canyons in Utah, and I thought it would be nice to give the kids a preview of the geology in theValley of Fire. That second trip however, was in July of 2022, and the Valley of Fire was true to its name - it was so hot there that many of the trails, including that of The Fire Wave, were closed for risk of a heat stroke. We had to settle for some time in the air-conditioned visitor center and sightseeing from the car window. I do hope to get back there again when the temperatures are milder and with more time to explore. Hopefully soon.