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| Las Vegas Wash |
Date: January 1, 2021
Place: Las Vegas Wash, Las Vegas, Nevada
Coordinates: 36.124706, -114.902346
Length: 1.1 miles
Level: easy
Our family 2020 winter trip was an intense one. We got to explore a lot of the nature around Las Vegas, hiking two-three hikes a day. We were in the area for just one week but by the last day of our trip we felt like we were there much longer. On the day of our return, which was also the first day of 2021 we did a second birding walk at the Clark County Birding Center, a walk that turned out very prolific, bird-rich time. When I wrote about that hike I didn't remember that we went anywhere else after that, but apparently we did, and after looking through the photos my memories came back in full force. We had one more hike that day. A short one, but nonetheless a hike I wanted to write about, so I won't forget it again.
This final hike of our 2020 winter family trip was Pappa Quail's idea - he saw this spot on the map of the local chapter of the Audubon Society. It was the Wetland Trail near the las Vegas Wash, and it was labeled as a good birding spot.
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| Desert View at the Trailhead |
The trailhead was east of the Las Vegas Lake, which is a human-made reservoir. Downstream of the Las Vegas Lake was a stretch of the las Vegas Wash, kept flowing with water let out of the reservoir. Further downstream the wash merges with the Colorado River at the larger human-made reservoir of Lake Mead. The parking area by the trailhead was a large gravel flats. A few other cars were parked there and seeing some of the people near the cars we figured that this was a water access spot and that people come here to enjoy the water.
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| Our hike as captured by my GPS |
The trail was wide and flat, and easy to walk on. We didn't see any birds yet though. We expected to see them near the water. There were plenty of creosote bushes all around but they, as were the other shrubs that we saw, looked pretty dry.
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| Wetland Trail |
The wash was very close but it wasn't visible: we were on the high plateau where the trail was, and the wash was running in a narrow crevice it cut in the ground. All that was seen from above was the line that marked where it was.
A narrower path branched off from the main trail and we followed it to the edge of the wash. Below us, nt very deep really, was a lovely blue strip of running water flanked on both sides by thick riparian vegetation.
Right below us was a concrete step that stretched across the water and from which the water dropped down in a wide and low waterfall. It looked like at some point there was a low dam there.
I followed the Las Vegas wash with my eyes and my camera until it curved and the water flowed out of my view. On the horizon rose a few short mountain chains that looked low and very arid. Lake Mead was somewhere there, but we had not direct view of it.
We returned to the main trail and resumed walking to the wash. When we reached the edge of the wash once more we chose to descend on a narrow foot path that took us directly down.
As soon as we started descending down the wall of the wash we started seeing greener vegetation. One of the first green shrubs that I noticed was the pygmy cedar.
The pygmy cedar isn't a cedar at all. It isn't even a relative of cedar. It is a shrub of the aster family and to my utter surprise, it had a bit of a bloom.
We reached the water and although we came down there looking for birds, the first beings we saw were other human beings. The people that were down there weren't birders - they were there play in the water.
Maybe it was because of the people's presence, but all of the waterfowl that we saw were on the other side of the wash.
Pappa Quail and the elder chika trained their cameras on the birds and identified a few species of ducks there, none new to what we've already seen earlier that morning at the birding center.
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| American Wigeon (center pair), Gadwal (top left), American Coot (bottom left, blurry) |
The other bird that Pappa Quail noticed there was an American Pippit. Although familiar to us, it was the first time we've seen it on this trip.
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| American Pippit |
We continued east along the wash, distancing ourselves from the other people in the hope of seeing more birds, and closer.
I let my family birders search for the birds while I admired the local geology. Although not as spectacular as what we've seen in the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area and in the Valley of Fire State Park, it was still pretty nice to look at and try to figure out the layer system there.
And I did find another blooming plant too - the flatcrown buckwheat. I saw no leaves on the ground but the flowering stems where full of the little red flowers, giving the little plant the appearance of and ornamented tree skeleton.
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| Flatcrown Buckwheat, Eriogonum deflexum |
We neared the end of the convenient path. Moving any further east would require us to balance on broken rocks and large pebbles and to bushwhack through the vegetation. We chose to not do that, but we did stay there for some time, looking around and enjoying the view.
Pappa Quail and the elder chika soon found something else to look at a sole rock wren that eyed us from a nearby rock. Pappa Quail commented that this wren probably didn't read the memo about waiting for us in the parking lot as did all the other rock wrens we've seen on this trip.
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| Rock Wren |
I gazed at the quickly flowing water, a line of life running through the arid desert. In this particular area a large city was built that is fed water from this wash and from the Colorado River, and electricity from the turbines of Hoover Dam. The wash water comes from the entire basin of Las Vegas, including the snow-capped Spring Mountains where we hiked on the previous day.
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| Las Vegas Wash |
An American kestrel perched on a bare branch higher on the bank cliffs and we all turned our attention to the beautiful little raptor.
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| American Kestrel |
I also admired the riparian vegetation that was growing at the wash banks. A thick belt of low reeds was right at the water, and taller reeds made another thick belt further up the shore. Between them were other plants, most of which I didn't identify. I did recognize however, the invasive tamarisk among them.
The tall reeds too are not native to this part of the world. By now though, they have become completely naturalized and provide shelter and food to little bush birds.
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| Black-tailed Gnatcatcher |
On our way back up the wash bank some cormorants flew by and the elder chika captured one of them in fight.
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| Double-crested Cormorant |
On our way out of the wash and back to the high plateau we chose to ascend the dirt road slope, which was faster and more comfortable to walk on.
While ascending the dirt road I had the opportunity to look closely at some of the finer geological layers, laid down by ancient flood times in the area.
By the time we were coming up from the wash it was already afternoon and the sun was getting lower. The dirt road was completely shaded by then but the upper plateau was lit still. I loved the illumination effect it had n the creosote bushes higher up.
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| Creosote, Larrea tridentata |
We didn't linger any more in the area. On the quick walk back to the parking lot I paused only briefly because I saw a wildflower that I missed on the way down - a desert trumpet that still had a few flowers open on it.
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| Desert Trumpet, Eriogonum inflatum |
This was the last hike of our 2020 winter family trip to Las Vegas. After that we pointed ur car to the northwest and drove straight home, with only short breaks to fuel the car and our bodies. A trip that begun with great disappointment of not being able to go camping in Death Valley, turned out to be a lovely desert exploration and finding the natural treasures in a place known better for gambling and other types of recreation that are farther from our family style as Pluto is from the Sun. We didn't insert a single quarter into any slot machine, but we left Las Vegas with a true jackpot in our hearts.
This post also concludes catching up with writing about my hikes in 2020. We hiked a lot in 2021 as well and in that year I wrote even less, so there's more catching up to do still. That is however, still in the future.
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