I had first visited Valley of Fire State Park for a few too quick minutes in the early 80s. I've always remembered amazing colored formations and a quick look at some petroglyphs, and new, in the back of my mind, that I wanted to get back there when I could explore more thoroughly. This was the time. A wonderfully perfect Autumn day with temps in the upper 60s and a bright, blue Sun filled sky. We couldn't have asked for a much better day.

We had spent the night before in Overton, just a few miles north of the Park, and drove down for the day. All times are Mountain Time, even though locally the are on Pacific Time. When we make short forays into another time zone we just keep using the time our bodies are used to.

Elephant Rock and Visitor Center

10:47 a.m.
We turned west into the Valley of Fire State Park off of Highway 169. We first stopped at Elephant Rock to pay or entry fee, but the self-pay station only took exact change, so we drove on to the Visitor Center to pay. We looked around there, then walked the short introductory path behind the building. This little walk introduces you to the regional plants and there are some very interesting geological formations and erosional features. It is a paved path.

White Domes Trail

Then we drove through the park to the north end and hiked the White Domes Trail. There is a large parking area at the trailhead, with restrooms and covered picnic tables. There were a few cars, but we didn't see many people. The trail tends to be one-way, so all of the hikers were ahead of us, or, later, behind us.

The trail starts out to the south, and is quite sandy at first as it climbs slightly. But the surface turns to gravel and hard sandstone as you pass down an interesting canyon with lots of eroded sandstone faces and varied colors. The loop trail is was about 1.5 miles and passes an old movie set where many Hollywood movies were made. Just below the set the trail turns to the west and passes along a deep wash that turns into a narrow slot canyon. This is an exciting area, and fun to pass through.

Once out on the other side the canyon widens and you find yourself in a wonderland of pastel colors. The colors blend with erosional features to produce an amazing variety of sandstone sculptures and painted walls. I think a person could spend an entire day just wandering around in this area, capturing different images as the sun and shadows move across the features.

Gradually the trail works its way back up slope through some dark red sandstone outcrops and back to the parking lot. This is a very colorful, fascinating area, with lots of unusual rock formations and erosional features. We had the trail all to ourselves, and it was very nice.

Mouse's Tank

1:00 p.m.
We drove back to the picnic area across the road from Mouse’s Tank, where we ate lunch. In addition to the many covered picnic tables, there is a restroom across the road near the main parking area. The weather was very nice. After lunch we discovered that there were many pictographs and petroglyphs on the rocks near the picnic area. We climbed around and explored those for a while, then walked across the road and walked the .25 miles to Mouse’s Tank. Again, this hike is very pleasant and travels down a sandy, rocky wash through colored sandstone with lots of ancient rock art decorating the surfaces. A person could spend hours climbing around the side canyons and looking for more pictographs. Eventually we made it to the tank, which was full of water. This area was full of people and kids, so it was very noisy. The sky was sunny, but the breeze was cool.

2:15 p.m.
We left and headed back to the north.

Rainbow Vista

2:20 p.m.
We stopped at Rainbow Vista and took several photos of the pictos there. There is a 1.5 mile hike that we wanted to take, which apparently looks over the Fire Valley area, but we weren't sure how much time we had left, and wanted to make sure we at least saw all of the major points, so we skipped that one. We will definitely catch it the next time.

Fire Canyon

2:32 p.m.
We drove down the gravel road to Fire Canyon and took several photos and walked out to a prominent point overlooking the colorful rock formations.

We then drove back to the main north-south road and, from there, headed south and then west toward the West Entrance, just to see what that part of the Park looked like. From there we turned back toward the east.

Bee Hives

2:48 p.m.
We stopped to view the Bee Hives. These are two red sandstone formations that have been weathered to expose the bedding planes, making them look somewhat like tilted bee hives.

Petrified Logs

2:53 p.m.
We stopped to view the petrified logs. They are down a .25 mile loop trail and contained within chain link fences, for their protection, no doubt. Each is about six to ten feet long and still in place in the surrounding soil. If you are running out of time, this would be one exhibit that you could skip without much loss.

Atlatl Rock

3:08 p.m.
We pulled into the Atlatl Rock parking area. There are restrooms and picnic tables here. In fact, at almost every view point there are picnic tables and most also have restrooms of the vault variety.

Atlatl rock is quite impressive. It is a flat rock surface covered with pictos which sits high above the ground. The rock is balancing up there (and it looks like they have stabilized it with concrete). There is a long set of steel stairs with railings that lead up to a close view of the art work. It face was in the shade, and it was quite windy up there, so we got a bit of a chill. However, I got some great photos of the pictos, and it is worth the effort. Besides the pictos, there are great views of other parts of the park from up there. It appears that some idiot chalked many of the pictos to make them stand out better.

Arch Rock

3:30 p.m.
We continued around the loop drive and stopped at Arch Rock, and interesting natural arch in vibrant orange-red sandstone. There are also some interesting erosional features on the surrounding rocks.

Campgrounds

We then drove through the Arch Rock Campground. Very nice place, with some very good camping spots set right back against the red rock. We found sites 3, 6, 18, 20, 23, and 26 to be well suited for our needs when pulling the trailer. There are also showers available at the Atlatl campground, as well as a sanitary dump.

We also drove through the Atlatl Rock Campground and found it very nice as well. It’s a bit more exposed, but sites 1 and 3 seemed really nice. In the summer all of these sites could be quite hot.

The Cabins

3:50 p.m.
We drove to The Cabins, several CCC constructed stone buildings that are very interesting and have very nice fire places built into them. There is also a picto panel above the cabins, and a silted in dam in a shallow wash below them. Again there are many opportunities to explore the sandstone features in this area.

Arrowhead Trail

4:05 p.m.
We stopped at the Arrowhead Trailhead and walked the 1.5 mile loop trail. We passed near Elephant Rock, the Elephant Rock parking area, and then looped around behind a large outcrop of rocks and came back to the trailhead from the west. There were also some nice views of Lake Mead from the pass near Elephant Rock. Elephant Rock has a narrow arch that, when looked at the right way, gives the impression of a large elephant in red sandstone.

The trail passes to the north through some interesting tumbled rocks with little caves in them, reminding us of Hobbiton, from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Because of the low angle of the late afternoon Sun, it was difficult to see much when looking west. But soon we hit the old wagon road and moved back toward the south. Once back at the trailhead we headed east and back to Overton for the night.