Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada

March 26, 2012 -- Valley of Fire State Park is the oldest and largest state park in Nevada. The park is open year-round, and the entrance fee is $10 per vehicle. There are two ways to get to the park. One is to take Exit 75 off of I-15 , and the other is from Lake Mead National Recreation Area. If you access it from the lake, you have to pay the fee at the self-pay station.

Nathan and I got to the park from Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Because there's a self-pay station there, we didn't get the park's brochure or map to plan our visit. Also, there is no clear map provided at any view points. We just wandered around by ourselves, hoping to find the Visitor Center or the ranger's station to ask for the map.

I suppose the Valley of Fire got its name from its thousands of red sandstone formations. It really looks like fire when the sun is shining down to these rocks. Nathan read somewhere that the sandstone formed from sand dunes millions of years ago. I imagine that the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Utah we visited the day before must be just what Valley of Fire looked like over a million years ago.

at the Elephant Rock

Since there was no map or information, Nathan and I just drove around following the road. At least there is only one road in this part of the park, so we were able to enjoy the view along the way without fear of getting lost.

One of the interesting stops we made is at The Cabins. These three cabins were built in 1935 by The Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) for the campers and travelers visiting the park.

Another pretty spot is at the Seven Sisters. This is a nice picnic area for lunch; you can climb on the rock formations or walk around on the pink sand.

After wandering around for a while, we finally found the Visitor Center, but we were too late because it closed at 4:30 p.m. I just found out that this visitor center has exhibits on geology, ecology, prehistory, and history of the park. It would have been great if we had made it there on time. (It is open daily from 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.)

Not too far from the Visitor Center is the most interesting part of the park, called Mouse's Tank. There is a half-mile round-trip trail that leads you to many Indian petroglyphs. This sandy trail may not have signs telling you where to look for the petroglyphs, but you will find them easily enough if you pay attention to the black-moldy rocks.

At the end of the trail is a deep, narrow canyon that we couldn't pass through. We just turned around to the trailhead and continued our journey.

 It was almost dark when we finished the hike at the Petroglyph Canyon Self-Guiding Trail. Nathan and I decided not to stop often at the other spots to make sure that we didn't get back too late to town for dinner. We drove through Scenic Loop Road, and it was gorgeous! Too bad there wasn't enough sunlight  for me to take good photos. By the time we reached Hwy 15, it was completely dark, and we didn't have dinner till 8:30 p.m. at our casino resort. If I ever come back here again, I will enter the park from Exit 75 on I-15 instead of Lake Mead so that I can explore the parts of the park I missed on this visit.

We saw a lot of desert big horn sheep on our way out of the park. It was too dark to get a good photo of them.

Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

March 25, 2012 --- After our adventure in Zion National Park, Nathan and I made the last-minute decision to go to Bryce Canyon National Park instead of hiking on the Angel Landing Trail.

We woke up really early in the morning, took down the tent and cleaned up our campsite before departing Zion NP. It took us almost two hours to drive to Bryce Canyon. The scenery along the way was fantastic. We saw a family of deer on the side of the road. We also drove through Dixie National Forest to get to our destination. The road is a little wind-y, and we passed through many small villages that made us have to slow down to follow the speed limit.

When we got in the park, we went straight to the Visitor Center to get some information. There is a little shop there that sells very nice souvenirs. The brochure we got from the Park Entrance gives a really nice map that we used to plan our visit.

It is a total of 18 miles (one-way distance) to drive through the main park, and there are 14 viewpoints along the road to look over the outstanding views of the canyon. The park brochure suggested that we should drive to the park's southern end and stop at the overlooks on our return.

From our experience, it's a good idea to do that if you have about 4-5 hours to stop at every viewpoint and do a little hike in some spots, but if you don't have much time, you should go straight to the most incredible spots like Sunrise, Sunset, Inspiration and Bryce Points.

However, if you have a good amount of time to explore the park, following the park's suggestion will give the most benefit. I like this idea since we found the view gets increasingly better and more fascinating by starting from southern end of the park and moving on toward the northern part. If we did it the other way around, we would have found the park less and less interesting as we went along the way. The only problem that might occur with starting from the southern end is that your camera's battery might be dead before you get to the most gorgeous part of the park, like mine did! Well, make sure you have a fully charged battery before approaching this way. :-)


Rainbow Point -- the southern end of the park

Yovimpa Point -- This one requires a little hike to get to the overlook.

Black Birch Canyon

Ponderosa Canyon

Agua Canyon

Natural Bridge -- This is the only interesting spot in the southern part of the park.

Farview Point

Piracy Point -- we had to hike on snow to get to this point.

Swamp Canyon

Bryce Point -- The WOW spot after seeing a lot of small canyons from the southern part.

Inspiration Point -- my FAVORITE spot in the entire park

Sunset Point -- Another incredible spot to get a good shot, but my camera's battery died here and I had to use my underwater camera instead. :-(

Sunrise Point -- There is a trail that you can take to enjoy the "hoodoos" close up.

After touring around the park for over three hours, we decided to drive to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park before saying goodbye to Utah and heading to Las Vegas for the night.