Tom Rankin
Well-known member
... can mostly be discussed! 
We flew out Friday after work and arrived at around 1:00 AM. After getting a rental car, and driving to Harrah's we jumped right into some Blackjack!
Saturday we drove to Red Rock Canyon. This is a spectacularly beautiful preserve, with a paved road winding around a 13 mile loop. (Cost $5.00 / car). There is a visitor center with lots of displays, and a LOT of trailheads that head off into the desert, canyons, foothills, and some pretty big mountains. We walked around the nature center the first day, then around some foot hills, and then into Ice Box Canyon. It wasn't particularly cold, but it was nice to splash in the still trickling stream, and take in the awesome views. There were tons of people in this area. The canyon more or less ends at a large waterfall, which we hiked to within site of, and then turned around. There are tons of flowers in bloom, a few birds, and lizards. No large mammals were sighted, but we got wind of the burros!
We hit a few casinos, and brewpubs, more of which will be described on my VNBs site soon.
Sunday, we went to Red Rock again and tackled Turtlehead Peak. It's about 6300', with 2000' of climbing over about 2.5 miles. It starts off easy but gets very steep and becomes a scramble at times. The 'trail' is very gravelly so we had to pick our way with care. 'Trail' here means a huge network of herd paths, that all lead to the same place. The only things impeding your view around these parts are a few scrubby bushes, so basically you can always see in every direction that a mountain is not blocking you. Sometimes this is a few feet, but at the top of Turtlehead, it was probably over 100 miles! A large part of the view from here is of the sprawl of Las Vegas, but it's still a magnificent site. There was still just a trace of snow in the surrounding higher peaks. It started out in the high 40's but quickly warmed up to around 85. This peak had a couple visitors before we summitted and seemingly a LOT more heading up around 11:00.
Ditto on the casinos and Brewpubs!
Monday, we went back to near Red Rock and parked in a pull-over spot, and walked into Upper Oak Creek Canyon. The canyon is flanked by 2 huge walls of rock. One is called Mt. Wilson. The other seemed to be a popular climbing spot. We saw climbers easily 1,000' higher than the bottom of the canyon floor. This canyon had almost no one in it, but it was Monday now...
After a few more Brews and bets, (which turned out quite succe$$fully), we caught a plane home that left around 1:00 AM PST, (4:00 here) and after a quick stop in Chicago, landed us in Newark around 9:30 AM. And yes, I'm still awake, after essentially 0 sleep!
Generally, if you go: Bring a lot of water! It's very dry, dusty, windy, and sunny, all of which means you will get thirsty! Get an early start. Hike in the shade if you can. This is not as hard as it sounds. Vegas is expensive to eat in, at least on the strip, but moderate hotels are available. There were several good brewpubs we found. Being mostly off the strip, they are moderately priced. One even comped me 2 free beers for spending $20 on a gambling machine in the bar area!
More to come, and pics galore!
We flew out Friday after work and arrived at around 1:00 AM. After getting a rental car, and driving to Harrah's we jumped right into some Blackjack!
Saturday we drove to Red Rock Canyon. This is a spectacularly beautiful preserve, with a paved road winding around a 13 mile loop. (Cost $5.00 / car). There is a visitor center with lots of displays, and a LOT of trailheads that head off into the desert, canyons, foothills, and some pretty big mountains. We walked around the nature center the first day, then around some foot hills, and then into Ice Box Canyon. It wasn't particularly cold, but it was nice to splash in the still trickling stream, and take in the awesome views. There were tons of people in this area. The canyon more or less ends at a large waterfall, which we hiked to within site of, and then turned around. There are tons of flowers in bloom, a few birds, and lizards. No large mammals were sighted, but we got wind of the burros!
We hit a few casinos, and brewpubs, more of which will be described on my VNBs site soon.
Sunday, we went to Red Rock again and tackled Turtlehead Peak. It's about 6300', with 2000' of climbing over about 2.5 miles. It starts off easy but gets very steep and becomes a scramble at times. The 'trail' is very gravelly so we had to pick our way with care. 'Trail' here means a huge network of herd paths, that all lead to the same place. The only things impeding your view around these parts are a few scrubby bushes, so basically you can always see in every direction that a mountain is not blocking you. Sometimes this is a few feet, but at the top of Turtlehead, it was probably over 100 miles! A large part of the view from here is of the sprawl of Las Vegas, but it's still a magnificent site. There was still just a trace of snow in the surrounding higher peaks. It started out in the high 40's but quickly warmed up to around 85. This peak had a couple visitors before we summitted and seemingly a LOT more heading up around 11:00.
Ditto on the casinos and Brewpubs!
Monday, we went back to near Red Rock and parked in a pull-over spot, and walked into Upper Oak Creek Canyon. The canyon is flanked by 2 huge walls of rock. One is called Mt. Wilson. The other seemed to be a popular climbing spot. We saw climbers easily 1,000' higher than the bottom of the canyon floor. This canyon had almost no one in it, but it was Monday now...
After a few more Brews and bets, (which turned out quite succe$$fully), we caught a plane home that left around 1:00 AM PST, (4:00 here) and after a quick stop in Chicago, landed us in Newark around 9:30 AM. And yes, I'm still awake, after essentially 0 sleep!
Generally, if you go: Bring a lot of water! It's very dry, dusty, windy, and sunny, all of which means you will get thirsty! Get an early start. Hike in the shade if you can. This is not as hard as it sounds. Vegas is expensive to eat in, at least on the strip, but moderate hotels are available. There were several good brewpubs we found. Being mostly off the strip, they are moderately priced. One even comped me 2 free beers for spending $20 on a gambling machine in the bar area!
More to come, and pics galore!
