This is a travelogue of a weekend trip to Las Vegas. Me and dear buddy Sush, after a long drive (around 6 hrs) from Scottsdale to Las Vegas, reached by around 12:30 AM. The drive was fun sharing the steering wheel for every 2 hrs, stopping over lovely places for our breaks. The GPS misled us in a roundabout that had 5 paths. Though we took the correct turn, the GPS made us take the wrong route and after a few mins we were shocked to see that we were heading back to our source. There were hardly any exists in that route and we lost close to an hr in getting the car back on track. Since we both love adventure, we laughed it off and continued our journey listening to good music, enjoying chatter and eating junk. We had packed lots of food (chapatis, curries, pulav along with lots of junk, fruits, juices) as we had a huge car that could fill it all. I guess our luggage weighed more than both of us put together ;) :P
We checked in our hotel, had nice homemade food, we then roamed around the city till we fell asleep.
The next morning, we were not in a rush as the city life starts only in the night. So, we decided to have a nice long breakfast and started off to explore around the city. We checked the tourist places suggested by the GPS and we were surprised to see a place called "16 mile scenic drive in Red Rocks" at around 25 miles distance and we thought of exploring it. When we arrived at Red Rocks, we were marveled by the natural beauty. We would stop the car every few meters and click pics to our heart's content. When we arrived at the entrance of the 16 mile drive, we got to know it costed us a few bucks and there were not many people there. We wondered if we really wanted to do the 16 mile as we thought what would be so special with those 16 miles as the place around was already so beautiful and we dint even know about its existence. We then thought, let’s give it a try. We got our maps and started off. After 2nd and 3rd spot in the trail, our fascination for Red Rocks started growing more and more. We learnt that the place was not just meant for sightseeing but for serious adventure guys. We spotted a lady running the whole 16 miles on rugged mountain terrain, a few mountain bikers, a couple of guys climbing rocks, a few more hiking. Well, it's not only meant for adventure. We also spotted a couple of scientists conducting experiments on one of the high altitude peaks. If we knew about this place earlier, we would have planned a whole day trek there. Nevertheless, the best part was that we could also trek without any special gear as the map showed us various spots that were marked for moderate hiking. What was planned as 30 min scenic drive took us half a day out there, we totally enjoyed the trek amidst lovely colorful canyons.
Trail info for hikers.
1. http://www.redrockcanyonlv.org/lasvegas/hikes-trails/
2. http://www.redrockcanyonlv.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Red-Rock-Trail-Map.pdf
The entire 16 miles had such wonderfully carved canyons. View the full size image, zoom-in, you can spot a guy in yellow shirt and light blue jeans, standing on the peak.
That's our car parked in one of the view points of the 16 mile scenic drive.
Path to a simple trek.
Multi-colored rocks spotted while driving.
This was a moderate trek spot.
Sush enjoying the view through her cam lens.
You can spot some people walking down these rocks.
That's a not so well captured pic of car carrying scientific equipment. This was the spot where the scientists were setting up their experiment.
A fresh green tree amidst deserty Red Rock region. Did the heavy winds blew away the tree??!
Another view covering the tree and the landscape behind.
A closeup of a rock with various patterns on it.
An extreme closeup of a rock.. Doesn't this look like meat of some animal?
This one looks like brush strokes, ain't it?
Look at the guys climbing rocks. View the full size image and zoom-in, you can see the rope they both have tied to each other.
The next time in Las Vegas, we surely wanna trek more and climb those lovely rocks.
