Best Hiking Buds, Forever!

Marc Valdez and Ira Gershin - best hiking buds, with Pine Creek in the background, at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, just outside Las Vegas, Nevada!

The Gondolas at the Venetian Casino in Las Vegas

While in Las Vegas, we dropped in for a few minutes to the Venetian Casino, to look at the gondolas.

Scenic Drive at BLM's Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

Wilderness Behind The Velvet Rope - BLM's Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

How do you run a popular semi-wilderness area right next to a major city? The Bureau of Land Management's Red Rock NCA seems like a good model for how to do it. Two million visitors a year!  Still, I felt pretty estranged from the semi-wilderness. It felt like the American West of the distant future - carefully held apart from actual contact.  And probably no other choice.  Fortunately, there are other parts of the West that are not nearly so popular and all too real.

Santa Fe Station

 

Paymon's

 

Trip to Las Vegas, NV - May 11, 2021

Takeoff from Sacramento, CA, heading north.

At the triple junction between Sacramento/Sutter/Placer Counties, near Counsman, CA.

Drought-stricken Folsom Lake, northeast of Sacramento.

A lava flow near Aurora Crater, southwest of Hawthorne, NV.

Hawthorne, Nevada, Walker Lake, and environs.

Luning and Mina, NV, and environs.

Along Highway 95, between Tonopah and Goldfield, NV.

Nye, County, NV.

Looking into the Las Vegas Valley over the crest of the mountains west of town.  Red Rock Canyon to the left.

Along Highway 160 between Pahrump and Las Vegas, NV.

Approaching landing at McCarran International Airport, south-southwest of town.

Textured-looking hills, southwest of Las Vegas.

Desert Oasis High School.

Interstate 15 and Warm Springs Rd. overpass.

The Strip!

A Neighbor's Agave

That stalk is huge!

The Forever War