I don’t see the desert as barren at all; I see it as full and ripe. It doesn’t need to be flattered with rain. It certainly needs rain, but it does with what it has, and creates amazing beauty.
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/desert-quotes. ~ Joy Harjo

One of My Happy Places

This is one of those posts I hesitate to write a little bit. You see the place I’m going to write about, when I went to for the first time five years ago was really under the radar. Over the last five years that has changed, and with the camping reservation system being instituted in Nevada State Parks, Valley of Fire of State Park has gotten a lot more popular. The park is located about 30 miles or so east of Las Vegas. Approaching it doesn’t inspire confidence, it’s pretty much basic Mojave Desert. But inside the park you find a valley full of color and absolutely amazing geology and often close up views of Bighorn Sheep. I’m usually in the park during Christmas and the week between Christmas and New Years. It’s really crowded with day visitors that week and used to be crowded in the campgrounds, now the campgrounds are absolutely packed. This year I went in a week early and there are a lot fewer day users and far fewer campers on the weekdays. And here’s the one tip that will make the read worth the time if you ever go there. Driving out from Vegas the first turn off to the park, particularly during the holidays and on weekends can mean a 30 minute or more wait to get to the gate. So I recommend continuing up I-15 and going into the park via the east entrance, it’s about a 15 or 20 minute extra drive, but will take you to a gate where the longest line I’ve ever seen is three cars.

I needed this trip this year, it’s been a year since my last vacation and it was camping in Valley of Fire last Christmas. This has been a very long year. Open heart surgery and the six month recovery tied to that, three months at home recuperating, and then back to work. Work has been absolute hell this year, being off for three months meant I spent the last three months constantly behind the eight-ball. Add to that a lot of health issues with both of my parents, the impact that has on my whole family that of course culminated with the death of my mother earlier this month. It is utterly unusual for me to go a full year without a vacation and worse in a really stressful year. I was extremely happy to be out in the desert, it’s absolutely one of my happy places. Below is me eating some gifted ramen on my campsite and I think my face shows how happy I am to be out there.

I grew up on the East Coast and love Eastern Deciduous Forests, it’s where I developed my love of the outdoors, where I’ve spent most of my time outdoors. It’s the environ that made up the majority of my Appalachian Trail hike. I especially love those forests in the fall and winter. When I moved west however, I developed first an appreciation, and then an absolute love of the desert, particularly the Mojave. It’s started with my first trip to Burning Man, then Anza Borrego State Park, and continued to grow as I moved to the Mojave for a couple of years and then found the Valley of Fire. I love the Mojave, especially in the winter. Desert camping has it’s own set of challenges, but after a lot of years I have it down. The Mojave is desolate beauty, often the treasures are hidden below the surface, around a bend, down in a valley. Natural quiet, those moments where you can actually not hear any man-made noise are plentiful and I crave those experiences. And in the Valley of Fire I know where those places are and can literally go and sit there and hear nothing but the sounds of nature.

Valley of Fire is an amazing place because you get so many different types of geography. You can find open large view desert.

You can find wildly colored rock

You can find whole rock walls full of Native American made petroglyphs

And amazing slot canyons

So in the park I spend my days hiking through these amazing places and at night sit around a campfire and stare up at dark skies full of stars.

And usually, in the Arch Rock Campground, mornings involve Bighorn Sheep actually strolling through the campground. This year however, there’s been more rain than normal in the desert, as such, there is still vegetation up high and so the sheep aren’t coming down low to graze. So no sheep this year, but a photo of them last year.

And finally, an annual winter tradition for me, my naked hike in the desert, happily this year nothing exciting, just a nice quiet hike. Last year I had a small ranger interaction, but she was nice about it and just told me to put my clothes on.

We all have our happy places, and as much as possible we need to find time to be in those places. One of the most amazing things I was able to do last week, and it’s a simple thing, was to be able to lay in my hammock in the sun and something unusual for the desert, lay there and just watch clouds float across the sky. Below I’m dropping in a full gallery of the sites from the Valley of Fire.