Valley of Fire

We have wanted to do some hiking in Valley of Fire for quite some time. Being that it is March and the weather is actually agreeable, we took the plunge. It is about a two and a half hour drive from Springdale to Valley of Fire, so we did that on Thursday morning/afternoon. We got there and picked out our campsite which was a secluded spot out on our own. Camping was fourteen dollars, but we got to deduct our six dollar entrance fee from the cost. We quickly set out for our hike. We drove past the visitor center to the White Domes. There were a lot of people there and they all were hanging on the trail. Jacqueline and I stayed on the trail for about ten minutes and then found a canyon to continue hiking through. It turned out to be a good idea as when we were looking at the trails in Valley of Fire, they were nearly non-existent. But there are incredible hikes to be had if one just forgets the trail and wanders out on their own. The cliffs are large, but not impenetrable. We stayed in a canyon bottom until it began sputter out and then we climbed up to a saddle. From there we picked our way down to a ledge with a great view. We got some pictures with the shadows from the sun that I really enjoyed. The cliffs were all different shades of oranges, browns, purples, and reds which gives Valley of Fire its unique flavor. We picked our way down from our viewpoint and decided to find a new way back. Almost immediately, we climbed a cliff to check out the view. Once on top, this presented us with another option, but Jacqueline was none too keen on it when it looked like there may be some stemming involved to descend. We came back down and found an easier way to return. My wife was overly cautious about making sure we get back before dark and wondering if we were going to get lost. I was not worried in the least and brought us back to where we found the trail again. From here, we could see that the trail went through some nice narrows, so we backtracked on it to check that out. Then we continued on our way taking the trail the rest of the way to the car. Jacqueline's worry left us with plenty of time remaining, so we stopped at the Petroglyph Canyon trail on the way back. It was a short hike that would end us up at Mouse's Tank, which is muddy pool of water. The journey was the destination on this hike, though, as I could not believe the massive amounts of petroglyphs. In the last few weeks, I have become overloaded with petrified wood and on this trip Jacqueline and I would become overloaded with petroglyphs. There were literally hundreds in this one canyon and in the whole park, there were over a thousand, I am sure. We were very impressed. We finished that hike rather swiftly and made it back for a fun evening of playing cards and listening to my book on the Ipod, "A Beautiful Mind". We had a very nice evening sleeping in the back of the truck, where we awoke early to set out once again. This time we were headed out to Fire Canyon. After stopping at the visitor center to pick up a map, we discovered that they did not have one. So we were on our own. We parked at the overlook and found our own way down into the drainage. From there we followed the canyon down. We brought a rope with us, because we read something about fire canyon having some downclimbs that were tough. We found nothing, but then again we had nowhere that we were going in particular. We hiked for a couple of hours until the drainage kind of just ended with cliffs all around us. Having thought this to be sufficient, we turned around. But along the way, both there and back we saw many arches, narrows, large cliffs, and interesting colors. We did side trips on the way back climbing up things to get good views and going through side canyons to find little arches. Eventually, we made it back to a junction where we knew the right way and it would get us back to the truck. But instead, Jacqueline was all for trying to find another way out. So we did that and all though we got beat up by the little trees, we eventually made it out to the road. There we took one last look down and appreciated the variation of white to red as the rock changed colors right where we dropped into Fire Canyon. We left after this, but enjoyed our weekend away together in Valley of Fire.