PART TWO: The Way Down
We started down and I had to stop and appreciate those few hardy trees I all but ignored on the way up:
To my surprise and consternation, after some time in these trees enjoying the views there soon were signs of sunset in the valley below, past these trees, it would be dark soon:
Stepping in front of this tree and looking left gave us a glimpse of Las Vegas' taller buildings in the distance:
But at our feet it was seriously getting darker, and we did not want to lose the trail on the way down as I did on the way up. It was a pleasant surprise to see more light once we got out of the very narrow part of the upper canyon,
But it was very slow going (the trail was a guess, center and left in the above photo, with lots of very steep butt-slides down slick rock, but we guessed well and were much more comfortable than we had been scrambling up the non-trail on the right side of the above photo):
Every step was a calculated one, the going was so slow that by the time we got beside that large sloping rock-mass on the bottom left of the above photo, it was surprisingly dark! It was actually hard to see.
It was so dark I had to use flash to illuminate this rocky pteradactyl standing across our path:
When we got back to our car the Red Rock federal Ranger was parked behind it with all its floodlights on, writing us a citation which she tore up when we arrived. She said just a few more minutes and she would have cited us, plus locked the gate, meaning we would not be able to leave the parking lot using the car. About an 8 mile walk home plus about a $ 123 fine if my daughter's illegal Red Rock parking experience was any indication! It closes at dusk. Let that be a lesson to us! (Thank you for waiting for us, nice Ranger, even though we were more than a half hour past the closing time posted on the entry!)
Go Back to First Page of this Second Red Rock Hike in February Page
Go to Previous February Red Rock Pages
If you want to see more of Red Rock, here is a previous hike I took
Also, a flyover in a commercial airliner coming from the Bay Area to Las Vegas.
Go Back to ThoughtsandPlaces.Org Home Page