Here, There, and Just About Anywhere: Red Rock Canyon

Long range view of the ancient sand dune that dominates the beginning
of the 13 mile loop that winds through the Red Rock Canyon. Hard to
believe that the glitz of Las Vegas is just a few short miles away.

This place almost became a second home for us while we worked a NOMADS project at Camp Potosi Pines located outside of Las Vegas. There were pictures of the Red Rock formations on the dining room walls of the camp and we became intrigued with the beauty of the colors. When we drove through the park the first time, we were mesmerized by the size of the formations and the starkness of the desert lands that lay before them. We visited the park on three different occasions.

More red stone - same old ancient sand dune

The first rock formations you see as you drive the park's 13 mile loop (and can see from miles before you reach the park's entrance) are huge, rounded, and red in color. Imagine my surprise when I learned these were originally sand dunes! Sand dunes? Yeah, sand dunes. If this area had once been covered by a vast body of water, I guess you could have sand dunes. But how in the world did they become these immense rocks?

The land on one side of the road flows towards the huge rocks like a long slow wave approaching the sandy beach but in this case it's flowing across the stark relatively flat desert floor towards the rock formations rising up out of nowhere. Apparently, over 500 million years ago, this whole area was underwater and for more than 250 million years limestone sediment piled up that contained the fossils of sea life that lived back then. All kinds of these fossils can be found everywhere. Then during the Jurassic Age of Dinosaurs (remember the movie) southern Nevada came out of the ocean and million of years of other deposits started. Thus formed what is called Aztec sandstone. The sandstone cliffs of Red Rock that are thousands of feet high are made up of this Aztec sandstone.

Okay – now for more geology lessons. And I quote the park's literature: This formation, about 180 million years old, are lithified (whoa! now that's a geological term I'll have to look up once I have an Internet connection) sand dunes that formed in a vast desert that covered a large part of the SW US during the Jurassic age. The sand slowly changed into sandstone when subsurface water percolated through the sediments and left cements of iron oxide and calcium carbonate in the pore spaces between the sand grains. These sandstone rocks were slowly uplifted thousands of feet to their present elevation, and then exposed to weathering and erosion.

It's hard to imagine how very long ago all this happened and how it's continuing to change. Made me feel very small and very inconsequential in the scope of things!

A closer view of the sand dune structure - you can see
the wind striations made on the stone over millions of years
of erosion.

But then it dawned on me that people had lived in this area for thousands of years. How in the world had they survived here? Obviously, the plants and animals evolved to survive in this harsh environment (and that's a whole lesson in biology, zoology, or whatever by itself), but it intrigued me most to learn how people survived living in this area.

As I looked across the uninviting, flat desert, all I could see were low-growing, apparently inedible, unappetizing bushes, cactus, and other sparse plants. If you look closely enough, the answers are there. These plants support a surprising number of animals. And those animals and plants supported a large number of people over the years. There are pits dotted around the park where ancient peoples roasted nuts harvested from a number of plants and small springs that provided the vital water they needed.

Petroglyth carved into the rock
by ancient people - Looks like a
tree or some sort of bug

Bill and I took a hike on a short trail called the Stone Quarry Trail, named after the obvious – a stone quarry that was located there for a few years. We started off on a sandy pathway that turned very rocky a short distance from the parking area. We crossed a dry wash and began to go up a little. Not too far later we entered a grove a trees. A real grove a trees! All of this running along the stone formation that I kept called the sand dune! I couldn't believe this grove. It just seemed so out of place. Anyway, not long after that, the trail narrowed down and we found ourselves scrambling over good-sized rocks that had fallen from the higher cliffs above us. The trail narrowed even more and we started climbing over more rocks as the trail ascended. When we came to a natural rock shelf, there were at least a dozen little rock cairns other hikers had left there. I added my little cairn to the collection there and then headed back down towards the parking area. Enough was enough but was really enjoyable.

Color exists in the desert

Now the question is – how am I going to get this blog posted? The last blog I posted necessitated a trip into the city and an hour at a Best Buy using their wifi. I don't have that luxury now so I guess I'll have to be patient until I can find a strong enough internet connection that will handle this load. Some day I will have to bite the bullet and get my own hotspot. Relying on finding a reliable wifi is getting old in a hurry!

Until next time . . .