Not far from Las Vegas is an area known as Red Rock Canyon. I originally thought it was part of the state or national park system. Looking at their web page now, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

My first experience with Red Rock Canyon was when I pulled up to the little guard shack and was told that every car that passed through the gate had to have a ‘reservation’ that had been purchased ahead of time. You could NOT pay right then and get it the canyon. (?)

OK

So, I went back to my hotel, got online and reserved a ticket for the next day. You have to select a date and time, which I thought was odd. My enter time was 3:00 PM.

The ticket to get into Red Rock Canyon was $17.00 ($15.00 plus two dollars for processing – or some such thing.) Below is the fee break-down.

Once inside the canyon…. finally, you come upon the visitors center. This was still in the heat of COVID and, while I was fully vaccinated, I complied with the mask mandate. Once looking through the gift shop (who designs these shirts anyway?) I started my tour on the “Scenic Loop. Remember that word – LOOP.

The canyon was really spectacular. I didn’t do much (any) hiking. There are trails, but my main purpose was taking photographs. It was hot and I’m not experienced with hiking. Plus, I was there by myself and that’s not a good idea for a lot of things. Certainly hiking is one of them.

I was able to get some nice images. Well, I like them at least. Here are a few.

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I made my way around the loop, stopping at predetermined parking areas and getting what photos I could. I did walk out away from the parking area, but never very far.

The thing about the ‘loop’ is that, if you’re a first time visitor, you have no way of knowing when you’ll reach the end of the loop. The canyon is only open until 5:00 PM, so I didn’t want to run into an issue where I hadn’t seen everything, but it was time to leave. But, it’s a ‘loop’… right? A loop is a circle. When I get back to the start of the loop I can decide if I want to make the rounds again to catch anything I may have missed. Makes sense right?

Well, this loop wasn’t really a loop.

As you can see, the loop puts you back on the main highway at the end, NOT at the beginning. Of course, once you’re on the main road, there is no getting back in. To be honest, I didn’t try to get back in, but I’m sure it would have been a big NO!

If you’re out west, towards Las Vegas and want to check out a nearby canyon, you can give Red Rock Canyon a try, just keep in mind that once you’re out – you’re out.

Is it worth the $17.00? I’ll show you another area near Vegas that is much better… and cheaper. That will be at some point in the not too distant future.

At the end of the day, you’d need to ask yourself these questions.

Thank you for visiting!