Walking Tours

Red Rock Canyon

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area holds a special place in the hearts of thousands of Las Vegans. In marked contrast to a town geared to entertainment and gaming, Red Rock Canyon offers enticements of a different nature. Peace, serenity and beauty are what you will experience here. The Mojave Desert is teeming with life and beauty that is rare and unique, and a trip to Red Rock Canyon, located 17 miles west of Las Vegas on Charleston Boulevard (Nevada Highway 159), will allow you to observe the true beauty of the high desert. Called 'Red Rock' because of its striking red colored sandstone formations, it is one of the most photogenic places you will ever visit. The red sandstone is part of the same geologic formation found in the Valley of Fire north of Las Vegas, which will be featured in future Vegas gallery photographs.

The 197,000-acre Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), provides a 13-mile one-way loop scenic drive with overlooks. There are also many hiking trails and picnic areas, and a very interesting and informative BLM visitor center with exhibit rooms on plant, animal and desert life and the cultural, natural and geologic history of the Canyon. Wheelchair accessible restrooms are available, as they are in most of the pull-off overlook areas of the scenic drive.

The easiest way to see Red Rock Canyon is to drive around the scenic loop as it winds through the colorful red rocks, Joshua trees and unusually beautiful desert scenery. Although skies here are normally bright and clear, any kind of weather will work for a drive through. When cold and stormy, the visual effect of the clouds against the mountains and cliffs is dramatic. You are likely to see some of the many burros that roam freely throughout the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. There are 19 very interesting and very different hiking trails that are clearly marked indicating their differing degrees of difficulty. The Keystone Thrust hiking trail is perhaps the most significant geologic feature of Red Rock Canyon, where you can observe a fracture in the earth's crust where ancient compressional forces drove one crustal plate over the top of another. The beautiful red and tan sandstone rocks of Calico Hills near the BLM visitors center were formed this way some 30 million years ago, and the surrounding escarpment of higher gray-limestone peaks were formed similarly 60 million years ago.