The first stop on my journey was Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (Some of you may know this area as Lake Powell). I have a few really good friends that live/work out there and I took this opportunity to go see Horseshoe Bend. I’ve always wanted to see it and just never made the time to when I was in the area. There was no excuse not to see it now. The procedures to get to Horseshoe Bend have recently changed and will be changing again in the near future. As of right now, you have to park in a lot down the road from where the tail is and take a shuttle to the old parking lot. There is a $5/person fee to ride the shuttle. There is a bit of construction going on in the area because Glen Canyon is adding fee stations and redoing the trail to the lookout. We were told that the construction is supposed to be finished around May of this year. Once the stations are in place and the trail is finished, it will cost $20/vehicle to see Horseshoe Bend so now is the time to go see it. I personally wasn’t too thrilled about how much traffic there was with the shuttle system because the visitors were coming and going in flocks. With that being said, the shuttle service started because it was too dangerous for pedestrians in the parking lot and for drivers trying to get in and out of the parking lot. Sometimes you have to sacrifice solitude for safety when seeing regal venues.
My next adventure was hiking out at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area just west of Las Vegas Nevada. I’ve recently lived in the area but I had only driven through the Red Rock Canyon Loop and didn’t do any hiking. My trail pal, Nawno (Naw-No) the Lab accompanied me on the La Madre Spring and White Rock Loop trail. The loop is about 6.5 miles and took us 3 hours to complete, which included 15mins for lunch and 15mins for Nawno to play in the water and cool off. If you know anything about Labs, they LOVE water and mine will never turn down an opportunity to get wet. We started at the Willow Springs Trailhead around 1030 in the morning and went clockwise around the loop. I’m really glad that we took the route we did, and when we did, because we were hiking uphill with plenty of shade on the first half, and hiked downhill on the last half which also included the creek area. I literally couldn’t have planned a better hike that day. The weather was gorgeous and we had apparently missed all the hail that happened the day before, but got to enjoy the sounds of the water still trickling off the White Rock Hills. The park was incredibly busy but we didn’t run into too many people on the trail and the ones we did see were extremely pleasant.
50 States in 5 Years 