Our winter trip this year was to Zion National Park, which is a few hours northeast of Las Vegas, so we found it convenient to fly in there and drive up to Zion. On the way, the drive passes a number of interesting places, one of which is Valley of Fire State Park, so we opted to stop there and do some hiking on our way back to Vegas.

Valley of Fire is about an hour northeast of Las Vegas, and features really interesting Navajo sandstone with sandy slot canyons and some pretty interesting views. We had actually been there in July of last year, but with temperatures hovering around 110F, we stayed in the car with the air conditioner running! This time, however, the temperatures were a cool 50F, which was perfect for a long hike.

We decided to make a loop hike starting at the Fire Wave, which is a sandstone formation that looks like the famous Wave in Kanab, Utah, just on a smaller scale. From there, we took the Seven Wonders Trail clockwise through the northern part of the park, passing through Pink Canyon first, a very colorful slot canyon. The trail then took us across the road through Kaolin slot canyon before rejoining the White Domes Loop trail, where we passed through another slot canyon (White Domes). Finally, the trail looped back north and cut across the bend in the road to return us to our car. The whole journey took a few hours, mostly because we stopped for lunch and for pictures.

I highly recommend Valley of Fire, and in particular getting away from the road. Lots of people drive through the park without venturing very far from their car. On our hike, we saw nobody from the time we left Fire Wave until we rejoined the White Domes trail. It was a refreshing experience that really let us see the character of the park. Just don’t go in the summer though!