The Desert View Overlook
Mar. 7th, 2023 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerNorth Las Vegas Travelog #14
Somewhere outside Las Vegas - Mon, 19 Feb 2023, 11am
Today's our last day in Las Vegas/North Las Vegas. Our plan for today, before we fly home in the evening, is to do some hiking and car-touring north of Las Vegas, in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. Nothing is really set in stone, which is good because we weren't sure what the conditions would be like or what trails the rangers would recommend. When we stopped at the refuge visitor's center this morning, in fact, we found out there really isn't that much hiking. It's basically jjust a nature trail around the center, which is down in the uninteresting part of the desert.
We popped out of the refuge (we'll go back later in the day) and went for a scenic drive up in the mountains around Mt. Charleston. Not having things set in stone allowed us to do that. Up at elev. 8,200 ft. we reached the Desert View Overlook.
It's snowy up here! We started seeing patchy snow on the drive from around 6,000' elevation. Up here over 8,000 there are deeper drifts. Some families with younger kids were coming up here just to play in the snow.
The mountain in the background is Mummy Mountain. At first I thought it was Mt. Charleston, the highest peak in the range just west of Las Vegas, but it's not. Mt. Charleston is behind Mummy Mountain from this angle. And you can't see it because they're of similar height. Mummy Mountain reaches 11,333 ft.; Mt. Charleston reaches 11,812 ft.
There's a short, paved trail from the parking lot down to an overlook from. "Wheelchair accessible," the official descriptions all note. Except rifght now it's buried under packed ice and snow up to 2 feet deep. We carefully picked our way partway down it.
This third picture is what they really expected us to look at when they named this place the Desert View Overlook. It's a view of the actual desert! One of the signs here explains that different people see different things when they look at the desert. Natives see their ancestral land, geologists see history, the military sees a great place to drop bombs (yes, the sign said that). Surprisingly, "Screw the desert, look at this awesome snowy mountain instead!" was not one of the examples. But, hey, the desert view is nice, too. And not in a way that makes me think of dropping bombs.
BTW, the mountains in the distance, including Sheep Peak and a bit of snow atop Hayford Peak, are 30+ miles away. One great thing, and sometimes one disorienting thing, about the desert is the incredible sight distance.
Somewhere outside Las Vegas - Mon, 19 Feb 2023, 11am
Today's our last day in Las Vegas/North Las Vegas. Our plan for today, before we fly home in the evening, is to do some hiking and car-touring north of Las Vegas, in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. Nothing is really set in stone, which is good because we weren't sure what the conditions would be like or what trails the rangers would recommend. When we stopped at the refuge visitor's center this morning, in fact, we found out there really isn't that much hiking. It's basically jjust a nature trail around the center, which is down in the uninteresting part of the desert.
We popped out of the refuge (we'll go back later in the day) and went for a scenic drive up in the mountains around Mt. Charleston. Not having things set in stone allowed us to do that. Up at elev. 8,200 ft. we reached the Desert View Overlook.
It's snowy up here! We started seeing patchy snow on the drive from around 6,000' elevation. Up here over 8,000 there are deeper drifts. Some families with younger kids were coming up here just to play in the snow.
The mountain in the background is Mummy Mountain. At first I thought it was Mt. Charleston, the highest peak in the range just west of Las Vegas, but it's not. Mt. Charleston is behind Mummy Mountain from this angle. And you can't see it because they're of similar height. Mummy Mountain reaches 11,333 ft.; Mt. Charleston reaches 11,812 ft.
There's a short, paved trail from the parking lot down to an overlook from. "Wheelchair accessible," the official descriptions all note. Except rifght now it's buried under packed ice and snow up to 2 feet deep. We carefully picked our way partway down it.
This third picture is what they really expected us to look at when they named this place the Desert View Overlook. It's a view of the actual desert! One of the signs here explains that different people see different things when they look at the desert. Natives see their ancestral land, geologists see history, the military sees a great place to drop bombs (yes, the sign said that). Surprisingly, "Screw the desert, look at this awesome snowy mountain instead!" was not one of the examples. But, hey, the desert view is nice, too. And not in a way that makes me think of dropping bombs.
BTW, the mountains in the distance, including Sheep Peak and a bit of snow atop Hayford Peak, are 30+ miles away. One great thing, and sometimes one disorienting thing, about the desert is the incredible sight distance.
