The Valley of Fire

If you find yourself with time to kill in the Vegas area or are driving across Nevada to Utah, I've found the perfect place to stop through.  And it will literally feel like you've stepped foot onto Mars.  Like many of the other stops we made on our cross country road trip, I, too, found the Valley of Fire on Pinterest.  Trust me, search it on Pinterest and you'll see what I mean.  It's a gorgeous places filled with a landscape so vibrant and colorful that even these photos don't convey.

The Valley of Fire is only about an hour outside of Vegas.  The rock formations are something that you feel couldn’t be part of this world.  It makes you wonder how they came to be.  It obviously is in the desert so the temperatures can get extremely hot.  If at the very least you take the drive through the Valley making occasional stops without actually hiking I feel like you can definitely still feel like you’ve experienced the beauty of it. The picturesque wave formations created in the rocks aren’t visible, unfortunately, from the road.  You have to hike a little to get to those areas. It was probably over 100 degrees already at 8am when we were there so we didn’t do the hike.  Thus, no pictures of the cool wave formations.  Bummer, I really wanted to see them.  Maybe I’ll be able to visit again in the future!

For photography sake, I’d suggest going at magic hour, either in the morning or in the evening.  I feel like the colors will really come out with the great lighting during those two hours.  There are plenty of cool things to see in the Valley of Fire, besides the amazing red rock formations.  There are hieroglyphics, petrified logs and plenty of native desert plants and animals.

Whether you’ve heard of the Valley of Fire or not, it’s definitely a place to add to your travel bucket list.

Yours Truly  // Shannon