bonnevile salt flats to great basin national park

We camped in view of the salt flats on BLM (public lands) and drove out on the flats to see how fast we could go.  Next we headed to Great Basin National Park and hiked the base of Wheeler Mountain up to Stella Lake.  It was a beautiful hike through the Aspens and we saw deer all along the trail along with some of the oldest trees on the planet.
Great Basin National Park Map  Fish Lake Map

primitive trail to the grey wall
​Great Basin National Park

Valley of Fire

The Valley of Fire State Park is east of Las Vegas off I-15.  The landscape was created by complex uplifting and faults followed by erosion over time.  The park got its name from the red Aztec sandstone formations formed over 150 million years ago when this are was mostly sand dunes.

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Many movies and TV shows were filmed on location in the park like the racing scene in Viva Las Vegas with Elvis Presley, the scenes on Mars for the movie TOTAL RECALL with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Star Trek fans will remember the Silica Dome as the place Captain James T. Kirk was killed and buried.

fire wave

Valley of Fire State Park

gold butte national monument and little finland

The Gold Butte area is public land accessible on the Gold Butte Backcountry Byway in a very remote area south of Mesquite near the Arizona boarder. Little Finland (also known as Hobgoblin’s Playground and Devil’s Fire) features delicate strangely shaped red rocks that are fin shaped.  The rocks are flat and can resemble a table-top or a strange wave shape.  The area can be hard to access in bad weather and if hard rains hit the washes used as road for access can be impassable.  The palm trees were unexpected and really added to the beauty of the area. A high clearance vehicle is recommended.