Once upon a time in Spring Break, I found myself waking up at 6 A.M. on a weekend. It's a common theme that this should be the "go-to-sleep-time," but today I was traveling. I headed to campus to pick up a few colleagues and carpool over to the Valley of Fire. Some could not make it, but meh. The trip continued. The commute from UNLV to the visitor's center was roughly 60 miles. It was time spent chatting, and rocking it to Led Zeppelin
At the visitor center to the state park, we looked around at the mini museum they had set up. We met these little guys. The formal one is Dipsosaurus dorsalis a.k.a "desert iguana." I forgot which species the latter one was. It was eating broccoli from a water tray after this photo was taken. We seen many more of these, mostly around 4-7inches throughout the park. At one point, we spotted one that could only be between 2.0-2.5 feet from head to tail. This was an estimate made from 50+ ft away, but it was gigantic (and it moved fast for it's size). The thing was big enough to hunt sparrows. Poor sparrows. These two lizards are known to typically grow up to 16 in. in length.
From the visitor center if you take the adjacent road northward, you'll pass through several trail heads. At the very end, there's an area know as the "White Domes." There's a short ~1.2 mi. trial here that leads to a unique place known as a split canyon, or "narrows." It was such a beautiful place, and I reckon the area would have looked even better under direct sunlight. So around 11 to noon. We arrived here roughly at 9 A.M.
These are probably some of the best photos I took of the park.
This one is of a view above
Yours truly on the left, my amigo companion on the right. I had the better camera :X
At the visitor center to the state park, we looked around at the mini museum they had set up. We met these little guys. The formal one is Dipsosaurus dorsalis a.k.a "desert iguana." I forgot which species the latter one was. It was eating broccoli from a water tray after this photo was taken. We seen many more of these, mostly around 4-7inches throughout the park. At one point, we spotted one that could only be between 2.0-2.5 feet from head to tail. This was an estimate made from 50+ ft away, but it was gigantic (and it moved fast for it's size). The thing was big enough to hunt sparrows. Poor sparrows. These two lizards are known to typically grow up to 16 in. in length.
From the visitor center if you take the adjacent road northward, you'll pass through several trail heads. At the very end, there's an area know as the "White Domes." There's a short ~1.2 mi. trial here that leads to a unique place known as a split canyon, or "narrows." It was such a beautiful place, and I reckon the area would have looked even better under direct sunlight. So around 11 to noon. We arrived here roughly at 9 A.M.
These are probably some of the best photos I took of the park.
These slit canyons are of particular interest to me. I've seen some of the most beautiful photography come out of them. It's worth read more into.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slot_canyon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slot_canyon
Yours truly on the left, my amigo companion on the right. I had the better camera :X
