This report covers two quick day trips: one in the voffire and one in the spring. We did the first, to Valely of Fire and The low Lake Mead, with Sandy and Jodi on their annual visit to Las Vegas to escape the voffire in the Minnesota arrowhead area for a while. We returned again to Keyhole Canyon on the final trip.
The ostensible reason for our trip to Valley of Fire State Park was geocaching. The reason for going to the part of Lake Meade that we visited was the low water.
We found a geocache along the freeway on the way to Valley of Fire and then continued on to the park. The trip through the desert is always pretty. But when you cross the pass that gets you into the park is breathtaking. The red hues are eye dazzling. There are some caches in the park and we found the one that is near the arches shown in the pictures. The caches we found that day were pretty easy up to that point. We walked along up from the road into the area with the arches and, upon reaching them, took time for lunch. The skies were grey, emphasizing the red and yellow hues of the rocks. After lunch, we looked for one last cache, but never found it. According to the information or the geocaching site, were right on top of it, but never found it. It was at a signpost, where it could not be missed. But we managed to miss it.
From there, we went out along the Virgin Arm of Lake Mead. We went out to the site of the town of St. Thomas. It was abandoned and most things of use were removed from the location at around 1931 when the townsite was flooded by Lake Mead. The foundations, about all that remained of the town, have been under water from then to about 2003, when the level of Lake Mead's water, recedded enough to make the townsite visible again. The National Park Service has created a trail that takes you out to the site. We took the trail and found the foundations. We walked around the site for a while, exploring, and then returned to the car.
Later in the yeqar we went back to Keyhole Canyon. This is a pleaant place in the spring because of the wildflowers and in the summer because it is cool in the confines of the granite canyon. It is a pleasant respite for an afternoon. This time we explored the area outside the canyon a little more.
The canyon is steep, but there are more gradual slopes to take outside the canyon. From the top yog get views of more mountains to the east and the highway to the west.
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