Christmas Trip 2012: On the Way Home

We headed up from Henderson NV onto Route 93 which runs up the eastern side of Nevada. That route is also known as the Great Basin Highway as it runs up a huge basin. Along the way we stopped at Cathedral Gorge State Park which was an amazing place. Here are some photos I took during the day.

 

 

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Christmas Trip: Lake Mead Recreation Area

Today Arvin and I took off on our own to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. We were heading to a very colorful area to the right of our usual road through the park. We found the wash we were looking for and took a long walk up the wash where there were some very interesting and colorful rocks.

The clouds developed during our walk until they looked like this:

 

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Christmas Trip: Kingman Wash, Arizona

Dave, Steve, Arvin and I drove across the bridge near Hoover Dam and headed into Arizona. The first turn off took us up and back down a wide dirt road along Kingman Wash down to Lake Mead on the Arizona side. We backtracked and took a smaller side road up into the wash to find a spot where we could get closer to the amazing colorful areas. We took lots of photos and then headed back to the main road and a place to park and eat our lunches. We took off towards the highway but took a tiny side road, North Mine Road. That wound up and up until we had a 360 degree view of the area. We found a wide spot in the road where Dave was able to turn the car around with Steve's help. Here are some photos from the day.

This is the view from the main road on the Nevada side as we approached the bridge to Arizona. I took the following photos during our walk up into the hills above the wash.

Here we are making the turn on North Mine Road. Steve is directing. Dave is driving. Arvin and I are watching from a safe distance.

 

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Looking for Petrified Wood

We drove back to one of our favorite spots in the Lake Mead Recreation Area to seek out a spot where Steve and I found petrified wood last time we were in the area. Fortunately the hills were somewhat dryer so we were able to walk up into the wash to look for interesting rocks.

Here are Steve and Dave walking in the wash.

There are all kinds of veins of rock running through the hills across the washes.

Steve took the high route to look for the spot where we found Breccia, cool rocks with multicolored inclusions. He found the place and we met him there. Dave and I walked up the wash.

This last shot is from the moving car after lunch as we headed home.

 

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Christmas Trip: Valley of Fire

 

 

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