Red Rock 2022

Through these years of roadtrip antics, Dad has occasionally mentioned, “One of these days when you’re headed off on some cross-country adventure, I would really love to book a one-way ride.” We never made it work because his work schedule and mine didn’t line up well — usually that “cross-country” part of my drive is “driving all night and working during the day.” And while we both work in what look like pajamas, apparently surgery is one of those things you still have to do in person. How antique.

But around the start of the year, he put down his scalpel one last time. I have since joked that I am surely not old enough for my father to have retired. But there is some truth to the notion that — though he is many other things in addition — he has also always (in my lifetime) been a doctor, a well-known one at that, and it does feel weird to me that he has retired from practice. This, of course, does not free him from the obligation to take weekend pager duty from me. But it’s real. He has a sailboat and everything.

So as I start organizing the next Climbsigiving to Red Rock Canyon, I have booked a passenger in celebration. The “Full Roadtrip Experience” usually starts with the great choice-paralysis of route-planning, dramatically recalled here. Thus, let’s begin:

I know a lot of ways to get to Vegas. As tradition dictates, Interstates 10 and 40 are largely off-limits. I’m hoping to make a blend of greatest hits with a new spot or two. We need big hiking, light off-roading, cliff dwelling, quirky artsy weirdness, and epic views of southwestern desert majesty. With perhaps one silly adventure on Las Vegas Boulevard for good measure?

The first night or two will be a boring late-night mid-week slog from Austin to either El Paso or Albuquerque. I’m going to take that section solo so we can spend more time on the fun part. That gives us Friday evening through Monday before the climbers arrive to Summerlin.

I had assumed Death Valley National Park would be our finish line. That it’s been my personal tradition of each previous trip to Red Rock — starting with a big hike in the park. Tragically, the park was recently hit with severe flooding damage after getting almost a year’s worth of rain in about two hours, with another round of heavy rains as Hurricane Kay dissipated inland a few weeks later. Some of my favorite parts of the park are accessible, but much isn’t yet. I’m also trying to avoid retracing Mom and Dad’s recent Grand Canyon South Rim roadtrip or their upcoming run to Zion NP. (I admire how much fun they’re having now that the calendar is more open.)

All that is to say… there are still too many options.

El Paso to Death Valley

• White Sands National Park
• Cliff Dwellings at Tonto National Monument
• Tonto National Forest and Lake Roosevelt
• Lake Mead National Recreation Area
• Death Valley National Park

Albuquerque to Death Valley, the Southern Route

• San Lorenzo Canyon
• The VLA Overlook
• Coconino and Sitgreaves National Forests
• That weird little cliffside historic not-actually-a-ghost-town of Jerome?
• Death Valley National Park

Albuquerque to Las Vegas, the Northern Route

• Four Corners National Monument
• Monument Valley
• Horseshoe Bend
• Vermillion Cliffs National Monument
• Grand Canyon North Rim or Parashant… if it isn’t snowpacked? (Or what the hell; I got snow tires.)
• Las Vegas Boulevard

I also don’t know a whole lot of Southern Arizona. There’s that whole unavoidable stretch of I-40 and US-93 from Kingman, AZ to Las Vegas, NV that I would love to find an alternate for. Perhaps my co-pilot sees a favorite emerging among these?

UPDATE: Copilot has spoken: we start in Albuquerque and end in Death Valley.

Copilot has requested an Albuquerque to Death Valley adventure and I’m delighted. Creativity flourishes in constraints — but I’ll admit having had a helluva time reducing this down to an itinerary we can conquer in just three days. And it’s only 1,500 miles! But at long last, I’ve built a map I’m excited about…

…and the resulting spreadsheet says it’ll be fine if we just don’t sleep.

Friday

I think I’m just going to warn people that they’d better not expect me to answer any messages Friday afternoon. San Lorenzo Canyon is one of my favorite best-kept-secrets of New Mexico, and I haven’t been back since the before times. I’d rather see it in daylight.

From there, we’ll head out via US-60 to either Globe or Payson, both just northeast of Phoenix. Neither is terribly far, with a few roadside attractions along the way.

Saturday

Given that my favorite offroad route in Death Valley is closed, I went looking for an unpaved adventure — for authenticity. Pulling up TrailsOffroad and AllTrails at the same time is always fun. I found me a mountain in two acts. My favorite.

And this should work if they haven’t gotten a lot of snow. From the highway, an easy but scenic 5 mile drive to a 2.5 mile hike to the peak. … And back.

A drive up Pine Mountain unveils the rugged beauty of […] Tonto National Forest, the largest of Arizona’s National Forests. The drive offers long views across a vast landscape of rolling hills and deep sycamore lined canyons carved by small streams fed by runoff from the looming Mazatzal Mountains. […] The rating is based on narrow shelf roads and a few sections of mildly rocky road surface.

Experience this 5.1-mile out-and-back [hiking] trail near Payson, Arizona. Generally considered a moderately challenging route, it takes an average of 3 hours complete. […] Part of the Arizona Trail, it’s well maintained and easy to follow. 1,453 foot elevation gain. Be careful of your footing, but it’s not difficult if you’re experienced.

I hadn’t heard of the Arizona Trail before — “The Arizona National Scenic Trail is a National Scenic Trail from Mexico to Utah that traverses the whole north–south length of the U.S. state of Arizona. The trail begins at the Coronado National Memorial near the US–Mexico border and moves north through parts of the Huachuca, Santa Rita, and Rincon Mountains.” It even dives down into and out from the Grand Canyon, ending in the Kaibab Plateau area of the Arizona Strip.

In the event of snow, I’ve got a couple ideas in my back pocket, but this looks fun. And from there, it’s about a 7 hour drive to Pahrump or 6 to Las Vegas. A longer day than I would usually inflict on someone (or even myself on a hiking day), but we have a lot of miles to munch.

Sunday

Whatever remains of our drive into Death Valley, which depends on how far we were willing to slog the night before. Then Death Valley shenanigans. I’m still hoping for a little more reopening of park land are between now and then:

Guess this means we won’t be able to go to That Damn Denny’s in Beatty. But Badwater Road is open as far south as the salt flats, Artist’s Drive and Zabriskie Point are both open, and Dante’s View to Mount Perry is open, too — all of which are greatest hits material.

And there’s also the uncharted (by us, anyway) lands southwest of Stovepipe Wells — Mosaic Canyon Road/Trail, Emigrant Canyon Road, and Tucki Mountain Road are all open, too.

So far, the only room I’ve booked for the whole trip is our finish line at The Ranch at Furnace Creek. The swanky, historic inn from last year was already booked up — but The Ranch down the street may be more our speed this time.

Monday

And finally Dad flies out of LAS at about 3pm, so we’ll need to get moving pretty early. Easy peasy. Although… the park map did show Deadman’s Pass as open…

How hard could it be?

Whelp. I broke my tiny tire inflator that likes to pop fuses. Maybe we’re better off without each other. I did learn that the gas station by my apartment has a free air pump, and that industrial air pumps are a zillion times faster than tiny inflators… I don’t need an inflator for off-roading, do I?

Update: 20 minutes after leaving the gas station, I am still trying to get on 183. So much for getting an early start…

While trying to fight many of bonfire this morning, I realized that I have stayed in this Holiday Inn Express at least once before, maybe twice. But if the calls start at 7:30, they get to end early, I have decided. Or at the very least, I can go for a run and let the chat messages queue up behind me. I scoured Google Maps for any sign of green and blue on the map of this town, and there were not many options, but I’m pleased with what I discovered. Welcome to the Buddy Holly Lake Recreation Area.

It couldn’t have been a big river that they dammed up to make this little lake, but I have to admit they made it pretty nice.

Onward to Albuquerque. And dinner.

What in the Arctic Circle of hell is this exactly?

Made it to Albuquerque, although I’m not sure about where I’ve landed. Across the street from my little Extended Stay is the Hampton Inn I wish I was at, which shares a parking lot with a cool food hall and a rock gym. But over here, we’ve got an armed security guard wandering around and they take a $250 incidentals deposit but their credit card machine didn’t work so they didn’t make me pay it…

Xterra the Younger and I survived our night at the Armed Extended Stay, but I got kicked out at the noon check-out time. So I “took a lunch break” to go flog myself through 650 feet of autobelays at the Stone Age Climbing Gym down the street, where Dad met me when he arrived into ABQ. He arrived after I had completely pumped out my forearms, but upon his arrival, pride dictated I make a third attempt at a 5.11 that had twice already defeated me at a dyno (jump) 30 or 40 feet off the ground.

Nailed it. And then it was time for beers and lunch at a little food hall around the corner while I answered a couple more emails.

And then it was time to get on the road southbound.

San Lorenzo Canyon isn’t far south of Albuquerque and I haven’t been since we were celebrating our excitement for all that 2020 might be. It’s still there, and still majestic.

As the sun set, we made our way on to Socorro and US-60 headed for Arizona. We did make a brief stop at the overlook for the VLA but the satellites were spaced out and dark, so they were hard to see. But I assured Dad it was pretty cool in concept.

And from there, it was a ride over dark tree-lined mountain passes into Arizona and on to Payson.

And here I am, on the way to yet another climbing trip in Vegas.

We got up “early” and headed down Arizona 87 into Tonto National Forest, right into a navigational blunder.

We still plan some of our trips with Caltopo atlases, some of which are quite old — the highway has since been rerouted. And cell service was pretty hard to come by… and… well dammit, I missed my turn. But on a divided mountain pass road, that was a big problem because the next turnaround was 5 miles away (though Google Maps wanted me to turn around 15 miles later).

So then I tried to Google Maps myself to the trailhead and it took me too far back the other way, necessitating yet another “and keep going to the turnaround.” But after thoroughly embarrassing myself in front of Dad — though insisting that at least I was no worse at this than Google appears to be — I found my trailhead.

We took this little forest service road ribbon along a narrow shelf between rocky and forested terrain up toward Mount Peeley until it petered out at a hiking trailhead for us to continue the rest of the way on foot.

About a half-mile from the trailhead, the trail joined up with the Arizona National Scenic Trail, showing us at about the half-way point.

Up to a picnic spot at the peak and back was about 4.3 miles, with a partial view of the Horseshoe Reservoir beyond, which can supposedly be a great fish nursery, except:

Horseshoe Reservoir is the first of the Salt River Project lakes to be very low when irrigation and domestic water requirements dictate. It can be virtually dry for long periods of time.

U.S. Forest Service

Which explains why I looked out and saw what looked like a massive dried up lakebed in the middle of an otherwise healthy and green forest valley.

From there, it was a long slog of a drive to Vegas once we picked up I-40 in Flagstaff. I promised a mostly interstate-free trip, but any way to avoid I-40/US-93 still eludes me. On the way, Dad called Mom to check in, and at one point, he mentioned that our hike was “only 4 miles.” So when we got there, we had to take a tour of The Strip, which clocked in at an additional 6.5 miles. Garmin says that was 31,000 steps for the day — if I also count the three thousand after midnight, too.

The only thing I really make a point to see is The Fountain at the Bellagio. Dad said he recalled “a place where they’ve made it look like an outdoor canal,” so we added The Forum Shops at the Ceasers to get to the Grand Canal Shops at The Venetian to our stroll. And while that may sound like retiree mall-walking, a flare of authenticity: we even caught the tail end of a drunken fight on the sidewalk. And even with all that, it only covers about half of The Strip.

Tomorrow, if we can manage it after such a late night, we head for our finish line in Death Valley, the fifth state on the trip.

After we’d had enough coffee to recover from the Sin City 10k, we packed up the (surprisingly not-broken-into) Xterra and headed out. In honor of the moment, I broke one of my cardinal rules — Thou Shalt Not Drive on Las Vegas Boulevard — to drive us by the Welcome to Las Vegas sign on the way out of town. Dad wouldn’t let me stop for a silly selfie. Maybe Mom can talk him into it when they’re back in a couple months.

Dad finally got to put his Christmas present to good use! We took the south route through Pahrump and turned up to Dante’s Viewpoint and the Mount Perry trail when we entered the park. As clear and dramatic as the view usually is, there’s usually still a dusty haze in the air, but not today. Death Valley’s colorful desolation was on full display.

Even the wildlife was out today.

And then we noticed the shade of an early sunset start to creep across the basin. Dad wanted to see the valley floor so we drove around to the Badwater Basin, 5,500 feet directly below Dante’s Viewpoint.

And more than 200 feet below sea level.

And in George’s absence, I tasted the salt flats because apparently he made that a tradition. Can confirm: is salty.

Then we went for a swanky, celebratory dinner at The Inn at Furnace Creek before retiring to our room at The Ranch for a roadtrip bourbon under the many many stars.

Admittedly, we weren’t in the park that long, but I did not see much evidence of the great flooding. As we left, I hit up the visitor center to pick up a new annual parks pass and confirm that the Beatty Cutoff bypass to Daylight Pass was open — clearing the path to Rhyolite and that Denny’s.

I’d like to think the placards are new, but more likely I just hadn’t stopped to read them before. Rhyolite was a much bigger operation than I’d realized.

It was poised to become the largest mining town in the state and had a whopping three railroads serving it. Unfortunately, the fancy train depot they built in 1907 to receive all these visitors only turned a profit in its first year, then started seeing more departures than arrivals. It ultimately closed in 1919 and the tracks were pulled up and transported elsewhere. The building went on to be several other things through the years as the town finally dried up.

Historic photos scattered around showed a town of many blocks in each direction, but so little remains, you wouldn’t know it. Was lumber precious enough in this region that they dismantled most of the town and took it with them?

And from there, in keeping with tradition, we made a brief fuel stop and photo-op at The Denny’s (and casino, motel, gas station, candy store, jerky and nuts emporium, and Subway) to prove we’d been there. Then it was time to book it for Vegas.

After I dropped Dad at Not-McCarran-Anymore International Airport, I went to pick up a couple things from REI and go for a run in the hills of Henderson at the edge of yet-another-obnoxiously-opulent “yield to golf carts” suburb.

And now I’m at a one-night AirBnB as a rented room in a house occupied by its owner family, which is not my usual arrangement. I received thorough instructions on how to get in and which room was mine, but the listing was clear that it is a “self-check-in routine” and the hosts respect guest privacy. All of which is to say… I feel weird that I broke into some family’s house to take a shower and I can hear them moving around upstairs but haven’t spoken to them.