A big western loop: day 3

I started the morning in Barstow, California, at one of the last hotels I could find a room in the night before, aiming this day to shoot for a jeep trail north of Las Vegas by noon. After I completed the trail, I'd decide where to go next.

Speaking of the night before, I had to park super far from the hotel because every spot was taken up by a white government work truck. There must be a giant federal project somewhere in the Mojave desert because when I hit the road at 9am, almost the entire parking lot was empty.

State line

I headed towards Vegas and I realized I haven't driven the 15 freeway from Southern California to Vegas since the mid-1990s and forgot about how stark the state line is, with the giant casinos trying to entice you to skip the 40 extra minutes of driving into Las Vegas and instead lose your money at the border. The hotels and casinos looked pretty sad and not at all busy and I pressed on.

I didn't take a photo of the best moment on this freeway but there's still a remarkable view no matter what time of day or year, when you're racing across an empty desert of nothingness, then suddenly, boom, the mountains part and up ahead you see a freaky sparkling horizon with its skyscrapers, roller coasters, and pyramids.

You finally made it to bizarro world.

Red rocks

I must admit I'm not much of a fan of Las Vegas. I grew up going there 3-4 times a year because my (somewhat gambling-addicted) dad loved driving there for quick weekend trips and though I enjoyed myself in the immense arcade of Circus Circus in the 1980s with a refillable cup of coke and a $10 roll of quarters in my hands, Las Vegas to me reminds me a lot of New Year's Eve as a holiday. Everyone talks about how much they love Vegas and New Year's separately as concepts, and people seem to enjoy both quite a bit, but I've had a lot of terrible experiences that happened to coincide with both things and I associate mostly bad times with Vegas and nothing but bad experiences on most New Year's Eves of the past.

Thankfully, I got to drive mostly around Vegas as I needed to shoot north about 30 minutes as I climbed up to 5,000 feet of elevation in the Red Rocks Canyon area. I was there to follow the official Jeep Badge of Honor trail at Rocky Gap.

The Jeep automobile company maintains a list of 50 trails in America (complete with a Foursquare-like app where you "check in" to each trail and they mail you a free plastic badge afterwards) and they've blessed each trail with a badge of honor status. I can tell after doing a dozen of these trails that someone takes the list and their job very seriously because it's clear they're well-curated. They always pick interesting trails that combine great views with fun obstacles that put your jeep through its paces.

This trail was no different, offering gorgeous climbs to the tops of ridges then descents into canyons. The "tough" bit of it was a long, dry riverbed with large stones littered throughout that you had to pick your way through. It was mostly gravel roads before and after that gnarly rock garden before descending back towards Las Vegas and finally getting to see red rocks in the canyons.

I made a quick video of clips from my day on the trail:

Some more photos from the day

Grand Canyon?

I finished the Rocky Gap trail by early afternoon, and noticed it was only a few hours drive to the south rim of the Grand Canyon. I've never seen the Grand Canyon in deep winter, and since I had my Jeep with snow-rated tires on it, I was ready to see it blanketed in white. I've even got family in Flagstaff I could stop and see for the first time in many years.

Fortunately, the Grand Canyon has live webcams but unfortunately, when I loaded them up to check the weather and status I saw this:

Not a lick of snow in sight. We really have broken the climate, huh?

It was kind of a shock to see it in mid-January with zero snow even though it's at 7,000 feet of elevation. I know climate isn't the same as weather but I've done week-long hikes into the base of the Grand Canyon and it has snowed on me while walking out of the canyon in April and May of past years. The winter is looking quite mild this year (and probably most years into the future).

A four-state day!

I decided then and there to skip the Grand Canyon and press on towards Utah along interstate 15. The freeway dropped into Arizona for about a half hour before I headed up toward St. George and the rest of southern Utah and then I finally got to Moab around midnight.

In a single day, I started in California, ventured into Nevada for several hours, dipped into Arizona, then drove all night across Utah. I experienced four different US states in one day, something I don't think I've ever done in my life (I've yet to visit Four Corners, USA). It's rare in the western US to do stuff like this, where states can go on for hundreds of miles in every direction, but I suppose a quick road trip through New England someday could net me half a dozen or more states in a single day.

The following day would be a big trail day in my favorite place on earth, Moab, Utah.