Ice Box Canyon

Las Vegas is an interesting city to explore even if you don’t gamble or hang out in the casinos. Some of the best hiking in the southwest can be found in the area around Las Vegas. This make it possible to do cool hikes during the day and then hang out on the strip at night

Just to the North and West of Las Vegas is a national conservation area called Red Rock canyon. Its part of a BLM area and has some great hiking trails and rock climbing areas. We have explored many of the hikes along this area.

One of the many trails along the mountains to the west is Ice Box Canyon. On this trip we had a friend Rich along and packed a lunch for a day trip into the Canyon. The canyons name “Icebox” comes from the unique features of water and canyon walls that create a much cooler environment in the canyon than the surrounding area. We parked along the Scenic Red Rock Drive in the BLM park and had lunch as a bench on the first part of the trail leading up to the Canyon. The hike is a pretty easy hike so lunch has a bottle of wine included.

After lunch we set off for the canyon in the distance between two mountain peaks.

Here you can see the entrance to the canyon. It looks almost like a crack in the face of a cliff.

Getting closer to the entrance you can feel the cool air coming out of the canyon.

At the far end of the canyon is small water fall in the wet season with a pool of water at the base,

Water trickles down from higher up in the Spring mountain chain and eventually makes it way to the valley floor

Its a neat place to spend some time. Margaret and Rich pose for a picture.

Then all of the hikers.

On the way back out of the Canyon while you are still higher up you are treated to a great view of the strange Gray and Red mountain of rocks that the BLM area is names for “Red Rock Canyon”

Back to the hot tub at the hotel in Vegas!