Itinerary: Valley of Fire State Park
The Itinerary posts are actual trips that I’ve taken. The intent is to provide some inspiration or guidance in planning your own adventure to these locations. I organize the posts day-by-day to show what the area has to offer, and provide a look into what a family-friendly or solo-trip photography adventure to these amazing places can look like.
Flights
This trip was unique in that Las Vegas was a through destination on my way home from a work trip to Seattle. I took an 8am flight from Seattle and arrived in Las Vegas at 10:30 local time on Thursday. Looking back, this was too late in the day. Las Vegas is a cool city, and the airport is mostly fine. There are slot machines everywhere, and the people-watching is outstanding. It does a great job of making you feel like you’re in Vegas as soon as you land. But their rental car system is atrocious.
Be prepared to wait in line for 45 minutes or more to catch a shuttle to the rental car hub. I have rented from Las Vegas airport twice now, and both experiences were exactly the same. Long lines outside in the heat (only a portion of the line is covered), frustratingly watching your time on your first day tick by without much recourse.
My flight out was a midnight red-eye on Friday night, returning back to my home airport at around 9am.
Accommodations
I stayed a single night at the North Shore Inn in a small town called Moapa Valley. It was a surprisingly nice little hotel with friendly staff and clean rooms.
Moapa Valley is the closest area of civilization to the State Park, and as I say in my guide to planning weekend photography trips, make sure you rent a room as close as possible to where you want to take your early morning photos.
Day 1 - Thursday
Morning
By the time I had finally gotten my rental car and luggage (I had extended a work trip, so I had a week’s worth of luggage and was unable to pack light), it was almost noon. I grabbed lunch a few minutes away from the airport at a place called Taco Y Taco and ate the best Mexican food of my entire life. Seriously, hit this place up if you ever find yourself in Las Vegas. I consider myself an adventurous eater and will always try new places to eat and despite that, I have eaten at Taco Y Taco three times despite only visiting Las Vegas twice.
My meal from Taco y Taco
I promise this will not turn into a food blog, but if you eat meat, get the pork al pastor vampiro. One of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Its the concoction on the right in the photo, next to my three tacos (I was starving when I arrived).
Afternoon
After lunch, I made a pitstop at Target to pick up some Gatorade because it was HOT, and then left the city to head out to Valley of Fire State Park.
The Park is about an hour’s drive outside of the city, and I was staying in Moapa Valley, a town very close to the Park. So I took my time and drove through local roads instead of taking the Interstate to my hotel. I spent a lot of time in the car cooling off, but would occasionally step out and do small walks from the Route 167 in the 100+ degree heat to see what I could find.
I had researched a few areas in Google Maps before arriving and decided to visit them and start composing, but wasn’t able to find anything worth coming back to. I often use my phone’s camera to do test compositions because it is fairly close in focal length to my 16mm lens. Below are some of the compositions I considered while driving South of the Park that I didn’t end up following up on.
After some scouting, I checked into my hotel, took a shower, and called my family to check in. Because of the time difference with them on the East Coast, I was able to catch my daughter for a video call before bed time.
Evening
Before it got too late, I headed back out onto the road, this time with the intent to actually take some photos. The Park closes to visitors at sundown, so for the first evening I stuck to Route 167 that I had driven on to get into town. Rather than do wide-angles, which I had determined from my scouting wasn’t really going to work in this area, I focused on capturing vignettes off in the distance in the amazing rock formations. I kept my 70-350mm lens on the entire evening and the photos below were all zoomed in shots on a tripod from the side of the road. Since the sky wasn’t particularly interesting, I focused on capturing the light on these incredibly textured rocks.
I stayed out to watch the sun set in the desert, which is amazing, and then headed back to my hotel. A quick McDonalds dinner in town (one of the few places still open by the time I got back), and then quick to bed so I could get up before dawn for some photography!
Day 2 - Friday
Morning
They don’t let you into Valley of Fire State Park until sunrise, which is unfortunate because I would’ve loved to get there before dawn. Technically there’s no barrier or anything, but there are signs saying it’s unlawful to enter before sunrise and when it comes to State and National Parks or other areas of natural beauty, I’m going to follow the rules. But I still got up early and made my way slowly towards the Park, which was only about 20 minutes from my hotel.
Let’s talk for a minute about sunrise. In the desert, you get these absolutely wild hues in the sky that I'‘ve never seen anywhere else. It’s also so empty and so open that I could really feel the Earth turning and the sun coming into view.
Taken with my phone camera at just after 5am, while waiting near the entrance for the Park to open
Once I entered the Park, my first stop was Rainbow Vista Trail. This is a great little trail that starts off in the sand and then proceeds through some craggy canyons.
If I had researched more carefully, I probably would not have done this trail. At least not at this time of day. I hadn’t thought about it before, but canyons are actually a terrible place to get early morning/low sun photos. If you’re surrounded by high walls on both sides, You’re never going to get any actual sun. I had a vision in my head of the light shining directly down the canyon like an X-Wing entering the Death Star chasm, but in reality I was just walking in shadow with no real photo opportunities the entire time.
While I didn’t come out with many photos, I came out with a lesson that has improved every subsequent adventure. I’m happy for the experience because I now consider my surroundings a lot more when I’m planning my trips. I know to avoid canyons or deep valleys in low light unless I’ve done the sun research (I use PhotoPills now) to know that the light is going to hit perfectly to actually give me some light inside the canyon.
Near the trailhead, before the canyon started, I was able to capture a nice image of the sands and brush. I had been eager to experiment with the plant life as foreground in this location, and I knew that the naturally spaced out nature of these plants would make for an interesting texture. So I spent some time composing with the rock outcroppings and came out of the hike with at least one decent photo:
I’m really happy with the foreground in this photo. The soft, bluish color and the texture contrasts nicely with the grainy red sand and striated rocks, and the angles work a nice zig-zag from bottom to top, even continuing with the angles of the clouds above.
Some nice light could have warmed up the image a bit and added a bit more depth to the background, but I actually do like tat the early morning feel comes through and reminds me of exactly what I experienced on the day.
Lastly, I’m not nuts about the footprints in the sand (some of which are fauna footprints and not human), but unless I was willing to go well off the trail and risk disturbing the local flora, there wasn’t really any way to avoid it.
After Rainbow Vista, I headed a little further down the road to the Fire Wave Trail. The sun was coming up but I wanted to do some scouting to see if the area would offer some compositions for the evening golden hour. I was excited for the rippling rock formations along the trail and the shadows that I would get, so even though the sun was getting higher and it was getting hot out, I scouted a while to find some compositions that I could come back to later.
The image on the left was shot in the sun coming form the left, and I assumed that the shadows would be more dramatic if I came back that evening. Unfortunately when I came back, the sun was perhaps a little bit too low, and the shadows, while dramatic, became distracting. I also lost the clouds in the sky, so the image as a whole became less interesting.
In the end, while I liked the composition with the lines in the rock and the tufted plant in the foreground, I didn’t come away with a version of that photo that I was super pleased with.
But that doesn’t meant that the evening hike was a failure, and we’ll get to some of my favorite shots later on.
Afternoon
The very hot late morning and early afternoon were spent in the town of Moapa Valley. It was over 100 degrees outside, so I didn’t feel comfortable doing any more location scouting. I drove into town and had to grab lunch at Criss Angel’s Breakfast, Lunch & Pizza, stylized as “CAblp” I mean, how could I not at least check it out? Do not eat at Criss Angel’s Breakfast, Lunch & Pizza. I had a vanilla latte from their “signature espresso bar” that supposedly serves a “superior, secrete blend” of coffee. It was undrinkable. I had the MindFreak Burger, which was anything but. The single most underwhelming burger I think I’ve ever had.
I still can’t believe this place actually exists. And that it’s this bad. I still think about it from time to time though. MindFreak, I guess.
I used this time to also check out of my hotel and grab one more, actually good, iced latte from Kuppa Joe Coffee. If you like good coffee and are in the Valley of Fire area, this is your best bet. Super friendly staff and a strong but refreshing latte.
I had several hours to kill before it started to cool down a bit, but I re-entered the Park and drove around to simply experience the desert. Even in the middle of the day, when the photos aren’t going to turn out great and it’s a hundred degrees out, the Park is still beautiful. I enjoyed driving around and searching for local wildlife.
Evening
Evening was spent mostly back on the Fire Wave Trail, which I had scouted earlier in the day. Although the sky was cloudless, the light was awesome. I had to be careful not to catch too much in shadow, but came away with some great images. I caught most on my way back to the car, looking at the trail from a different angle on the return trip highlighted some great features.
This is, I have to imagine, why they call this trail “Fire Wave Trail”
As I mention in my blog post about photographing in any sky conditions, if there are no clouds to create visual interest, try shooting without a horizon.. At this location, the rocks were so beautiful with the light coming in at almost a 90 degree angle that I had a lot of fun playing with light and shadow. They’re not “landscape photos” in the traditional sense, but rather photos of the landscape.
I finished up before the sun went down by taking vignette shots with my zoom lens of mountain peaks that were catching the last of the sun’s rays.
What really stuck me about Valley of Fire State Park were the colors. At a glance when you look online to do some initial scouting, you probably see the orange-red rock. You’ll see some lighter white smooth rocks as well. But what doesn’t come through until you actually visit the place is how all of the colors come together and can be captured in one image. The reds, the whites, the purples from the hazy backgrounds, the yellows and pinks of the sunrise or sunset sky, and the green of the plants that are dotting the landscape. I know there’s only one trail and area that’s called Rainbow Vista, but truly the whole area had such a uniquely varied color palette. When the sun is low, the place transforms into an undulating rainbow.
The final photo I’d like to talk about was a complete happenstance photo that was probably only capturable for a few minutes. I consider myself very fortunate that I stumbled across this amazing site below:
Like many of my favorite images, it’s not an image that’s perfectly composed, or has an incredible foreground or sky. But what I love about it is that I had such a fun time taking the shot and getting excited about what I was seeing. And that, for me, is what I love most about landscape photography. When, despite all my research and preparation, I stumble across something I wasn’t expecting to see that connects me to the location in a very intimate way. When I see something that excites me, and then my mind races to use my camera and skills to try to capture the experience.
For the photo above, the sun was just disappearing over the horizon off-camera, and light was coming in at almost a 90 degree angle. The light bounced off of the unique overhang rock formation and reflected down onto the smooth, striated rock below. It was not super perceptible, but was enough to catch my eye and make me think, wait, what’s going on here? I didn’t understand what I was seeing at first, because the there was a bright patch of light on a rock that was otherwise in shadow. It didn’t make sense until my mind put everything together, and then I spent the next 5 minutes trying to capture from various angles and compose the shot. This condition didn’t last long, which made it all the more special. With more time I may have been able to capture a better shot, but it would have also reduced the impact of such a fleeting moment.
Once the sun finally went down, I got back in my rental car, changed my sandy black socks that were now red with desert dust, and drove all the way back to Las Vegas Airport. I grabbed my midnight flight and made it back to my family on Saturday morning.
