Valley of Fire

For years, as we drove through St. George to Las Vegas and on to Santa Barbara where our daughter attended college, we would pass the signs for Valley of Fire State Park, located northeast of Vegas.

Seems like we never had the opportunity to stop, but finally, in October of 2020, we were able to spend a day visiting this seeming protrusion of deeply colored red Aztec sandstone rock, surrounded by desolate and bland stretches of the Mohave desert with its limestone hills. The 40,000 acre park is served by a visitor center and campground. In the 1920s the name was coined by a AAA official traveling through the park at sunset. This person purportedly said that the entire valley looked like it was on fire; hence the name. 

The main park road leads to a picnic and parking area in what is called, “The White Domes.” This is perhaps the most intriguing and colorful area of the park with strong contrasts between the red, Aztec sandstone and other sandstone devoid (or leached out) of the iron oxides that create the red color. In places, colorful banding occurs with reds, tans, yellows and orange colors all alternated between layers and near vertical “fins” of protruding rock. This photo is just one of many fascinating representations of those fins and colors, taken right at sunset. As explained by a geologist friend of ours, what is seen here are “cross cutting fractures that are filled with a secondary mineralization, subsequent to the deposition of the sandstone.”