Calico Hills

The red rock national monument is just outside Las Vegas city territory - so it's "only" 20 kilometers drive on big straight roads form the centre of the city to get to city borders. At this point you can already see the rocks, as they are really really red even from a distance. From far away they almost look small, compared to the other dark mountains surrounding the city, just a speck of redness. But once we got into the park, and parked at the first viewpoint, they felt really really big: we kept spotting hiking people and wondering how tiny they are, and realising that boulders that looked small, were the size of a small building. At this first stop we only walked around a little bit, and claimed up one empty boulder. It is really fun to climb around the sandstone, as the plastic of our shoes really sticks to it, it is like having gravity boots on! Then we drove on a bit more on the scenic 20 km route, and I chose a reasonable looking hiking trail to do. We were a bit tired and hungover at first, but walking around really helped to wake up up. It was a really really scenic walk, mostly in a canyon surrounded by various colours of red rocks. Also, quite a lot of bushes, plants, and cactuses were flowering too. In the end we were rewarded with a view of the whole city of Las Vegas, we could easily make out multiple famous casino buildings. It really made you see how big and stretched out the town is, it is crazy that only 600 thousand people live there!Read more