Ice Box Canyon Trail

First up though, we made our way to the Las Vegas Renaissance Fair Friday night, of which I feel we are kind of connoisseurs since we went to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair (which is the 2nd largest in the US) twice back East. Yea. It didn't quite live up to those standards, because as you can imagine there are a LOT weirder folks here in Vegas attracted to these sorts of things. I really ought to have taken pictures of some of the characters out and about, but then this blog would have been rated R. It was a strange cross between ex-stripper-meets-pirate-wench costuming, but at least Jon got his turkey leg, right?

Saturday we headed up to Red Rock Canyon about 30 miles west of Las Vegas. It's a national park, so there are lots of hiking trails and picnicing areas to choose from. With the cooler weather coming (hooray! it was 85 opposed to 105) we figured it'd be a great day to get out.

We decided to take the kiddos on one of the shorter trails called Ice Box Canyon, which was supposed to be 2.6 miles round trip and categorized as "Easy" and good for kids. I beg to differ. I don't think they meant for 3 year olds. There were lots of rocks and elevation climbs for Lucy to scramble over, but she handled them like a champ!

Beautiful Nevada dessert! It aint Valley Forge but it'll do!


We hiked right between those mountains down into the canyon below. It was a little scary knowing that if there was a rock slide or earth quake or flash flood we'd be toast. You could hear your echo really clearly off the high walls so Lucy and Zach were pretty enamored with that.


As we hiked into the shadows of the canyon it actually started getting a little chilly, so all of the bugs and insects and lizards were moving out of their hiding spots to find warmer ones. We had to literally walk right by this HUGE tarantula-- and I kept thinking to myself, "If he moves, I can step on him!" But unfortunately he was as big or bigger than my foot. Ugh. After about 2 miles in, there was no way that the trail was going to loop around in another .6 miles, so we decided we'd better turn around and head back the way we came. Lucy made it about half way back and then Jon ended up having to carry not only Zachy on back but Lucy in front. What a stud!! It was a fun hike.