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| Morning at the Painted Pinnacles |
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| Morning at the Painted Pinnacles |
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| Late Morning at the old Buena Vista Campground |
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| Abandoned Road leading to the Painted Pinnacles |
Sunday, the Three Musketeers drove up to Valley of Fire State Park and parked at the Fire Canyon Road Trailhead. We arrived at 8:30am and the morning sun had only a small head start on the sunrise display. Colors were everywhere and it was beautiful. We hiked out toward Silica Dome and turned left onto the small trail that led down and around the hill in front of the parking lot. A right turn on the service road, Old Fire Canyon Road, led toward a large intersection of vague old roads. We crossed over to the old, barely visible track that led to the east. We had the benefit of footprints in the sand in front of us leading the way. At almost a mile from the trailhead, we were at the junction of the Painted Pinnacles Trail. It turns down to the right.
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| Ralyn and Rita with Silica Dome in Background |
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| Entering Painted Pinnacles from Trail |
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| Ralyn follows trail down into Painted Pinnacles |
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| Rita and a Window |
This trail descends down to the floor of the pinnacle canyon and dropped us into the main small wash of this area. The colors were vibrant! We hiked up the main wash until we saw an inviting slot on the left side. We had to explore! Afterwards, we returned to the wash and continued following it around to the left at the base of Baseline Mesa. There is some challenging scrambling as you climb up out of the wash to the overlook above but it wasn't a problem for us. We turned, saying good-bye to the gorgeous colors, and started our scramble up the side of the mesa. There are several routes you can create. I have not done this section the same way twice! Today, we picked a challenging route keeping in mind that the sandstone was wet, crumbly and loose.
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| Large Pinnacle on floor of the Painted Pinnacles |
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| Color abounds at the Pinnacles |
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| The Three Musketeers |
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| The Painted Pinnacles from the Overlook |
The secret is to go slow and pick your steps and handholds carefully. We did just that and it took us around 20 minutes to do the quarter mile scramble. Baseline Mesa spread out before us as we stepped on top over the rim. It is a very large mesa and we had to hike from one end of it to the other, about 0.75 mile. Although you don't have to, a good route is to stay fairly close to the left side of the mesa so that you don't hike too far to the right. When you reach the end of the "tail," there will likely be a cairn marking a drop onto a trail on the right side. This trail circles around the end of the mesa, below the rim, and continues to follow a long trailing ridge that leads to an old approach road and the old Buena Vista Campground (circa 1935).
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| Climbing one route up to top of Baseline Mesa |
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| The view from scramble climb Up |
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| Still Scrambling Up |
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| On top of Baseline Mesa |
The trail is in better shape from top to bottom than the last time I was here in 2020. We could see the campground from about a quarter mile up the ridge trail. "Oh, Stonehenge!," Ralyn exclaimed. Yes, it does look a little out of place at first, but it is a cool place to visit. We sat at the old barbecue and had our break and snack. Next, we went back up the ridge trail 0.15 mile to a trail that led off to the right. This trail dropped us down into the slotty washes below and we picked a particularly fun slot to drop into the main wash below. I believe the main wash is called Simplot Wash. The first obstacle we came to as we hike up the sand was the same one that I muddied my pants on last time I was here. The mud is still there!
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| The Trail around to Ridge |
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| Old Campground from Ridge Trail |
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| Different Views of the old Campground |
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| Hiking the Trail down to Exit Wash |
Someone has, thankfully, loaded a lot of small rocks in the mud below the climb up. We balanced on the rocks and helped each other step up into the very narrow corkscrew slot, passing hiking sticks and backpacks as we went. Fun! There were a few more interesting scrambles in Simplot Wash but they were all a bit easier than that first one. We made our way up the sandy wash passing a couple of large ponds of water. These were not in our way at all. Finally approaching the old Fire Canyon Road, we were a little confused with washes and road-like terrain. But, we did figure it out ... thanks to Ralyn and Rita ... and we started up the hill on the dirt/gravel road.
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| Interesting Slot Drop |
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| Interesting Slot Climb |
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| In the Scramble Wash |
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| Water Hole in Scramble Wash |
The road gently climbed the hill passing by the Pale Washes area of the park for about a mile. When we reached the trail that we had used in the beginning, we turned to the left and followed it back to the car.
Although we were there on an, as usual, busy Sunday, we didn't come across any other hikers after leaving or before getting back to the trailhead. This was the first time I have visited Valley of Fire and not seen any bighorns! They were all up at White Domes entertaining our fantastic leaders Ron and Sandi and the rest of their group!
Stats: 6.4 miles; 1100' gain; 4.5 hours
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| A Dinosaur with a Lobectomy |
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| Return on the old Fire Canyon Road |
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| Salmon Colored Rock on Trail near Silica Dome |
