Vegas: Valley of Fire part 2

Valley of Fire is massive; the kind of expansive that would make an agoraphobic clutch up their hands and shriek in abject recoiling panic. 40,000 acres is a lot of land, and there's a lot of sand, stone and sky occupying that grand space. We spent the majority of our day here and still didn't see a fraction of everything there is to find or photograph. Every step we took was temporarily recorded in the sand, only to be blown away with the next strong gusts as we dipped our toes in the ocean of desert. The same was true for all sorts of life- we found a complicated tapestry of prints scattered among the bushes, a rich story of the creatures making this harsh environment their home. Even with all the tourist traffic and human footfall entering the area the local inhabitants seem to be doing quite well if the scattered piles of scat and abundant variety of tracks were any indication. Given the ephemeral nature of prints in sand and the frequent gusts we can get out here, we can only presuppose that the prints we witnessed during our trek were fairly fresh, maybe not within the hour but likely sometime in the same day or the night prior.  This is in contrast to the petroglyphs and ancient artefacts of prehistoric civilisations and species that also abound throughout the valley. History lingers while life invariably goes on, legends of the past looming on stone faces above a web of interspecies interaction. I doubt the rabbits care much for our stories, but who knows? Maybe they see human prints in their sandy home and contemplate their origins, coming up with their own tales of mysterious bipedal giants who occasionally stumble through.

More photos after the cut...

 

 

 

 

Until next time!

XOXO,

NAU