We managed to squeeze in a short Las Vegas road trip during our Thanksgiving visit to see family in Phoenix. This was my third trip to Vegas and this time I did things a bit differently. During my first and second trips to Vegas I spent most of my time on the Strip with limited time in the Nevada desert. This time around, I knew I wanted to try my hand at landscape photography in the Nevada desert. If you do visit Vegas, try and squeeze in a day trip to the areas outside the city. There are some great drives and treks.
Obviously it helped that this was not the middle of summer so it wasn’t 1000 degrees at midday–thank goodness.
For the two days we had to explore I didn’t really have a list of places to visit and shoot. I thought we could wing it. The only place that was as a “must-see” was the Seven Magic Mountains art installation.
After visiting the art installation, and getting sand blown in our faces by strong wind gusts, we took the road less travelled (literally) towards what I would later discover is the Jean/Roach Dry Lake area.
We discovered this area completely by accident (although it is popular with people who like dune bugging). We drove a few minutes beyond the art installation and were just about to make a U-turn and head back to the city when we discovered a sign for “Ranch Road”. Thinking we would find an old western ranch, we decided to be adventurous. I’m so glad we did this.
During the drive down “Ranch Road” scenes from horror movies flashed through my mind because we were the only ones on this road and it was QUIET. It was also a weird type of quiet to me. Without trees or birds/insects chirping the only sound was a light breeze. We debated turning around a few times but decided to drive on and it led to some great photos.
We ended up going off-road in the rental car after driving a few miles down this deserted road. There was no scaling sand dunes or anything crazy. We drove through the dry lake bed as the sun was setting. I took more photos including the next two below which are my favorites from the whole trip in the Nevada desert. In the first photo you can still see some of the water left in the lake bed.
Need to go off-road more often
On our way back to Phoenix we made a couple of stops in the Lake Mead/Hoover Dam area to take photos. I’ve done the Hoover Dam tour in the past so we didn’t stop for very long.
Lake Mead
This final shot reminds me a little bit of scenes from the “All Gold Canyon” chapter in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
All Gold Canyon?
Overall this was a good trip. I could definitely see myself spending a few more days exploring the national parks in the Nevada/Arizona/New Mexico/Utah desert areas. In fact one of my bucket list items is staying in a suite at Amangiri resort in Utah.
The light, landscapes, emptiness, even the weird quiet made for some great photos. I would also love to try my hand at nighttime astrophotography and this part of the US is perfect for clear skies and stars.
My last post was about whale watching in the Pacific Northwest. If you haven’t already, check it out for a completely different color scheme and landscape.
