Sierra: Leaving Las Vegas - one visitor's preference for the beauty of Red Rock Canyon rather than t

Shimmering Red Rock Canyon has a glow all its own

The security guard had me in his sights the moment I stepped off the elevator. I couldn't blame the guy for his suspicions, dressed as I was in the accoutrements of an amateur naturalist--mud-caked boots, threadbare pack, requisite funny hat. This is not the standard uniform in a Las Vegas casino, and the guard surely wondered what nefarious use I might have for the binoculars around my neck. He stalked me through the forest of slot machines, past the all-you-can-eat buffet, and finally snared me near the blackjack tables.

I assured him I was a hotel guest, albeit not much of a gambler, and said I planned to spend my morning trekking the trails of Red Rock Canyon rather than cruising the famous Strip. I pointed helpfully toward the Mojave some 20 miles west of the roulette wheels, but his eyes only narrowed. He'd never heard of Red Rock. So I suggested he step outside and peer down Tropicana Boulevard toward the predawn horizon to see the massive sandstone facade for himself. He flashed a thin, if charitable, smile, then walked away.

I wasn't surprised. When it comes to Vegas, how often do cliffs and canyons come to anyone's mind? Where else has a city so successfully walled itself off from the realities of its own geography? Las Vegas is a hermetically sealed, artificially lit, climate-controlled mirage, its endless casinos as oblivious to locality as space stations. Each mimics a different place--pharaonic Egypt, medieval England, modern Manhattan--while turning a windowless back on the desert that surrounds it.

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area is a small portion of the fragile desert tableau that frames this town. It marks the western edge of the Las Vegas valley, the red and yellow sandstone of the Wilson Cliffs reaching 7,000 feet into the Nevada sky. On the morning I made my escape from the casino, that rock wall burned like a beacon. First light turned it crimson, and I suddenly understood why a park ranger had described the effect as "nature's neon." A soft May snow dusted its crown. Joshua trees cut angular, inky silhouettes against its vertical walls. And across the desert floor, globe mallow bloomed, a thousand apricot corollas glowing like embers.

I parked the car and began to hike up Pine Creek Canyon, one of many steep-walled defiles that carve through these cliffs. I made my way through ponderosa pines, which survive the Mojave thanks to the moisture and cooler temperatures the cliffs and canyon provide. As I climbed, and the canyon narrowed, I found other desert anomalies: the sound of tumbling water, emerald pools bordered by ferns and shaded by small groves of single-leaf ash. It was into these canyons that the Paiutes, and the ancient Pueblo before them, escaped the summer heat. As I climbed I pulled in sweet, cool air, grateful to be out of the terra-cotta cloud that shrouds the valley below, a daily dust storm kicked up by the breaking of ground for new homes, new malls, new casinos.

Las Vegas is growing faster than any city in America--at times spitting out a house an hour, spilling Bermuda grass, artificial lakes, and new residents into the Mojave in a flood of development that threatens to soon lap (as Eocene oceans once did) against Red Rock's eastern boundary. And as it grows, thirsts swell, and the city schemes to suck harder at the Colorado River, to dam the Virgin River (lifeblood of Zion National Park), and to drain the aquifers of northern Nevada.

Once, before air-conditioning and federally subsidized water, the Mojave welcomed only those willing to face it head-on. This hottest place on Earth (ground temperature once reached 201 degrees) demanded it. The Paiutes and Pueblo respected that, learning every dusty inch of this place, every plant, every critter, every precious pool of water. A few people in this valley still retain that respect. Some founded the local branch of the Sierra Club in part to save Red Rock Canyon from abuses that threatened in the 1960s. And, thankfully, as the population of the valley explodes, so does concern for preservation of surrounding wildlands.

Through the grace of their efforts, I could still hear the call of a canyon wren from my Pine Creek perch. I climbed higher. Hiking into the hills above cities is a favorite pastime of mine. Altitude allows a glimpse of the big picture: I can feel the thrum of geological time, grasp the sweep of evolution, and compare it to what lies below. Surrounded by the forces that formed the world, it's easier to imagine the past and peer toward the future.

And what I saw from the heights of Red Rock Canyon were signs of a species conflicted. As I sat cradled in the soft curves of a sandstone ledge, I wondered if the big-hearted side of human nature could ever win out over the myopic, megawatt urges that fuel this town, Las Vegas, the most visited place in the West. On any given day, the Luxor's laser show is a bigger draw than a Grand Canyon sunrise.

Yet, from this distance, Vegas looks brittle, ill-equipped for desert life, threatening to blister in the heat and blow away. It's a city surviving on technology and a gambler's logic, a city that cannot escape the Mojave's wrath forever. A mirage, after all, is just a mirage.

GUY HAND is a writer and photographer who lives in Santa Barbara, California. He wrote about the Scottish Highlands for Sierra's September/October 1998 issue.

Nevada wilderness activists are working to protect their state's largest and most ecologically valuable tracts of undeveloped public land. (Of the 47 million acres of BLM wilderness in the state, virtually none has permanent protection.) To get involved, contact Vicky Hoover, chair of the Sierra Club's California/Nevada Wilderness Committee, at (415) 977-5527 or via e-mail at vicky.hoover@sierraclub.org; or Marge Sill, public lands coordinator for the Toiyabe Chapter, at (702) 322-2867 or via e-mail at msill@juno.com. Also check out the Friends of Nevada Wilderness Web site at www.nevadawilderness.org.