Silica Dome Trip

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This was my first trip to the Valley of Fire. It was worth every minute. The views reminded me of Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. The scrambling opportunities are endless.

The Scramble

This was my 1st trip ever to the Valley of Fire. We had 6 people in our group. We drove from Las Vegas up I-15 Taking the Valley of Fire exit on HWY 169. Great views of the Muddy Mountains were enjoyed on the drive in. We were coming to do a scramble hike to Silica Dome. We arrived at the visitor center and parked.

We started hiking and scrambling north from the visitor center and the views were startling from the beginning. We scrambled over several class 3 and 4 sections. We continued on through many little canyons. The views were great with so many different rock formations. I saw one that looked like an owl, another like an eagle. I was lucky to see a little lizard as well. We came across a rock that resembled an elephant, though it was not the famous “Elephant Rock” that is well known in the park.



Everyone seemed to take different scrambles depending on their abilities. There were so many choices. It felt like being a little kid all over again. We came accross several lovely formations.




A hiker in my group looked up at this one rock and said "look at the owl, can you see it's eye?"

We passed Mouse’s Tank, one of the most visited attractions in the park. We continued on and could see Silica Dome finally show its face in the distance.

As we were getting close to Silica Dome we headed through a wash for a long ways and towards the end we went from hiking through Red Sandstone to White Sandstone. We started scrambling up over some of this and found it very brittle. We started trying different routes. The majority went through this boulder field as me and a few others tried scrambling over a cliff. I went back down and started up the boulder field but then tried to scramble over a section scene on the left side of this boulder field. I got stuck as there was no good grips and one of my hiking buddies threw down some webbing which aided me back down. I then scrambled through the boulder field and then finished up the rest of the hike/scramble to Silica Dome. This took over 4 hrs taking this route. We hiked down the road to head back to our cars. One person got a hitched a ride in the back of a pickup and came back to get the rest of our group except for one guy who jogged all the way back to the visitor center.

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