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| Today I went hiking in Sloan Canyon. The canyon is south of Henderson about 20 minutes drive from my brother and sister-in-law's house. |
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| From the Sloan Canyon trailhead I could look across the valley and see Red Rock Canyon in the distance. |
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| I could also see the Las Vegas skyline. |
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| The trail is along a dry streambed. |
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| Mojave Yucca grows along the trail. |
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| Walking on the trail was like walking on fine gravel and sometimes it meant clambering up dry waterfall channels! |
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| This is a bird's nest on the branches of an acacia tree along the trail. |
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| This zebra-tailed lizard is about 3 inches long. When it is startled, it lifts up its tail and waves it around. This defensive action mimics the movements of a scorpion. By doing this, the zebra-tailed lizard hopes to scare its predator away. |
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| California Barrel Cactuses grow in little nooks and crannies between the rocks. This one was about a foot tall. |
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| There were several places on the trail where I had to climb up the channel of a dry waterfall. Some were small, like this one.... |
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| While others were more challenging - like the one in the center of this photo which was a climb of about 15 feet. |
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| But just beyond the top of the dry waterfall were these petroglyphs! |
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| and these.... |
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| and these! |
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| There were many different petroglyphs on the rocks lining the canyon. |
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| Google says there are 1,700 petroglyphs in Sloan Canyon! It says the petroglyphs vary in age from prehistoric to historic times. |
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| What do they mean? What Native Americans carved them? |
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| Seeing the petroglyphs made the 4.5 mile hike worth it, but I left with more questions than I came with... |
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| The volcanic rocks in Sloan Canyon have a different story to tell... |
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| I'll have to visit again! |
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