Enter the Wild Valley of Fire State Park -

Look at a topographical map of the United States and find the big mass of crinkled brown. That will be my home for the next 14 days. The extreme landforms of this part of the country are otherworldly, beautifully impractical. Lack of easy access to water and its canyons, cliffs, hoodoos, fins, and spires inhibit the development that has so ravaged the rest of our land and so much of it remains as it was in Precambrian and Paleozoic eras–untamed. I enter her humbly and respect her rules. She is not mine to conquer in some quest of self-satisfaction and egotism, I simply wish to be near her majesty. So badly.

So let’s begin Day 1 into the brown crinkle– starting less than an hour from Las Vegas, but a world away. Valley of Fire State Park, a land of marbled red sandstone and pale limestone smoothed and stacked by millions of years of time, was once underwater. Continental Drift then created a desert which was then thrust faulted into sandstone. Erosion, the master sculptor, then swooped and swirled it, depositing minerals that would give it its contrasting colorful layers. In 2020 its timeline includes me. At the crack of dawn.

Entering early, I wanted to get the hikes I wanted to do under my fanny pack before the heat would make them dangerous. But on the way, a stop at the gorgeous Pastel Canyon–not on the map but well worth it. And the coolest herd of Bighorn sheep.