Valley of Fire, Nevada

Travel 2 Minutes

HISTORY

Valley of Fire consists of bright red Aztec sandstone outcrops nestled in gray and tan limestone mountains.  The sandstone is from the Jurassic period and is the remnant of the sand left behind by the wind after inland seas subsided and the land rose. Early man moved into southern Nevada as far back as 11,000 years ago. The most obvious evidence of occupation is the petroglyphs carved into the rocks by the Basketmaker culture about 2,500 years ago, followed later by the Early Pueblo culture. Paiutes were living in this area in 1865 when Mormons settled at nearby St. Thomas at the south end of the Moapa Valley.  Farming, ranching and mining occurred in the region along a narrow stretch of water.

A rough road was built through this area in 1912 as part of the Arrowhead Trail, connecting Salt Lake City with Los Angeles. This road allowed people to travel through what became known as Valley of Fire.  In the 1920s the name was coined by an AAA official traveling through the park at sunset.  This person purportedly said that the entire valley looked like it was on fire; hence the name. It was also during the 1920s that the archeological richness and recreational possibilities of the area were recognized and about 8,500 acres of federal public domain, the original Valley of Fire tract, were given to the State of Nevada.

In 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps built the first facilities and campgrounds in the park.  On Easter Sunday in 1934, Valley of Fire was formally opened as Nevada’s first state park.  However, the park didn’t receive its legal designation from the Nevada State Legislature until the body convened in 1935.  Since then, the park has grown to its present size of more than 40,000 acres of multi-colored rock displaying a varied array of shapes and textures.

NATURA RESOURCES & CLIMATE

The area plant community is dominated by widely spaced creosote bush, burro bush and brittlebush. Several cactus species, including beaver tail and cholla, are also common. The springtime bloom of such plants as the desert marigold, indigo bush, and desert mallow are often spectacular along park roads.

Resident birds include the raven, house finch, sage sparrow and roadrunner. Many migrant birds also pass through the park. Most desert animals are nocturnal and not frequently seen by the passing motorist. Many species of lizards and snakes are common in the park, as well as the coyote, kit fox, spotted skunk, black tailed jackrabbit and antelope ground squirrel.

The desert tortoise is a rare species and is protected by state law. If you are lucky enough to come across one, please leave this likeable and harmless creature to live its life in peace in its own environment.

Winters are mild with temperatures ranging from freezing to 75˚F. Daily summer highs usually exceed 100˚F and may reach 120˚F. Summer temperatures can vary widely from day to night. Average annual rainfall is four inches, coming in the form of light winter showers and summer thunderstorms. Spring and fall are the preferred seasons for visiting the Valley of Fire.

SOURCE: NEVADA STATE PARKS

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Published by pat frederick

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78 thoughts on “Valley of Fire, Nevada”

  1. Morrning All

    the sun is trying to break but the clouds are thickening…not sure we’ll see it today at all. the temps are at 40* so we didn’t see any snow but the winds were awful.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Morning, Pat! Bright and sunny again here – temp was at 51 when I got up, now it’s 60. Thankfully, not as windy…so far anyway. I plan on tackling the front yard and flower beds today. But we’ll be back down with highs in the low 50’s next week, supposedly.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. he got to see what they have on HIM…that’s why he caved

        Translation: “I’ve been blackmailed and bribed by the same Ruling Class pricks that control the rest of DC.” For future reference, if RINO career politicians vote for a Speaker, don’t expect him or her to ever fight for the American people.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. i read a theory about why. President Trump is trying NOT to split the House and have the dems install speaker Jeffries, because you know they will and they will try to pass a law which prohibits President Trump from becoming President and the maggot will sign it.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. I know – yet another example within a plethora of examples of why I could NEVER run for office! My brain just doesn’t work that way. Black is black and white is white and there ain’t no in-between in my world – it’s either right or it’s wrong – period!

              Liked by 1 person

              1. you have to be able to stay ahead of the left’s schemes to win. if we allow them to keep the President from regaining office, we are morally right in getting rid of the speaker now and what happens, happens. and we’re worse off in the long run.
                this is why i can’t play chess effectively. I cannot see 3 moves into the future.

                Liked by 1 person

        1. BallotPedia: “In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed a law prohibiting noncitizens from voting in federal elections, including elections for the U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and presidential elections. This does not apply to elections at the state and local levels.[1]

          No state constitutions explicitly allowed noncitizens to vote in state or local elections. As of March 2024, seven states specified that noncitizens may not vote in state and local elections: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Ohio.[2]

          As of March 2024, six states have decided on six ballot measures related to citizenship requirements for voting since 2018. Voters approved each one. Three ballot measures related to citizenship requirements are scheduled to appear on the ballot in 2024 in Iowa, Kentucky, and Wisconsin.

          The District of Columbia and municipalities in three states allowed noncitizens to vote in local elections as of March 2024: California, Maryland, and Vermont.

          According to the Pew Research Center, there were over 25 million noncitizens living in the U.S. as of 2020. That included approximately 12 million permanent residents and 2 million temporary residents who were in the country with legal permission, as well as approximately 11 million immigrants who resided in the country without legal permission.[3]

          Whether noncitizens should be allowed to vote is a subject of debate. Click here for support and opposition arguments and here for more on the debate over the prevalence of non-citizen voting.”

          Like

  4. Feisty Hayseed
    Feisty Hayseed
    April 14, 2024 12:27 am

    FISA Reform Failed Because The Whole Point Of Section 702 Is To Spy On Americans

    How bad is warrantless spying by our government? Pretty bad. In April 2022, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its annual report that showed the FBI made more than 3.4 million search queries of the NSA database in 2021 on U.S. citizens. About a third of these were “non-compliant searches,” which means they fell outside the normal rules and regulations. In other words, they were illegal.

    https://thefederalist.com/2024/04/12/fisa-reform-failed-because-the-whole-point-of-section-702-is-to-spy-on-americans/

    Liked by 1 person

  11. hmmmm…ex obama aide sees it, but obama himself does not see it? not buying it. this guy got a “book deal” to try to dislodge the maggot because taco jill has put her foot down and wants to play president a while longer.

    Winston

    April 14, 2024 8:00 am

    Man, they really want to ditch their Manchurian Candidate.

    Ex-Obama Aide Makes Case for Jailing and Impeaching Biden in Bombshell Book
    ‘Now I think of him as an evil criminal who should be impeached and imprisoned…’ 
    April 12, 2024

    https://headlineusa.com/ex-obama-aide-makes-case-for-jailing-and-impeaching-biden-in-bombshell-book/

    A former aide from Barack Obama’s White House has unleashed a bombshell book outlining the case for impeaching and incarcerating President Joe Biden.

    In his new book, The Case to Impeach and Imprison Joe Biden, former White House stenographer Mike McCormick minced no words, detailing Biden’s alleged involvement in the business dealings of his embattled son, Hunter Biden. 

    “When I worked for him, I thought Joe was harmless — egotistical, buffoonish, and unpresidential, but harmless,” McCormick wrote in the book, as reported by Townhall. “Now I think of him as an evil criminal who should be impeached and imprisoned.” 

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Just The News: “The United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled against exorbitant government fees in a case that centered on one California retiree forced to pay a flat-rate $23,000 “traffic impact fee” for the construction of a single small home to raise his grandson in.

    This ruling combined earlier rulings on government permitting fees, which must both have “essential nexus” — related to the government interest from having the fee — and be “roughly proportional” to the impact from the action the fee is targeting, with the addition that fees created by legislatures are not exempt from these requirements.

    “Today’s ruling is a major victory for property rights, and a step in the right direction toward removing barriers to housing,” said Brian Hodges, senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, which served as co-counsel on the case. “We are thrilled with the Supreme Court’s decision and will continue fighting to protect property rights and make the process for building new homes more fair.”

    In California, because local governments tend to exhaust their property tax revenues on ongoing expenses, they use development fees to fund new projects. With flat-rate single family home development impact fees costing up to $157,000, it’s possible for an impact fee to cost more than construction.

    Despite sky-high demand for housing and a 4.5 million home shortage in California, housing production is plummeting, with housing permits down 45% in 2023 compared to 2022 due to higher interest rates. By opening up exorbitant development fees to lawsuits, this ruling could help spur more housing construction in the long-term by making it more affordable to build.

    California’s Supreme Court had ruled in favor of El Dorado County, which levied the fee on the basis that the fee was created through the legislature, not a bureaucratic action, and thus was exempt from the nexus and proportionality doctrines. The U.S. Supreme Court vacated that ruling and remanded it back to the state court to decide whether or not the $23,000 fee is constitutional under the new framework clarifying legislature-created fees are still subject to the tests.

    In a separate opinion Justice Brett Kavanaugh clarified that this ruling ”does not address or prohibit the common government practice of imposing permit conditions, such as impact fees, on new developments through reasonable formulas or schedules that assess the impact of classes of development rather than the impact of specific parcels of property.”

    Liked by 1 person

  13. “Vatican priorities mirror those in White House race, but how influential will Pope Francis be? The Vatican is the seat of the religion followed by around one-in-five Americans, and the Catholicism is the most common religious faith in 36 states.”

    By Eric J. Lyman, Published: April 13, 2024 11:51pm

    EXCERPT: “There’s a lot of overlap between the hot button topics of the current U.S. election cycle and the priorities of the Vatican City, the world’s case study for a small country with over-sized influence. 

     The common areas of interest range from moral questions related to abortion, in vitro fertilization, transgender rights, and gay marriage, to prickly geopolitical topics including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the rising tide of global refugees.

    Note that the Vatican is the seat of the religion followed by about one-in-five Americans, and the Catholic Church is the most common religious faith in 36 U.S. states. But does that mean the Roman Catholic Church and its leader, Pope Francis, may have some say in who comes out ahead in the 435 elections for the U.S. House of Representatives, the 34 Senate races, and the second round of the clash between DemocratJoe Biden and Republican Donald Trump for president? 

    Analysts say the answer to the question depends a lot on how it is phrased. 

    “I think the direct impact of Pope Francis and the Vatican on what happens in November will probably be negligible,” John Allen, editor of the influential Catholic news site Crux, said in an interview. “But I expect the Catholic vote to be hugely influential.” ……

    https://justthenews.com/nation/religion/vatican-hot-button-issues-mirror-those-us-presidential-election

    Liked by 1 person

  14. IMO, ALL so-called “Indian” tribes need to be completely disbanded!!! This is all bull shit, IMO!!!! Keeping them on reservations just continues the ignorance, poverty and destitution.

    Just The News: “South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has been banned from reservation lands by multiple tribal nations due to her remarks on immigration and crime. The Oglala Sioux Tribe was the first tribe to ban Noem from their land, citing that they didn’t like how she referred to the surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border as an “invasion.”

    “Calling the United States’ southern border in Texas an ‘invasion’ by illegal immigrants and criminal groups to justify sending S.D. National Guard troops there is a red herring that the Oglala Sioux Tribe doesn’t support,” the leader of the tribe said in February. 

    Noem didn’t back down on her comments about illegal immigration and argued that Native American tribes were negatively impacted by the situation at the border, according to The Hill.

    Other tribes that banned Noem from their land include the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe said Noem’s relationship with the tribes has not been good ever since she took office.

    “Governor Noem claims she wants to establish meaningful relationships with Tribes to improve solutions for systemic problems,” the Rosebud Sioux Tribe said, according to The Hill. “However, her actions as Governor blatantly show otherwise.”

    Noem sent a statement to The Hill, in which she urged tribal leaders to “immediately banish the Mexican drug cartels that are responsible for murders, rapes, drug addiction, and many more crimes on tribal lands.”

    “The people in the communities live with unspeakable horrors and tragedy every day, but banishing me for telling the truth about the suffering does nothing to solve the problems,” her statement reads. “It may play well for the leftist media, but in reality, it’s pointless.”

    “The real question you should be asking,” she added, “is: ‘Why won’t tribal leaders banish the Mexican drug cartels who are responsible for this devastation?’” 

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Just The News: “Multiple squatters have moved in and taken over celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s pub in London and have even used kitchen equipment to barricade themselves in, according to reports. 

    The individuals have also threatened legal action against anyone who attempts to remove them, according to The Sun. Photos taken by the outlet show the “professional squatters” crashing on the couch in the pub and there being trash everywhere. 

    The pub was temporarily closed and not in use as Ramsay was working to finalize a new lease. “It’s an absolute nightmare scenario for poor Gordon,” a source said, according to the New York Post.

    According to reports, there are at least five men and one woman involved in the squatting and Ramsay is attempting to evict them. “Gordon called the police on Wednesday and is trying to secure an eviction notice, but it’s proving an absolute nightmare,” a source said. “It’s increasingly hard to forcibly remove these people.”

    Liked by 1 person

    1. he needs the squatter patrol to take care of it for him.
      there should be tenants’ rights but not SQUATTERS’ rights. any “abandoned building” is NOT up for grabs and state legislatures here need to address that.

      Liked by 1 person

  20. “The Supreme Court Can Right an Egregious Wrong in Jan 6 Cases. Will It? Three years after Joe Biden’s Department of Justice weaponized a post-Enron statute to punish more than 330 J6ers, the Supreme Court this week will scrutinize the DOJ’s brazen abuse of the law.”

    JULIE KELLY, APR 14, 2024

    EXCERPT: “In July 2023, Joshua Youngerman was arrested in California on five misdemeanors for his participation in the events of January 6. According to charging documents, Youngerman entered the Capitol at 2:37 p.m.—20 minutes after the House went into recess amid the escalating chaos—through an open door as Capitol Police stood by. He exited through the same door two minutes later.

    But just last week, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves added another charge to Youngerman’s case: 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), obstruction of an official proceeding. Youngerman is one of more than 330 J6ers charged with the evidence-destroying statute passed in the wake of the Enron-Arthur Anderson accounting scandal that Joe Biden’s Justice Department has weaponized to punish Americans who protested Biden’s election that afternoon. The count also is included in both of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictments against Donald Trump.

    Graves’ decision to indict Youngerman now is a stunning act of hubris and defiance. Why? Because the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this Tuesday in Joseph Fischer v. USA, which challenges the government’s interpretation of the obstruction count in Jan 6 cases. 

    Many legal and court observers expect the court to wholly or partially overturn how the DOJ has applied the law over the past three years in what Graves calls the “Capitol Siege” investigation. (I have several background pieces on Fischer, including here and here.)

    The statute reads:

    Whoever corruptly—

    (1)  alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or

    (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,

    shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

    By continuing to bring the charge, Graves is thumbing his nose at the highest court as I explained here. The Joe Biden appointee responsible for dusting off rarely used criminal statutes such as seditious conspiracy and seeking excessive sentences including terrorism enhancements for 1512(c)(2) defendants refuses to back down.

    He even opposes the early release of defendants currently behind bars on 1512(c)(2) convictions—at least 100 were ordered to prison on the charge—pending a decision in Fischer. Graves outrageously claims the individuals pose a threat to society and might engage in political violence similar to what happened for a few hours on January 6 if they are released.

    Lower Courts Worry About Optics Instead of Justice …….”

    https://www.declassified.live/p/the-supreme-court-can-right-an-egregious

    Liked by 1 person

    1. this law was never intended for this purpose. no documents were destroyed or concealed to avoid criminal prosecution. these cases are overreach and misinterpretation of law in my legal opinion…lol

      Liked by 1 person

  22. Kentucky lawmakers strip governor of ability to appoint anyone in future Senate vacancies. it will now be done by election

    FTA

    On Friday, a super-majority of Republican lawmakers in Kentucky overrode Democrat Governor Andy Beshear’s veto of a law that strips the state’s executive of any authority to appoint future U.S. Senate vacancies. The new law’s supporters claimed it was unrelated to recent concerns about the health of Republican Mitch McConnell, the state’s 82-year-old senator and minority leader of the U.S. Senate. With the Senate narrowly divided on partisan lines, the procedure for filling a vacancy has become increasingly crucial. 

    In 2021, Kentucky’s GOP lawmakers curtailed the governor’s independent authority to appoint a successor. Now, they have completely excluded the governor from any role in filling such vacancies. Under the new law, the state would hold a special election, and the winner would then serve the remainder of the unexpired term.

    During a brief debate, Republican House Majority Floor Leader Steven Rudy said,

    The people should decide who a United States senator is by election always.

    In his veto message, Governor Beshear wrote,

    Prior to these maneuvers, the same system had been in place since 1942. This administration deserves the same authority as previous administrations.

    The state’s change in the Senate succession process comes during a season of change for McConnell, who in February announced that he will step down from his longtime Senate leadership position after the November election, concluding his leadership term. He didn’t specify a reason for his decision other than to point to the recent death of his wife’s youngest sister as a moment that prompted introspection.

    McConnell’s announcement came after two incidents where he appeared to “freeze” and looked disoriented during press briefings.

    https://redstate.com/brutalbrittany/2024/04/13/kentucky-republicans-strip-democrat-governor-of-appointment-powers-in-us-senate-vacancies-n2172712

    Liked by 1 person

  33. Holy cow! Just a slight breeze and up to 86 on my patio!!! Wham-bam-thank you ma’am – SUMMER!!! I finally saw a bird on the jelly feeder and it MIGHT have been a juvenile male Oriole but it was hard to tell.

    Liked by 1 person

  35. “Can’t park there, bud!”

    “Face of a man who died in 1361 during the Battle of Visby in Gotland, now Swedeп. Ouch!”

    Liked by 1 person

  38. Good night, Pat! Hope your weather improves – since ours is scheduled to turn into something similar to what you’ve been getting, maybe you’ll get our sunshine and warm temps!

    Liked by 1 person

  39. I am adding a short daily prayer to the board. I would invite each of you, if you wish, to also add one or maybe two of your own liking. I do not want to stifle anyone but please limit yourself to one or two religious postings. here’s one I found that I liked.

    Like

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