Grandparents in Vegas

It's always fun when the grandparents come to visit! This time we made the most of our two weeks together by doing a variety of things around Las Vegas. We went to Red Rock Canyon NRA.

While exploring the visitor center, I saw this Mojave Green Rattlesnake under a bench! 

We alerted a ranger and watched as he captured then released it at the end of a viewing area.

When I moved to Vegas in 2004, I climbed my first mountain, Turtlehead Peak, the dark triangular peak on the right. It was warm at the trailhead, but snowing at the peak. We were not fully prepared and returned after dark. Crazy, but I still had fun and was hooked on climbing mountains!

Another day we went to admire the refuge from the viewpoint of Mt Charleston.

The new visitor center at Mt Charleston features amazing art work by Austine Wood Comarow. The windows of the center look like regular etched glass, but when you look thru a polarizing viewer, you see the glass come alive with bright, brilliant colors featuring the plants and animals of the area. As you tilt it left to right, it seems to change thru the seasons. So cool!

Of course we spent lots of time hiking around the trails of the refuge. 

We took them into the backcountry to check out Fossil Ridge and the canyon opposite.

While they were visiting, a serious flash flood came thru and wiped out the refuge roads. We even saw Jeeps get swept off the road into the desert. The main road into the refuge was under 2ft of water for 3 days and eventually had to be pumped out!

The next morning we went to inspect the damage. In this photo, the kids are standing IN the road- it went from right to left, now it's a 3 ft drop where a river ran thru.

They helped Officer Rob lock the gate to the road so no one would get stuck back there before the roads could be repaired.

Another volunteer, Gene, worked tirelessly for two weeks to get the roads graded and opened. This is the largest refuge in the lower 48 states with 1.6 million acres. Our longest road goes thru to Pahranagat and takes 8 hours in a truck in good conditions, so you can only imagine the hours that Gene put into repairing the roads. He's a machine!