Part 2 Lost City Museum, Valley of Fire

The week after our first trip though the Valley of Fire, we returned.

First we went to the Lost City Museum.  I had thought that maybe it was about the town of St. Thomas, which had been flooded when the dam was built forming Lake Mead.  As the sign says, on January 8, 1865, having been asked to come by Brigham Young, eleven men and three woman came to the Muddy Valley, now called Moapa Valley.  Others also came and established other settlements.  It was found that they were in Arizona territory rather than Utah.  Thus they had to pay high taxes.  Then in 1871, because of the taxes, Indian depredations, distance to markets, and other adverse conditions, around 600 people left this area.  After 1880 other families came and settled the entire valley and stayed.  There must be underground water close to the surface.  As we drove through this upper end of the valley, the fields were actually green.  You don't see that in this country.  I actually took the below picture because of the sand stone patterns.

 Instead of the museum being about the white man's town, it is about Indian towns, actually the foundations of stones and also artifacts from them.  Some were pit houses and others were houses that were partly above ground.  Those were sunk down about two to three feet, such as the pictures below.  The museum was built on a small ridge that had ruins on it, which they have reconstructed. 

Inside there are lots of pot, baskets, information about what they have learned about the area and the people who have lived here over time.

From there we headed to the Valley of Fire.  The sandstone throughout this area is very weathered, as you see in this picture and other pictures in this blog.

 

The above picture was taken during our first trip in the area and shows the low sunlight coming through from a hole in the back.  Some of the other pictures were also taken at that time.

We stopped by the visitors center where there is a very good explanation of the geology of the area.  As the California area plates pushed east they went down under the adjacent plates, lifting and buckling the areas to the east.  The Muddy Mountains were actually a lower, softer layer than the red and white sandstone that is seen in this area.  Since they were also soft, they have eroded and flowed into the area filling in some of the valley that was formed.  The center was able to point out the fault line that runs along the mountain.  The Muddies are the gray hills.

 

Just a road through some of the area.

As the oceans and then water receded from this area, it was not desert, but had forests and many animals.  There are fossils from when it was part of the ocean and also tree fossils.  This is one of the trees.

One of the side roads that we took was back to Mouse's tank.  Mouse was a holdout Indian who holed up in a canyon with a natural water tank.  He raided the people living in the area and couldn't be found.  They think that the other Indians knew where he was but they wouldn't give him up.  He was finally apprehended while he was raiding a woman's garden.

Walking back to the tank is like walking on the beach, in the dry sand.  It is a very narrow area with many, did I say many, petroglyphs.  One area looks like it was a newpaper.  They guess at what they mean but not even the Indians who lived in the area knew what they meant.  (Note B in the corner.)

There is also a skull in this area.  If you look close you can see the eyes, nose, and mouth.

 

This is the tank.  There was water in it but I don't think I would want to drink it as there was lots of trash, etc. in it.

 

Continuing on the road past Mouse's Tank is Rainbow View Point.  When the light is right you can see the colors of the rainbow in the different layers of the rocks. 

This is looking north in this area.  You can see the road to the left and center.

The CCC worked in Park area and built these to stay in while they were working.  It is back in another small canyon.

These are pictures in the area.

In the following area, they called the sandstone formations, bee hives.

I found this area beautiful and very interesting; fossils, different layers of rock and at different tilts, etc.  I just wish I knew more about geology.

Part 1 North Shore Drive

This will be the first of a two part posting.  It covers two different days, but parts of the same area.

We decided to take a drive up the north shore of Lake Mead.  One follows the lake for a long ways, but then the road goes further west.  Eventually, the road is on the other side of the "Muddy Mountains."  In looking at the area it can be seen that a lot has eroded off the mountains and ended up in the valley.  Also there are lots of jagged red rocks jutting up.

This picture is looking south with the Muddy Mountains to the left.  We had stopped at a pass.  I thought that the erosion in the foreground was interesting.

 There was a trail going up the hill from the parking lot that we took.  This picture was looking west from higher up the hill and looking to the west.  You can see some of the red rock layer.

 This next one is looking north from up on the hill.  I find it interesting, in this part of the country, the way the rocks are tipped or sometimes just stacked, and maybe both in the same area.

 This is some of the red sand stone, which is stacked.  Someone left some sweet rolls on the plate for us. 

 

To the left of the 'rolls' and in the layer below them you will notice lots of rocks imbedded in the layer.  I knew that this area had been sea bed but it wasn't until later, when we went to the Valley of Fire, that we learned more.

We continued on to the town of Overton which is up past the northern end of the lake.  We wanted to go to the Lost City Museum, but it was closed.  So we drove back through the Valley of Fire and then home. 

More Red Rock Canyon Sites

We went on another hike, different trail, in the Red Rock Canyon.  I found the different directions of the rock layers interesting.

 An over look of part of the area.

There are lots of sand stone rocks in the area.  Some are really pretty.  These are just a few.

There were also pictographs in this area.

 We took a short side trail into a falls.  There was just a trickle coming down which disappeared at the bottom.  B. is standing at the foot of the falls.  The air was really cool here.

This is part of the Mojave Dessert, but there is water in a few places.  We came across this stream in a large wash.  There is a marshy area a ways below the above falls and this may come from there.  However, it soon disappears, close to the tree, as seen in the lower picture.