Beaver Dam State Park

[Red Rock Rangers]

III Original Post at RedRockRangers.com III​

The summer solstice has come, and the days are long and hot. We drove out to eastern Nevada this weekend to explore the flowing streams and rocky outcrops in Beaver Dam State Park. Beaver Dam is the most remote park in Nevada, but it's only a 2 hour drive from our home in St. George. It was still 90°F up there at 5,000ft., but it felt like a cool retreat compared to St. George!

Beaver Dam is definitely pretty, but it's not stop-you-in-your-tracks gorgeous. What really made it special was how empty is was. It's over an hour along mostly dirt roads to the nearest town. We were -- I'm not exaggerating -- the only people in the campground. It was great. It felt like we had a super-cool corner of the state all to ourselves.

Oak Knoll

scarlet gilia

white ash-fall tuff ​

After setting up camp, we started exploring the park. We started off at the Waterfall Trail, a 1-mile jaunt along a creek to a warm spring. The spring was swarming with crawdads, so we didn't exactly get the relaxing soak we were looking for. Either way, it was a nice hike. After dinner, we walked from our campsite up the Interpretive Trail. Interp trails are usually easy, level jaunts with some cheesy signs, but this hike was surprisingly epic. Even though it's only 0.75 mile, we climbed on top of a wooded knoll and got big views of the entire park as the sun set. Super neat.

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Waterfall Trail

rough pricklypoppy

white-margin swertia + invasive crawfish

super-secret camouflaged toad

Chupacabra!

sunset view from the Interpretive Trail

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The next morning, we continued driving along the dirt road back to Highway 317 to check out Kershaw-Ryan State Park. Kershaw-Ryan isn't exactly a natural park -- it more like a manicured garden tucked in a scenic canyon, but it was still nice to soak up some green. We had a picnic under huge shade trees and splashed around the small wading pool before walking up the 0.75-mile overlook trail.

Canyon Overlook Trail