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| - Easy hike, beautiful vistas, pretty rocks, small stream. That's the review in a nutshell.
This is a good intro hike for the Red Rock Canyon area. It's a 3+ mile out-and-back that runs from the roadside across the valley floor to the mouth of a canyon. The trail is wide and easy, with a slight incline all the way out. As you get closer to the canyon, it starts to get narrower and branch off into a bunch of different directions. If your goal is to make it to the mouth of the canyon, it doesn't really matter which one you take, they all converge back at the canyon. If you want to find the waterfall, you supposedly turn right at the first tree. We didn't seek it out, but instead headed for the canyon mouth. It gets a little more scramble-y as you get close to the canyon mouth, but the views keep getting better and better.
Along the way you're exposed to sweeping views across the canyon floor, with the red rocks to the north, commanding cliffs to the west, the road and gypsum mines back to the east, and valley/mountains to the south. On a nice day, you can see for miles and miles.
Our group included folks from 40-78 years in age, and everyone did just fine. Trail is a mix of sand/dirt and rocks. Because it's an out-and-back, whenever the scramble gets to be too much, just turn around.
Rock climbing up in the canyon is a thing. You can fly drones here, and the topology is worth it. We didn't see any wild horses or burros (dammit!) but did see a woodpecker. Cold winter though, so I'm sure all the animals were camped out somewhere else.
5/5 would hike again!
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