Kershaw-Ryan State Park

From the Cathedral Gorge area, we headed south to look at some petroglyphs and the Elgin Schoolhouse. 

South of Caliente, we ran into a small problem.  The road was covered in water.  We watched a Ford Explorer drive through it, and judging from the water depth my wife thought it best to not go through.  I wanted to, but going along with the principle of  "Happy Wife = Happy Life" I turned the car around. 

The drive was pretty!  We enjoyed the fall colors and a few old ruins out away from the road. 

We stopped instead at Kershaw-Ryan State Park.  The eastern Nevada state parks run an all-for-one admission deal, so if you go to one, you can go to all of them, and having paid to visit Cathederal Gorge we turned up to see what Kershaw-Ryan was all about. 

I wasn't very impressed with it to tell you the truth.  It's more along the line of a nice community park or county park than a state park.  There's camping, a few hiking trails, volleyball pits and horseshoes to play, but it didn't have the "Wow" factor that I usually associate with state or national parks.  It might be a fun place to go hang out on an evening, but to me it didn't have a real draw.   We hiked a little bit and mostly had the place to ourselves. 

On the way out, there were several large deer herds in a nearby field.  We stopped for about 15 minutes and watched the bucks chase the does around.  A few of the bucks had pretty good racks.  Beautiful animals!

Nearest City: Caliente, NV
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: varies
Difficulty: Easy- moderate
Kid Friendly: Yes
Additional Info: