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:

Bullionville

After spending the better part of an afternoon at Cathedral Gorge, we did a quick 1/4 mile detour up the road to visit the remains of Bullionville.  I guess you could call Bullionville a "ghost town" since all that's left is the cemetary. 

The cemetary is on a hill overlooking the highway.  As in many old towns throughout the west, the cemetary is on a hill because the flat ground was a lot more valuable and was used as building locations for the actual town. 

We wandered throughout, pausing at both the fenced off graves and the ones were only indicated by a ring of stones. 

Inhabitants of Bullionville- Rest in Peace!

Nearest City: Panaca, NV
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: 30 Min.
Difficulty:
Kid Friendly:
Additional Info:

Cathedral Gorge State Park

After the brief detour to Mountain Meadows, we got back on the road en route to our real destination- Cathedral Gorge. 

Cathedral Gorge is basically the sediment deposit of an old lake that is slowly eroding.  The walls of the canyon have all sorts of pretty neat forms and spires.  There are also countless small "slot canyons" that wind back into the canyon wall.  Although they're not very long, the close walls and sculpted heights are amazing.  We spend several hours wandering into and out of the small canyons and playing on the rock mounds.  It's definitely a kid's paradise. 

The lighting in some of the canyons was difficult, but some of the pictures turned out alright. 

We had intended to do a loop and visit here, the Lost City Museum, and Valley of Fire State Park, but it ended up being such a cool area we decided to truncate the loop and spend most of a day in the Panaca/Caliente area.  We still weren't able to see/do everything and I'm thinking that it would be a great little spot to come back to and spend a few days playing in the dirt, soaking in some hot springs, digging trilobites, visiting ghost towns, and finding petroglyphs. 

Nearest City: Panaca, NV
Location: N° W°
Time Needed: Cathedral Gorge is about 2 hours from St. George, 1.5 hours from Cedar City, or 2 hours from Vegas.  You could spend several hours at the State Park, and find plenty of other things to do nearby to fill up several days.
Difficulty: Easy
Kid Friendly: Yes
Additional Info:  Lincoln County Nevada Tourism