The Long Way to Las Vegas - Cathedral Gorge and Valley of Fire

Panaca to Overton

Saturday, May 17, 2025

We had a busy day planned, so we were up early (at least for us).  After getting everything packed up and the car loaded, we headed to breakfast.  This was a bed and breakfast, but breakfast was in a different place than the house we were staying in, so we drove to that location, had our breakfast and were on our way.

The full map with today's route.

A more detailed map of our route including Cathedral Gorge and Valley of Fire State Parks markers.

Our first stop of the day was Cathedral Gorge State Park.  It was just a few miles north of Panaca so after a short drive on Hwy 93, we were there.  We visited Cathedral Gorge once before and thought it was worth a return visit and was it ever; we had forgotten just how interesting the landscape is.  The park has very unusual rock formations including slot canyons, caves, arches, spires and hoodoos to name a few.

We drive into Cathedral Gorge State Park

When we were here before, the park was pretty primitive, but since then there have been quite a few improvements made and facilities added, but it’s still not too developed.  There were also few more people here, but not too many until a busload of school children showed up, but by then we were ready to leave.

We walked around and up into the slot canyons taking lots of pictures.  Even though we had really liked this park the first time we were here, we had forgotten just how beautiful this area is.  We couldn’t stay long as we had long drive south to make so we reluctantly left, but had one more stop left before we turned south.

There was another part of the park a little further north that looked down into a gorge with some very interesting and colorful rock formations, but when we got there, we found that access was closed until June 30 so we were out of luck.

We got back on to US93 heading south towards Caliente retracing our route backwards from yesterday.  We passed the turnoff to Delamar and then at the intersection of highway 318 that we had come down on yesterday, we stayed on US93 south into an area we hadn’t been to before.

We're back on US93, but this time heading west.

Passing through Caliente again

The turnoff to Delamar

The intersection of US93 and Nevada 318.  We came down 318 yesterday and turned east on US93, but today we'll continue past the intersection on 93 south.

Surprisingly we passed upper and lower Pahranagat Lakes that seemed out of place in this arid area.  The lakes are part of Pahranagat Wildlife Refuge that provides a high-quality habitat for migrating and wintering birds.  The Pahranagat Wildlife Refuge is part of the much larger Desert National Wildlife Refuge on US93 that stretches from south of Ash Forks to where US93 joins I15.  It was an interesting drive, and we enjoyed it.

The beginning of the Pahranagat Wildlife Refuge.

Since we weren’t headed for Las Vegas yet, we turned east onto Nevada 168 to the Moapa Valley where Overton, our destination for the night, was located.  As we neared I15 on 168, we entered the Moapa Valley area and saw more signs of civilization.  We got on I15 briefly and then continued south on Nevada 169 through the town of Logandale and on into Overton.  My friend Jack’s dad had moved to Overton when he retired and it was a pretty small and isolated town, but it is near Lake Mead and the area has become more popular and there has been a lot of growth.

We turn off of US93 onto Nevada 168.

We had a short drive on I15 before getting off and heading south towards Overton.

Since we weren’t headed for Las Vegas yet, we turned east onto Nevada 168 to the Moapa Valley where Overton, our destination for the night, was located.  As we neared I15 on 168, we entered the Moapa Valley area and saw more signs of civilization.  We got on I15 briefly and then continued south on Nevada 169 through the Logandale and on into the town of Overton.  My friend Jack’s dad had moved to Overton when he retired and it was a pretty small and isolated town, but it is near Lake Mead and the area has become more popular and there has been a lot of growth.

It was past lunch time when we arrived in Overton, so the first thing we did was look a place to eat.  There weren’t too many places, so we decided on the Inside Scoop.  It didn’t look too impressive from the outside, but it was obviously a favorite with the locals as it was very crowded on a Saturday afternoon and we could see why, the food was excellent and we would definitely eat there again.

We had a great lunch at the Inside Scoop in Overton.

We were staying in Overton tonight so after lunch we found our hotel, checked in, and after unloading our luggage, we were off to the nearby Valley of Fire State Park.  This was another place we have visited before and really liked.  It is an area of very red rock formations that are quite amazing.  The red rock has probably the most intense coloring of anywhere we’ve seen, including Southern Utah. 

We enter Valley of Fire State Park.

The park is not that big, but we spent several hours driving around, stopping at the various features and taking lots of pictures.  Unfortunately, this is considered the summer season and the trails and some of the parking areas were closed as there is no hiking allowed during the summer months because of the intense heat.  The weather was beautiful today, but they had already gone into summer mode so there were quite a few areas we couldn’t access.

Before heading back to Overton we stopped at the Visitor's Center

It was late afternoon and time for us to head back to Overton.  We had driven a lot of dirt roads on this trip and the 4Runner was covered in dust, so we decided to find a car wash and clean things up a bit.  We had to go through Overton and back to Longsdale before we found one.  It was one of those you sit in the car and drive through, and I have to say, it did a much better job than I expected, and the car looked great.

Time to start back to Overton

It was almost seven when we got back to Overton and we were tired.  It had been a long day, so we just relaxed for the rest of the evening.  Tomorrow, we head for Las Vegas.