Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Sloan Canyon officials share vision for permanent contact station

Sloan Canyon Petroglyph Canyon Trail

Wade Vandervort

A view from inside The Gallery, a sight from over 1,700 American Indian petroglyphs ranging from 5,000 to 200 years ago, at the Petroglyph trail head at Sloan Canyon on Monday, July 15, 2019. WADE VANDERVORT

Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area is sometimes overshadowed by its more popular sibling, Red Rock Canyon. While Red Rock visitation reached more than 3 million last year, about 82,670 people visited Sloan Canyon in 2018.

Archeological sites near Las Vegas

• Clark County has more than 10,000 known archaeological sites, according to BLM archeologist Annette Neubert. “It’s insane. It’s a huge number—more than any place I’ve ever worked at,” she says. While most of the sites aren’t open to the public, here are a few that you can visit.

• Lost Creek — Children’s Discovery Trail (Red Rock Canyon). Stroll down this 0.6-mile interpretive trail at Red Rock Canyon to see pictographs and a waterfall.

• Petroglyph Wall (Red Rock Canyon). A very short walk (only 0.2-miles) from the Willow Springs Picnic Area will reveal 800-year-old cliffside rock art.

• Willow Spring Loop (Red Rock Canyon). This easy mile-long hike provides views of agave roasting pits and pictographs.

• Sloan Canyon Petroglyph site. (Sloan Canyon). There are more than 1,700 design elements dating back to time immemorial in this cultural treasure trove.

• Petroglyph Canyon Trail 100 (Sloan Canyon). This moderate 4.4-mile round-trip hike will bring you to amazing cultural sites.

–C. Moon Reed

But the 48,438-acre desert oasis adjacent to Henderson has much to offer, including endangered desert bighorn sheep, more than 300 panels of ancient rock art and plenty of hiking and biking options without the crowds.

In the coming years, Sloan will receive an upgrade to better accommodate its steadily growing flow of mostly local visitors: a permanent visitor contact station.

Established in 2002, Sloan Canyon has a temporary contact station near one of its most popular trails, Petroglyph Canyon Trail. The planned permanent contact station will be located in the same area and will continue to offer visitors information on the ancient rock art and other Sloan resources. But it will also feature an exhibit space, an indoor amphitheater, staff offices and a new, half-mile interpretive trail, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

One impetus for building the station was the recent growth of development in the surrounding area, said John Asselin, public affairs specialist for the BLM. This has increased visitation over the past several years and the need for educational resources.

“There’s a lot of people out there, and this is their closest cool outdoor place to go and walk around and learn some things about the geology and human history of this area,” Asselin said. “So it just makes sense for us to move forward with [this] and provide a good place for not only people to start out and get some information, but for us to be able to educate folks.”

The contact station won’t be of the same scale as the visitors center at Red Rock, but it will help visitors understand the ecological, geological and cultural resources at Sloan, including the petroglyphs and the volcano-shaped landscape, Asselin said. It will also allow Sloan’s four BLM staffers to work permanently on site, said Joseph Varner, Sloan Canyon Conservation Area monument manager.

“Right now, they’re working at desks at Red Rock Canyon, and that’s a long drive,” Varner said.

The permanent contact station is still in the design phase, and the date of completion is unknown at this point, Asselin said. BLM staffers are consulting with tribal nations and City of Henderson officials on the agency’s plans. The area is especially important to the Southern Paiute, who will be involved in the development of cultural interpretive programs and signage at the contact station, Varner said.

In the meantime, exciting developments are taking place at Sloan Canyon this fall, said Jim Stanger, president of Friends of Sloan Canyon.

Friends of Sloan Canyon is collaborating with the BLM to replace old trail posts and install new ones to make it easier for hikers to navigate. The volunteer-led advocacy group is also working to beef up its trail monitoring program, which helps ensure that trails are maintained, Stanger said.

“We’re going to make a big effort this year to make sure that the rest of the trail system is monitored and that we can get additional reports on the entire trail system,” he said.

Once the permanent contact station is built, the BLM expects to offer more information and events on site, Asselin said.

“As the permanent facility gets here and the interpretive folks are able to work out here all the time, you’ll start seeing more and more programs going on,” he said.

This story originally appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.