Hiked March 29 and March 30, 2025. I had been "to" Cathedral Gorge once before, stopping on the way to or from Great Basin National Park. But that was on a pre-blog trip, a long time ago, probably ten years before the Great Basin hikes that did get blogged. And that trip was just a view from the overlook. It was nice, but didn't really resonate.
Then, more recently, I started getting things on my facebook feed from Cathedral Gorge that looked a lot more amazing that I experienced. Keep in mind, I'm skeptical of some of those views, because my personal experience and feeling when hiking, for example, Angels Landing was not nearly as spooky or stress-inducing as videos I have seen of the same hike. In fact, I took a second or third hike Angels Landing, because the video experience was so much more dramatic than my recollection. In that case, I confirmed that, no, with with chain, the dropoffs were really not very threatening. Still, figured my one trip to Cathedral Gorge was pretty surface-only, and a long time ago, so another trip was in order.
So those videos I saw of Cathedral Gorge made me want to revisit the place, and, especially, to experience it from within the gorge rather than from above.
From the Las Vegas area, it's 2 1/2 to three hours driving time, depending on where in the valley you are starting from and what time you leave, because, especially for folks southeast of the Spheghetti Bowl, you'll have to drive through that aggravating interchange. Once through there, it's north on I-15, which is also US-93, for about 21 miles, to where the "Great Basin Highway" (US-93) separates from I-15 and heads due north.
There's a rather unattractive Love's truck stop on US-93, near I-15. After that, there are no formal flush-toilet rest areas between that and Cathedral Gorge, though there are a few smaller gas stations along the way. There's also the visitor center for Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, where we did stop, both coming and going (more on that in the next post). And that's about it. Otherwise, it's a pretty lonely drive. Not really any chain restaurants along the way, other than I think the occasional Subway in a gas station.
There is a BLM office in Caliente, about 14 miles south of Cathedral Gorge, which I would like to have stopped at, but they're only open on weekdays. There are about five major historic rock art sites not far off the route to Cathedral Gorge, but all require some amount of driving on dirt roads. I wanted to see which could be reasonably accessed by someone driving a Camry, and how long the walks would be from any parking areas to the rock art. Not able to ask that, but I did find some flyers for those sites at the regional state park visitor center at Cathedral Gorge, so I have that to work off of, in the future.
The closest town to Cathedral Gorge is Panaca. There are no "regular" motels in Panaca, but there are at least two "bed and breakfast" properties (both owned or operated by the same group of folks). Other than that, you'd have to camp in the state park, or stay a motel back in Caliente.
We checked in to the "Pine Tree Inn," because this one had breakfast on site, while a review for the other B and B said you had to drive to the nearby "affiliated" site for your food. That being the case, I figured I'd rather stay where the food was!
Price was about $100 a night. Room was comfortable. Private bathroom attached. Locking bedroom door. Microwave and refrigerator shared, upstairs. Also, frozen or shelf-stable food available for purchase, which would be a major convenience, since there is no real restaurant in Panaca, either. So if you didn't bring your own dinner or snacks, you would either buy it from the B and B (reasonable prices) or starve. We brought our own food.
After dinner, I drove the 10 or 15 minutes into the park, paid my entry fee at an automated kiosk ($10 for a non-NV plate on my car), drove to the end of the day use road, and wandered. Even just wandering a fraction of a mile from the parking area, among the slotted canyons, eroded in the clay, was pretty amazing. The hard but easily eroded clay made some fantastic shapes. The blue sky contrasted with the yellowish shale, which photographed warmer than it appeared to the naked eye, because my cell phone camera has no IR cutoff filter. (That's why you can see IR tv remotes light up when you point them at your cell phone camera). Pigeons apparently nest in some of the openings in the clay.
After 20 minutes or so of messing around inside the gorges, I walked the Juniper Draw Loop trail. I was initially confused by a closure sign, but that only applied to a spur along this trail. The loop itself was open. It's about three miles long, so less than 90 minutes, even with lots of stops for pictures. I managed to finish before dark, though somewhat after sunset. My day pass, by the way, said I had to be gone within one hour of sunset. So I'm not sure how things work if you want to do astronomy or astrophotography but not camp in the park. I encountered no park personnel during my visit. Even the visitor center was unstaffed when we popped in, the next day.
The next morning, I returned to the park. I brought back my non-hiking wife, who I thought would enjoy even the short wanders into the slots, which she did. Cost me another ten bucks, but it was worth it.
There's another hike that would have taken me up the west side of the gorge (Hawk's Ridge trail, about four miles), but I figured I had experienced the main vibe for the park, already. Then we went back to our B and B and ate breakfast. Tasty, by the way.
Skipping the morning hike let us leave Panaca earlier. I already planned to stop for a short hike in Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, so I knew I had another 60-90 minutes in addition to the drive time to go to get back to Henderson. So, away we went.
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