Page Type: | Mountain/Rock |
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Lat/Lon: | 36.14001°N / 115.3545°W |
Activities: | Hiking |
Season: | Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter |
Elevation: | 3708 ft / 1130 m |
Topographic isolation: 280 m/920 ft
Nearest higher peak: Red Mountain (3998 ft/1219 m)
Prominence: 45 m/148 ft
Gunfire Ridge is one of the hills of the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, at its eastern border. It’s also called Gunsight Ridge. Both names might refer to the Deserts Sportsmans Rifle Club whose infrastructure was built at its foot, west of it.
From one aspect it is not a specifically interesting destination: the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area has several much more impressive peaks and rocks. They are posted here on SP.
On the other hand - for me who was just a visitor from Europe, it was a fantastic place, with its peculiar vegetation typical for the deserts of the North American continent. And I suppose it can be also interesting for those visitors from the northern states of the US who are not frequent visitors in the southern states.
OK, but why would anybody come here and not to any other peak?
And really, Gunfire Ridge is a popular hiking destination.
And what can you see from the summit?
How to get there?
By car: take the West Charleston Boulevard of Las Vegas. Not far from the last buildings of the city you can find a large space appropriate for parking the car at the trailhead to Gunfire Ridge.
By public transport: travel to the terminal (Downtown Summerlin) of bus line 206, or get off one stop earlier. In any case you must walk a bit more than 3 km / 2 miles westwards along West Charleston Boulevard, in order to reach the real trailhead. The trail itself is 1.9 km/1.2 miles long.
The flora that I could identify:
You can hike to the summit in any season.
For a good online map of the area you can click here