Walking the Old Arrowhead Trail

We recently visited Lake Mead’s St. Thomas ghost town and saw a reference to the Old Arrowhead Trail and it piqued our interest. Under a gray, mackerel sky, we set out to find the old trail. It was unseasonably cool as we headed north to Valley of Fire State Park, one of our favorite Nevada state parks, and found the signed entrance to the trail.

Because of its low elevation, the Arrowhead Auto Trail aka the Arrowhead Highway was the first all-weather auto route between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles via Las Vegas. According to Wikipedia, “Built primarily during the auto trails period of the 1910s, prior to the establishment of the US numbered highway system, the road was replaced in 1926 by US 91 and subsequently by Interstate 15 (I‑15).” You can compare the old route in yellow with the newer route published in the 1930s.

Original Arrowhead Auto Trail route in 1910s

The new and improved Arrowhead route from a 1930s auto road guide

"The name, “Arrowhead Trail” likely originated from the former San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railroad, which had an arrowhead for a logo. Prior to 1850, New Mexican trading caravans from Santa Fe en route to Los Angeles used this segment of the Old Spanish Trail.” https://historiclasvegasproject.com/Arrowhead-Trail.html

It’s about an hour’s ride (60 miles) through the Muddy Mountains. We were treated to a glimpse of some wild horses on our route. One, in particular, looked so free and magnificent with its shaggy winter mane blowing in the wind and the majestic landscape in the background… an iconic symbol of the wild west.

A wild horse… an iconic symbol of the wild west

The dazzling colors of the Valley of Fire are almost surreal. The brilliant red rocks almost hurt your eyes. It’s hard to imagine such vibrant reds occurring naturally in nature. It’s other-worldish. Look at the proof!

We found the Arrowhead Trail Loop and parked nearby the trailhead. The entire loop within the park is about 6.3 miles long one way. We decided to walk only a portion of it. The trail itself is described as “not very scenic”, so we chose to walk the most picturesque section near Elephant Rock. From the Las Vegas Area Trails website: “There’s not much beauty on the Old Arrowhead Trail itself. You’re traveling mostly on a gravel surface through the desert. However, looking around, there is the mountain system on one side bordering the South side of Valley of Fire State Park, and the beautiful red rock formations characteristic of the park stretching out to the North.” Sheer eye candy!

Brennan and Hannah gave us a new hiking/biking GPS map app for Christmas and we decided to give it a try. It immediately found the trail, allowed us to download the route and provided a real-time compass while we walked. It has lots of other features, but these in particular were perfect for the walk we were taking.

The well-marked trail climbed up and down over rough terrain and looped around interesting rock formations. We found it difficult to imagine a car like the famed Cactus Kate making this trip back in 1915. We envisioned broken axels and ruined undercarriages.

Arches, holes, pits and tafoni are common in The sandstone rock formations.

Elephant Rock was on our route. We’ve seen many times and it always eludes us at first. There are several rocks that our imaginations determined were elephants, but this skinny-skulled pachyderm version is the actual rock the name-choosers had in mind.

This looked like an elephant to us.

But here’s the real thing

Toward the end of our walk, we saw a memorial to Sgt. John Clark who had perished here underneath his buckboard back in 1925. No cause of death is known… dehydration due to lack of water, a heart attack maybe?

To our surprise as we descended to the valley floor to reach the memorial, we came across a streambed that actually had water in it… enough to get our shoes and socks wet. Maybe John Clark had been searching for water when he died and we happened to find it.

Clark’s memorial is simple, but elegant, standing by itself in the middle of the desert, a tribute to the hardy souls that traversed the Mojave Desert and didn’t always make it.

The wind picked up considerably during our walk and the temperature dipped with the wind chill. We called it a day at around four miles round trip. We’re definitely out of shape for long walks. While researching information about the Arrowhead Trail, I came across a reference to the Lost City Museum in Overton, Nevada. Hmm… more information about St. Thomas maybe or something else? It was something else. We departed the park and headed a bit northeast to the little town of Overton. We’ll explore the Lost City with you in my next blog. Stay tuned.