Images of Gold Butte National Monument – Southern Nevada, taken in May 2018.

I dropped by the offices of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in St. George Utah to check road conditions and ask about access to Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument. I was helped by a man and a woman and as our conversation wound down I mentioned that I was traveling full time visiting as many national parks as possible. That’s when the woman said “do you know about Gold Butte National Monument?” I’d never even heard of it so she gave me some information and now I had another place to explore.

This park is very new, established in December of 2016, and therefore has no trails or facilities. The road into the park is paved but referred to as “the worst paved road in Nevada”. Well it was better that a dirt road but just barely in some spots and the “pavement” comes to an end in Whitney Pockets; an area of unique rock formations. But the exploration begins in earnest when you hit the dirt roads. Along Black Butte Road is the Falling Man petroglyph site where you wind your way through distinctive rock formations, and even through a window in the rocks, to find incredible panels of rock art. Further into the park at the Devil’s Throat, an active sink hole, I ran into some Jeep travelers who were mapping the trails for their website. They asked me if I was going to Little Finland. This is an area the people at the BLM Office said was strictly 4-wheel-drive but I had run into people in the Falling Man area that said I would have no problem accessing. My friends in the Jeep confirmed that so I headed off on roads that are actually dry wash beds and arrived at the beautiful red rock formation area. After a short hike I headed back on Mud Wash toward the park road. At one point I stopped and got out to take a picture near a rock wall and when I went to get back into the car I looked up at the wall and saw a remarkable panel of petroglyphs. Totally unexpected and it makes you wonder how many interesting things you fly by whenever you’re visiting one of these magnificent parks.