Pink Pastel Canyon | Valley of Fire State Park

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Pink Pastel Canyon is an unmarked trail in Valley of Fire State Park. Though it is a little hard to find, the pretty pink walls make it well worth the effort. This hike is only about a half mile roundtrip, but the slot canyon is nice. Pink Pastel Canyon became our favorite trail in Valley of Fire.

The pink stripes are beautiful in this small canyon.

To find Pink Pastel Canyon, you have to drive north on the White Domes Road for exactly 3.9 miles. This takes you to a few low dips where water can wash across the road. (In fact, there is a DIP sign at this location, and it is the fourth DIP sign that you come to.) Park at the wide area on the right side of the road (east) and walk down into the wash. Follow it to the left (north) as it angles away from the road. Within 50 yards you’ll enter a low, not too narrow slot canyon. You can walk through the slot canyon for as long as you like, but we went about a third of a mile before turning around. Some people walk this route to the Fire Wave, but we learned about this later, so we aren’t sure of the correct way.

Road through Valley of Fire State Park
Make sure to count the Dip signs as you drive and use your odometer.
Pink Pastel Canyon begins right from this small pull out.
Just follow the wash and soon the colors start to turn pink.
The walk to these colors is very short.

The walls are vividly pink, and if you visit in the morning or near sunset, the pink really pops! The canyon walls are narrow enough that our boys could straddle across the canyon. We hit this trail first thing in the morning since there is limited parking and the colors were some of the best that we saw while visiting Valley of Fire.

The slot canyon is narrow, but not for very long.
The colors are beautiful!
Soon the trail opens back up. We followed it for a bit, but then headed back to the car.

The Pink Pastel Canyon hike isn’t signed, and you won’t find out about it on park literature, but it is one of our favorite hikes in Valley of Fire State Park! For more information on other hikes in this state park, visit our post on Valley of Fire.

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