This was a completely awesome experience and so different from wandering the strip feeding the one-armed bandits.
Adam picked us up at our hotel. He was right on time. No waiting around wondering if he was going to show up. Had a very comfortable hour drive out to Valley of Fire State Park. During the drive Adam pointed out various sights along the way and talked about our hiking experience so he would know how to customize our adventure.
Once at the trail head Adam loaded his backpack with plenty of water for each of us along witih several snacks. The website said we should bring a backpack to carry things; but, Adam was like "I got this" y'all just walk. Besides carrying our water and snacks, Adam was like an Encyclopedia -- he pointed out bushes and shrubs, gave them names and identified common uses. We investigated cacti and learned about barbs -- without any first hand experience (thank you, very much).
The main trail is very short, and that's about all that most people see. With Love Hikes and Adam, the end of the trail was just the beginning of the hike. This was the point that we went off trail and started scrambling over a few rocks and boulders. No need to worry about being able to do this. My wife and I are both closer to 70 than 60. Adam designed a hike for us, showed us how to scramble over the rocks. Kept it adventurous, yet safe.
Because we got off the beaten path we got to see natural tanks where water collects. The watering holes are frequented by Mountain Goats. We weren't lucky enough to see any Mountain Goats; but, we did see plenty of signs of their activity. Adam was great at pointing them out.
This area is loaded with petroglyphs. We saw a lot while we were on the short marked trail. We saw many more once we went off trail scrambling over the rocks. Adam was great at pointing them out and speculating on their possible meaning.
Throughout the entire hike, Adam took pictures of the rock formations, the petroglyphs and even my wife and I. At the end of the hike he emailed the photos to us so that we had a great set of pictures from the hike.
Our hike lasted about two hours. Add an hour drive out and another hour back, and a little sight seeing while we were at Valley of Fire State Park, and in total it was about a five hour adventure: picked us up at 1100am, had us back just after 400pm.