What We Love About Gold Butte National Monument

Gold Butte National Monument is one big pocket of adventure where you can spend days exploring the beautiful desert landscapes and discovering neat features. This 300,000 acre gem was designated a national monument back in 2016, protecting the vast, rugged environment and its interesting history. Encounter joshua trees, a great variety of cacti, canyons all to yourself, rock scrambling and incredible petroglyphs. And enjoy the endless opportunity for discovery and solitude in this vast, colorful desert terrain. There are several designated areas in Gold Butte National Monument that draw visitors attention and they are definitely worth your while. But outside of these main sights is an endless adventure that rewards the curious. Whether visiting the top sights or spending days getting lost (not so literally) you won’t be disappointed with a trip to Gold Butte National Monument.

Dispersed Camping at Gold Butte National Monument

One thing that we love about Gold Butte National Monument is the dispersed camping. There are several options for great free camping in the area. Camp spots can be found along the Gold Butte Backcountry Byway and cater to different preferences. For instance, the spots vary in size as well as distance from the main road as well as the degree of privacy and solitude.

Being able to dispersed camp in and around the national monument makes it easier to spend more than one day checking out more of what the Gold Butte area has to offer. We really enjoyed the warm spring weather.

Whitney Pocket in Gold Butte National Monument

On our first day in Gold Butte National Monument, we stopped first at Whitney Pocket. Whitney Pocket is an area of dramatic red and white sandstone rock formations that appear to have just jutted out of the desert floor. It’s very scenic plus beckons for some fun rock scrambling!

We’ve got a video of Whitney Pocket here if you’d like to see it in action.

Whitney Pocket is also the most busy area that we saw in the monument. There are a couple large lots that are used for camping and vehicle staging. Each lot also has a porta-potty. As far as camping goes, we saw trailers, vans and tents enjoying the cool spots tucked around the rock formations.

In addition to the rock formations, there is an old dam built by the CCC back in the 1930’s as well as an old water trough. We had no idea these were back here until we stumbled upon them as we looked for a way to start our climb. But throughout our visits to Gold Butte National Monument, we noticed many people stop here and check out this site.

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Anyways, while we were at Whitney Pocket, we scrambled to the top of the tallest rock formation. Route finding and the vast views along the way make rock scrambling one of our favorite outdoor adventures.

From the top, we were able to see far in every direction. Since this was our first adventure in the area, it gave us a great vantage point to figure out where else we want to explore!

That’s when we spotted the canyon in the distance that I discuss down below. From here we made our way back down to the ground and set off to see more of Gold Butte National Monument.

Little Finland in Gold Butte National Monument

Little Finland is one of the coolest places to see in Gold Butte National Monument. Driving back there in our Suburban was a slow, long, bumpy ride but totally worth it! We didn’t park at the main parking area, but instead we cut the drive short and decided to walk further instead. Walking was much more enjoyable than riding in this case.

Interested in seeing our video of this otherworldy place? Check it out!

Little Finland has some really awesome red rock formations sculpted by erosion. We had a great time exploring the area. And there are even petroglyphs to be found along the way. I’ll let the pictures do the talking here.

Day Two in the Whitney Pocket Vicinity

Since we’re always down for a good rock scrambling adventure, we went back a second time to the red and white sandstone rock formations near Whitney Pocket. This time, we stopped at the first parking area near a different set of rock formations. We made it to the top of a few of these formations near the parking area.

Then we just started walking and made it to another large red rock crag. That’s where we found this huge nest. And we didn’t realize it at the time but apparently this is a another petroglyph site! Under the white streaks of bird poop, there are petroglyphs.

As we got to the top of some rocks, we could see more rocks peaking out in the distance. And that leads me to the next area that is a must see in Gold Butte National Monument.

Petroglyphs at Gold Butte National Monument

The petroglyphs at Gold Butte National Monument are probably the most abundant and impressive petroglyph sites that we’ve encountered. And we stumbled upon this rich history by just wandering around the rock formations by Whitney Pocket. We were exploring the nearby sandstone rock “piles”, just climbing around and enjoying the scenery. Then, in the distance we got a glimpse of another rocky landscape. So we followed the dirt road in that direction until we found the first parking area.

When we arrived, we were expecting more sandstone rock formations to climb around on. We had no idea we were in for such rich, interesting history! From the parking area, there is an obvious trail as well as a sign that says “Don’t erase the evidence of our past”. This always signifies that there is definitely evidence of history nearby. And it didn’t take long before the rock art began revealing itself on the colorful boulders all around. We didn’t know which petroglyph covered boulder to check out first!

Watch this video to get a feel for the landscape and sheer number of petroglyphs!

We spent a couple hours here looking at the interesting history of the area depicted through these petroglyphs. We’ve see petroglyph sites on many of our adventures but this site contained some unique images that we had never seen anywhere else.

Not only are the petroglyphs super neat but the scenery in this area is just incredible. The boulders are so colorful! And the large joshua trees, singing birds and beautiful diversity of wildflowers really added to the experience.

Exploring the petroglyphs at Gold Butte National Monument is a really cool experience. We thoroughly enjoyed taking the time to think about the people that inhabited this area and what they were recording. And as we continued along the trail we were excitedly looking around to spot the next signs of this history.

On our visit, there were no other vehicles in the parking area and we encountered no one else as we wandered around. We had this entire place to ourselves and I think that made it feel that much more special.

Canyon Adventure

After climbing around some of the cool rock formations near Whitney Pocket, we spotted a canyon in the mountainside across the way. From here we couldn’t tell much about the conditions, if it contained fun narrows or where it even led. But we could see some bight red rocks tucked way back there, just barely. It looked like an adventure so…we checked it out!

We parked near Whitney Pocket parking area and made our way over to the base of the canyon. The canyon was steep and rocky but from here we could no longer see people or hear motors so we were content. And we always embrace the opportunity to feast our eyes on new scenery.

All that we knew was that there were some red rocks deep in the canyon that we were hoping to reach. After following the canyon for about a mile or so in, we could see the red rocks. The wash had a few puddles and some cool rocky sections where the water carved the sandstone.

As we neared the “end” where the red rocks were, there were several directions we could go to reach the rocks. We continued mostly straight and a bit right to get to the rocks. This is where we stopped and had lunch before proceeding to a bit of rock scrambling. The rocks were cool but a bit steep and crumbly to climb too far.

But we reached the red rocks that we had our sights on! And we had fun exploring a new canyon in complete solitude – so the adventure was a success. We were hoping to spot bighorn sheep but… instead we got lizards and birds.

Thanks for Reading!

We hope this article helped showcase the natural beauty and endless adventure found in Gold Butte National Monument! It’s just amazing how many incredible landscapes there are to discover not far from the Las Vegas area.

Experiencing a new landscape and hiking in unfamiliar territory is always so rewarding. If you would like to read about some of our other memorable adventures, check out the articles below:

• Oasis on Black Canyon Trail
• Exploring Ding and Dang Canyons
• Hiking the Zirkel Circle
• Plane Crash on Humphreys Peak Trail

We live on the road full time and adventure as often as we can! When we’re not adventuring we’re working hard on our hand painted longboards. You can check those out here at our shop. We also design and screen print our own shirts.

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