My knee was giving me some issues, so I decided to take a break on our sixth day. Steve left early to hike at Red Rock (he did Bridge Mountain, 15.5 miles and 4500 feet elevation) and grabbed lunch at a Thai restaurant on his way back to the strip. I took the opportunity to finally try out a sandwich at Lardo - I had the Korean pork shoulder and it was delicious! When walking by District Donut I couldn’t resist the peppermint bark donut and had to give it a try. We whittled away our afternoon, walking around the strip and checking out the casinos and when evening rolled around we drove to the Spring Valley area to have a delicious dinner at Hobak Korean BBQ.

Steve was back at Red Rock the following day when we arrived early to hike the White Rock Loop (~6 miles for the loop with 1000 feet elevation gain/loss. It was around ~ 9 miles, 2500 feet elevation with our added scramble). This trail circumscribes the colorful sandstone White Rock Mountain and traverses several different habitats. We parked at the Lower White Rock parking lot off the scenic road and planned to hike in a counterclockwise direction so we could do a short scramble at the beginning of our hike. We initially thought we might scramble up White Rock mountain, but stopped at a small summit part of the way up and felt that was good for the day. From that vantage point we had some great views and along the way saw some cool rocks. On the way down we spotted a roadrunner - definitely wasn’t expecting that!

Back down on the loop trail, we continued north and gradually gained elevation to the high point on the loop - a saddle at 5,482 feet. Looking at the trail ahead, we could see we descended into different terrain with pine trees. We walked the shaded trail through the trees until it opened up again as we met an old roadbed (spot where you could do a side trip to La Madre Spring). This track met up with Rocky Gap Road, a 4WD road that led us down to the Willow Spring trailhead. There are bathrooms here and a few minor points of interest, like some petroglyphs and the site of an old agave roasting pit. We continued on the loop along the edge of the hills, crossed a few washes, then finished up our hike traversing a desert plain back to our car. Overall, this was a nice hike (especially with the small scramble).

Normally we would have just headed back to Las Vegas for a late lunch/early dinner like on previous days, but we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to try out Buldogis in nearby Summerlin (definitely a good call!). Plus, we didn’t have dinner reservations until 7 pm at Edo Tapas. We got the chef’s tasting menu and everything was delicious!