A Walk in Sunset Park

We’ve driven by the entrance hundreds of times, but never stopped for a visit until now.

Sunset Park is one of those in-city Las Vegas parks that we’ve driven by hundreds of times and never visited. It’s one of the largest parks in the city, very close to McCarran International Airport. You wouldn’t think you’d find a 324-acre multi-use park so close to the airport and downtown, but Las Vegas considers this park the crown jewel of the Clark County park system.

Sunset Park Pond - photo credit: Neaco

In 1909, the land was originally the Miller Ranch and later became the Vegas Stock Farm, used for breeding and training thoroughbred racehorses. The county acquired the land in 1967 and turned it into a park. Year round fishing is allowed at the 1.4 acre Sunset Park Pond and it’s regularly stocked with rainbow trout and catfish by the Nevada Fish & Wildlife Department. There are lots of picnic areas, volleyball courts and softball fields, but the draw for us was, of course, 3.5 miles of walking trails through desert landscape and sand dunes.

A map of the park shows all the amenities including the walking paths.

We were tentative about our visit, wondering if the park would be crowded with ‘shelter-in-place-ers’ like us who were looking for some exercise, sunshine and a change of venue. Though there were quite a few people present, the park is large enough to mostly avoid close contact with others. We noted two groups of teenagers wandering the pathways who were oblivious to the fact there were more than 10 of them in their respective herds and even more oblivious to the fact that there were other people in the park who were trying desperately to socially distance from them. We saw them coming and gave them a wide berth… several times.

Lots of ground squirrels inhabit the ‘dunes’ at Sunset Park

The shared walking/biking paths are wide and paved, criss-crossing each other, looping around and meandering through some very unremarkable sand dunes. These dunes are definitely not the Namib Desert, nor the Atacama nor White Sands National Monument. If you didn’t know they were called sand dunes, you’d call them small, scrubby, sandy hills in the desert, but they do provide a great habitat for local wildlife especially hummingbirds and ground squirrels of which we saw lots. The profusion of ground squirrels, in particular, reminded us of the prairie dog towns in Colorado. These little guys (and girls) frolicked and played and chased each other around as if they had no worries in the world about the coronavirus… maybe raptors, snakes and coyotes, but not Covid-19.

The day was sunny and warm. We started out with light sweaters, but soon shed them and were glad we’d taken the time to slather up with sunscreen before leaving. The 3.5 mile walk took only an hour, but it was an outing which was good for both body and spirit. For our purposes, i.e. walking, I wouldn’t call it the greatest park in the city… we definitely prefer Wetlands Park. For a change of venue, however, it was just right: Something close to home and a chance to get out, stretch our bones and explore a new area.