Columnist Susan Snyder: Some sights are set in sandstone

Saturday, April 3, 2004 | 7:02 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

Life's greatest surprises often happen during its most mundane moments.

Not that a spring hike up Sandstone Canyon at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park should ever be considered boring. It is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

But as with anything one does on a regular basis, it's an experience that can be taken for granted.

The guide-only jaunts during fall and spring take hikers through the state park's historic area, where they learn about 160-year-old sandstone buildings and American Indians, fur trappers and 19th-century settlers who lived there at one time or another.

We walk them past the lake made by a 1940s radio star, and we keep walking up the dirt path that leads into a canyon of spectacular sandstone.

The path climbs to the base of a mammoth cottonwood tree, where we rest a bit before picking our way among spiny cholla cactus and the thick, green shrubbery that covers the desert in the absence of bulldozers.

At the base of the "big rock" we hike down into the wash and continue up the canyon, scrambling over smooth sandstone boulders and rocks of every size, in hues ranging from pure white to deep, rusty red.

Most times we stay to the right, climbing up to a rock ledge to enjoy a snack and the view. We'll see a few blue scrub jays if we're lucky.

"Ever see any bighorn sheep?" one of the hikers asked as we picked our way up the wash March 28.

No, I replied, though other volunteers who have been out there at dawn say they have seen a couple. But never in the middle of the afternoon.

Never say never, especially when you take a detour. For some reason, I led our small group up the canyon's left side. The four of us came to rest on a broad, flat expanse of sandstone perched across from the ledge where we usually stop.

I'm not sure which one of the other three saw the first sheep step daintily from the rocks across from us. But one soon became three, then five, then seven.

We watched in silence and awe as more sheep came from between the rocks and picked their way down toward the trail we had just left. Soon there were 12, including a pair of ewes, each with a lamb in tow.

And not a single camera or set of binoculars among us. Figures.

Pat Cummings, a biologist with the Nevada Division of Wildlife, said the sheep likely are always there.

"You just don't see them. They're designed to be inconspicuous," he said. "They use the whole escarpment out there."

The foothills on the edge of the Lone Mountain development are prime bighorn sheep habitat, he added. They don't like being near people, but higher elevations bring mountain lions. So the sheep have to make a choice.

"Adult ewes are going to go to places that offer a trade-off," Cummings said.

So on that Sunday we were the lesser of the evils.

Lucky for us.

The sandstone cliffs and mountains surrounding our urban valley are easily taken for granted. We think we know them by heart. We cut trails. We light them at night. We name them.

But we never really know what stands just beyond our view. And it's good to know some wild remains in our little paved corner of the West.

Get out.