There's nothing red about this desert. It's mostly brown and black and among the most low quality deserts I've seen. It's one tick above Texas deserts. It's not entirely flat but contains large flat areas with mostly uninteresting features.
What a beautiful landscape! Every turn and hill reveal a new canvas to please the eyes and soul! If you are traveling that way make time to explore for yourself!
Hundreds of Pronghorn antelope, mule deer, packs of Dusky grouse, herds of wild horses, White wild horses at White Horse creek overlook, white mountain petroglyphs, iconic Boar’s Tusks, Killpacker Sand dunes, panoramic vistas from crest of Oregon Buttes, and best of all…. HARDLY ANYONE!
We visited on Labor Day and although driving the loop for about 10 hours including hiking and detours - we met less than 5 vehicles where we encounter at parking lots in several locations. Some parts of the roads eg way to Boar’s tusk is one way and sometimes it’s hard to see the oncoming traffic as the roads are undulating or at curves when we’d slow down and keep right. But we never met anyone so never had to share the road!
It was super nice we could pull over and take pictures, admire the scenery or watch the wildlife. So many times I felt we were at a safari. The historic and cultural significance made this journey even more interesting.
Make sure you grab a map published by reddesert.org (we got ours from Wild Iris in Lander for $2) - it made a huge difference in hitting the spots. The map has mile markers which helped a lot since not all the turn offs have good signage. Map is 90% accurate although the Oregon buttes was not signed at all and even though it says ‘easy hike’ - it wasn’t! Parts of the hike were at least 40 degrees and definitely would be rated at least a ‘moderate to difficult’ by NP standards. We had a truck that took us up to the base which could otherwise easily add another 30mins strenuous uphill. It was totally rewarding once Up there . We arrived up there around 6+ perfect timing for sunset hues. We could see a panoramic view of the valley- it’s even higher than the Continental Peak.
We started at 9.30am from Farson and ended around 8pm. Saw lots of large rigs (toy haulers) and buggies / side by side etc, although we didn’t, camping and driving through.
The DIRT road is HORRIBLE it would take you forever to go around that thing. Me and my husband went about 3 miles and it took us about 2 hrs to do that. We turned around and came back. Rough on car. Maybe if you have a pickup it might not be as bad. We did see a lot of antelope.
