Red benchmark

Red Benchmark - 1220M

172M Prominence

36,13337, -115.36543

April 3, 2026

185M Ascent and descent

1H 1M

4.05KM

Red Benchmark is a completely uninteresting summit, but one that I have been meaning to climb for a while now. It offers great views due to it's location between The sprawling city of Las Vegas and The Red Rocks National Park. It is also within walking distance of the Red Rocks campground where I was staying this year for a climbing trip. I thought it would be a great sunset hike, and while it was great, the sunset was a bit of a let down. Orrin and I were camping out in the group sites, and after a day of climbing we had dinner, then head out from our campsite. We found a network of bike trails that took us closer to the peak, then aimed for a bit of a gulley North West of the summit. From here we continued up the gulley, which actually has a sort of trail in it. We then carried on up onto a wide ridge with an exposed South West Face. The ridge was neat and the ecosystem all around was quite interesting with the dry shrubbery, flowering cacti and scrawny Joshua trees. The summit was quite broad and uninteresting as I expected, but the light of golden hour over Vegas was quite a sight. We then descended the same route we came up back down to the campsite.

Views of the Red Benchmark

The desert ecosystem is truly remarkable when seen up close

Beautiful cacti

Sunset over Red Rocks Park

Orrin catching some views

Vegas from the summit

The suburban bump is Lone Mountain, a chill hike I did last year

Survey marker on the summit

Cool fossils on the ridge

Looking down at the campground where we started from

Red Benchmark route