Is it relatively easy to drive to Valley of Fire and Mount Charleston and how long would the round trips take from the Strip approximately? Would you need high clearance vehicles?
Valley of Fire State Park, the oldest in the state (established 1936), is 53 miles from the Flamingo Road entrance to I-15 off the Strip, so it’ll take a little less than an hour in each direction (accounting for traffic out of and back into the city and the 75 mph speed limit on the interstate). It’s 38 miles from Flamingo to exit 75 on I-15; you exit there onto Valley of Fire Highway and continue another 15 miles to the park.
But if you have a little extra time and want to take a different and scenic route back to Vegas, you can make a nice loop by coming out on the east side of the park and taking a right (south) on NV 167, also known as Northshore Road. This road runs a bit inland from Lake Mead, passing turnoffs to Overton Beach, Echo Bay, and Callville Bay.
Nearing the city, you can take a right on E. Lake Mead Blvd. (a.k.a. NV 147) and head a bit north into North Las Vegas, hooking up with I-15 again and heading south into the city. Or you can stay on Northshore Road, which turns south and passes Lake Las Vegas, till you come to the T-junction and go right onto E. Lake Mead Parkway (a.k.a NV 564), which leads you through Henderson and connects with I-515 north back into the city.
It’s smooth pavement from door to door, so you need neither four-wheel-drive nor a high-clearance vehicle to tour the park and return via the lake.
Mt. Charleston is the same — no 4wd or HCV necessary. From the Flamingo Road entrance to I-15, it’s 43 miles (maybe an hour) to the little settlement of Mt. Charleston, Nevada, at the end of NV 157 (a.k.a. Kyle Canyon Road).
You head north on I-15, but turn onto US 95 north (following the signs for Reno) at the Spaghetti Bowl. You drive for about 20 miles, then turn left (west) toward Kyle Canyon, up past the Mt. Charleston Hotel, Kyle Canyon Campground (at 7,100 feet), through the village, and to road’s end at Mt. Charleston Lodge.
You can double back the way you came through Kyle Canyon. Or to make a nice loop of it, take a left onto NV 158 (a.k.a. Deer Creek Road); in six miles, after passing Fletcher Peak and Mummy Mountain, you connect with NV 156 (a.k.a. Lee Canyon Road). Taking a left, you dead-end at Lee Canyon Ski Resort; going right, you travel northeast for 23 miles back to US 95. From there, it’s 30 miles back to the Flamingo exit on I-15, which will take you an hour plus.
So you can see that it's easy to drive to both of them, and we highly recommend these trips. Each is a day trip; it'd be a pretty long day to go to Valley of Fire and Mt. Charleston.
