Red Rock Canyon State Park, State park in Kern County, California
Red Rock Canyon State Park is a protected area in Kern County with colorful sandstone cliffs, white clay formations, and volcanic rock. The landscape formed where the Sierra Nevada and El Paso Mountains meet.
The Kawaiisu and Coso once lived in this region and left petroglyphs in the El Paso Mountains. These rock carvings marked ceremonial sites of these indigenous peoples.
Since the 1930s, Hollywood has filmed at Red Rock Canyon, starting with westerns such as The Big Country and The Outlaw. Later productions include Jurassic Park, Westworld and the 2006 Muse video for "Knights of Cydonia". The park's rock formations stand in for otherworldly landscapes on screen.
The area covers roughly 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres) with campgrounds and hiking trails. Access is via Highway 14 between Mojave and Ridgecrest.
The park is a Bortle class 2–3 dark-sky site, one of the darkest within a two-hour drive of Los Angeles. On a clear, moonless night, visitors with dark-adapted eyes can see the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies without a telescope, and the central Milky Way shows complex structure.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 93,120 contributors worldwide.
