Red Rock Canyon State Park in California preserves a striking Mojave Desert landscape where the southern Sierra Nevada meets the El Paso Mountains. Its steep cliffs, buttes, and vividly banded formations of white clay, red sandstone, volcanic rock, and lava were shaped about 3 million years ago and support overlapping desert ecosystems with diverse wildlife. The area was long home to the Kawaiisu people, while nearby ritual sites and rock art reflect connections to ancestors of the Coso people and wider Native trade networks. Later it served freight wagons, mining activity, filmmaking, and recreation, and remains valued for scenery, open space, fossils, and dark night skies.