Our Visit to Seven Magic Mountains

Just about thirty minutes from the hustle and bustle of the Las Vegas strip, we explored a whimsical art installation in the middle of the Nevada desert called Seven Magic Mountains. If you are headed to Vegas soon, be sure to add this to your itinerary! Thanks to our friends at Toyota for always inspiring us to go to new places!

You know how you find yourself seeing the same place over and over again on Instagram that you finally decide to see what all of the fuss is about? Well, for us, that was Seven Magic Mountains! 

I will be the first to admit that I probably spend way too much time on Instagram. Looking through travel hashtags to get inspired and temporarily fulfill my need for wanderlust when I am stuck in the office, I often find patterns or even see the same places being shared over and over again. When I see a place that strikes my attention or inspires me, I like to add these Instagram posts in my saved folder. 

I cannot tell you how many times I went and saved a photo of someone at Seven Magic Mountains!

After seeing about probably fifty selfies and adorable fashionista grams all taken at the same spot, I finally decided to look into this gorgeous, desert art installation. Located just thirty minutes outside of Las Vegas, I knew it would be something we could easily check out during our next road trip test driving the Toyota Prius Four Touring from Arizona out to Nevada, and over our winter break hiatus, we did just that! 
For my thirtieth birthday and Christmas, Adam and I took time off and got out of the house and went on a desert road trip out to Las Vegas to explore around the area. We were happy to be able to share the trip with my mom as well since it had been about ten years since we got to spend Christmas with her!

The drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas is a straightforward road trip with very minimal need to make pit stops. Test driving the Toyota Prius Four Touring, we could have easily made it the entire way on just one tank of gas since we were getting around 199 miles to the gallon! With minimal traffic, it took us just under five hours to get from our place in Phoenix to get to our hotel on the southern part of the Las Vegas strip. 

Visiting Seven Magic Mountains was a total breeze for us once we found a parking spot. I had not anticipated how busy it would be, but as it turns out, there are quite a few other people who have heard of the art installation who wanted to visit and take pictures there. There is a designated parking lot just off the main road, and there was even a street vendor selling water and snacks from a food truck. Keep in mind, this is a temporary art installation in the middle of the Nevada desert so you can imagine that there are a number of warning signs about dehydration and rattlesnakes, as well as courtesy signs asking guests to not wander off of the main walkways. 

A quick walk from the parking lot, you will find this Ugo Rondinone art installation that was named Seven Magic Mountains. Comprised of 33 boulders, this large scale artwork piece took five years to complete from start to finish. Moving one boulder at a time, to stack these boulders on top of one another, each large boulder weighs over 40,000 pounds. It took an entire team of engineers, producers, consultants, and heavy lifters to bring this artwork to life in the middle of the desert. It is one of the largest, land-based art installations completed in over 40 years. 

Ugo Rondinone is a Swiss-born artist better known around the world for his public artwork, including his "Human Nature" installation that resided in New York City in Rockafeller Center through 2013.

If you are headed to Las Vegas or looking for a road trip idea coming from Phoenix, we highly recommend making your way out to the strip to check out this colorful, whimsical public art installation. 

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Thanks to our friends at Toyota USA for allowing us to test drive the Toyota Prius Four Touring!