If you live in MacDonald Highlands, the McCullough Mountains aren't backdrop, they're the ground DragonRidge Country Club's par-72 course was carved into by Jay Morrish and David Druzisky back in 2001. That's the same range Congress just made bigger. If you've also heard someone mention that "Sloan Canyon is closed for construction" and wondered whether that touches the trails you actually drive to on a Saturday morning, the honest answer takes more than a neighbor's text message.
Here's what actually happened, and why the story isn't as simple as a road reopening on a calendar date.
The Closure That's Already Two Years Old
Since November 12, 2024, the Bureau of Land Management has kept Nawghaw Poa Road and the parking area at its end closed while it builds a permanent Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area Visitor Contact Station. That construction footprint swallowed the original trailhead for the Petroglyph Canyon Trail and part of the 101 Trail, so both were rerouted, with parking shifted to Democracy Drive. The BLM's own closure page still lists the closure running through November 11, 2026, two full years after it started.
If you've hiked Petroglyph Canyon before, this is the part you already knew. It's also a smaller slice of the conservation area than most people assume. Petroglyph Canyon has always operated under its own rules regardless of construction: no more than 20 people allowed in at once, hours limited to 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and dogs prohibited entirely, service animals excepted. None of that touches the McCullough Hills Trail, the Anthem East Trail, or the Black Mountain Trail, the maintained network Henderson built on the other side of this same range. More on that in a minute, because it matters for anyone planning a longer weekend hike out of the neighborhood.
The Bill That Changed Everything In May
On May 19, 2026, the president signed H.R. 972, the Sloan Canyon Conservation and Lateral Pipeline Act, into law as Public Law 119-91. The bill does two things that sound unrelated until you read past the summary.
First, it expands Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area's official boundary from 48,438 acres to 57,728 acres, an addition of roughly 9,290 acres according to Congress.gov's own summary of the bill. That's close to a one-fifth increase in the protected footprint framing Henderson's southern skyline, land that wasn't formally inside the conservation area's boundary before this spring.
Second, and this is the part that doesn't make it into most headlines, the same law directs the BLM to grant the Southern Nevada Water Authority rights-of-way through the conservation area to build and operate a water transmission pipeline. The agency has until May 19, 2027 to issue those rights-of-way, meaning construction can't legally begin until that grant is made. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who championed the bill along with Rep. Dina Titus, framed the urgency around the fact that "nearly 3 million people all currently rely on just one pipeline" for a large share of the valley's water supply. Titus, for her part, described the goal as "preserving more of the unique habitat and cultural history of Sloan Canyon" while the pipeline work moves forward. Both are quoted at length in the Las Vegas Review-Journal's coverage of the signing.
Here's the connective detail that resident hikers should actually care about. According to that same Review-Journal reporting, Friends of Sloan Canyon president Ron Safran has pointed out that one of the ground access points for the pipeline work sits near the Petroglyph Canyon Trailhead, close to where the permanent visitor center is already under construction. In other words, the road that's been closed since 2024 for one construction project is positioned to become the staging ground for a second one, on a timeline that extends at least a year past the current reopening date.
A quick timeline makes the overlap easier to see:
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| Nov. 12, 2024 | Nawghaw Poa Road and its parking area close for Visitor Contact Station construction |
| Jan. 23, 2025 | Petroglyph Canyon Trail and 101 Trail reroute maps finalized, parking shifted to Democracy Drive |
| May 19, 2026 | Sloan Canyon Conservation and Lateral Pipeline Act signed, boundary grows to 57,728 acres |
| Nov. 11, 2026 | Scheduled end date for the visitor center construction closure |
| By May 19, 2027 | Deadline for BLM to grant SNWA the pipeline rights-of-way |
Read that last row against the fourth one. The closure is scheduled to lift in November, but the law that just passed gives the water authority up to another six months beyond that just to receive its right-of-way, before any pipeline construction can start. Anyone circling November 11 on a calendar as the day Nawghaw Poa Road goes back to normal is planning around only half the picture.
The Trails Henderson Actually Maintains Nearby
None of this touches the maintained public trail network most Henderson hikers use to get into this same conservation area, and it's worth knowing the difference between that network and the one road that's closed. The McCullough Hills Trail runs about eight miles between two trailheads: Anthem Hills Park at 2256 N. Reunion Drive on the west end, and the McCullough Hills Trailhead at 295 Mission Drive on the east, according to the City of Henderson's own trailhead listing and a detailed trail guide from Outside Henderson. The Anthem East Trail, paved for about three-quarters of a mile out of Anthem Hills Park before turning to dirt singletrack, runs south from that same park to the Shadow Canyon Trailhead, per TrailLink's trail description. Black Mountain Trail is reached from that same Shadow Canyon Trailhead by following the paved portion of Anthem East first, according to AllTrails' Henderson trail listings, and climbs to a summit with a view of the Las Vegas skyline. None of that access runs through Nawghaw Poa Road, and none of it has been closed at any point since 2024.
The rules differ too, which is worth knowing if you're the one holding the leash. Dogs are barred entirely from Petroglyph Canyon and its trail. On the McCullough Hills Trail, leashed dogs are welcome, and the same goes for Anthem East, which is the real practical difference between the trail everyone's heard is closed and the ones Henderson actually built for daily use.
What does eventually change for that trail network is traffic on the approach roads, not access to the trails themselves. Once SNWA crews mobilize for pipeline construction, the staging area near the Petroglyph Canyon Trailhead is the likely starting point, and construction vehicles moving through the Nawghaw Poa Road corridor will be a fact of life there for a while, even if the McCullough Hills and Anthem East trails a few miles away stay exactly as they are today.
The Actual Takeaway
The conservation area anchoring the range behind MacDonald Highlands is, on paper, about one-fifth larger than it was in the spring. That is real and it is good news for anyone who values the amount of protected desert framing this part of Henderson. It is also true that the same legislation extends the working life of an active construction zone at the exact spot most people assume is about to reopen. Bigger and busier turned out to be the same bill, not opposite outcomes.
If you're already living in these foothills, the practical version is simple: the trailheads Henderson actually maintains for public access into this range, Anthem Hills Park, the McCullough Hills Trailhead on Mission Drive, and the Shadow Canyon Trailhead, haven't changed and aren't scheduled to. Petroglyph Canyon has been rerouted since early 2025 and will likely stay that way past its posted reopening date once pipeline work picks up nearby. Plan around the Nawghaw Poa Road corridor specifically, not the wider trail system, which should stay a construction zone in one form or another well into 2027.
If you're weighing what life actually looks like day to day in a community like MacDonald Highlands, from the trail access to the club to the terrain itself, Brenda Beltran Real Estate Group spends a lot of time in these foothills and is glad to walk through what's changed and what hasn't. Schedule a personal consultation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
