The Trail Out of Mission Hills Doesn't Loop. It Goes to Railroad Pass.

Most people who live near Mission Hills Park treat the paved trail behind it the way they'd treat a treadmill with a nicer view: walk the dog, get a mile in, turn around. That's a reasonable read of a trail that starts near Paradise Hills Drive by the Nevada State University campus. What it isn't is an accurate one. Follow that same pavement south instead of looping back, and it crosses a bridge over Interstate 11 that didn't exist until the freeway itself opened in August 2018, then delivers you to the parking lot of a casino that's been open since 1931.

The trail has a name most residents don't use: the Harry Reid Union Pacific Railroad Trail. And it isn't a neighborhood amenity that circles back on itself. It's a spine that runs roughly 12.5 miles from Green Valley Park down to the River Mountains Loop Trail, and the segment nearest Mission Hills is just the last few miles of it, not a self-contained loop with a beginning and an end.

The bridge that changed what this trail is

For years, the section closest to Mission Hills simply stopped at the freeway. Riders and walkers who reached the edge of I-11 had two options: turn back, or find a street crossing somewhere else. That changed with the construction of dedicated pedestrian and bike bridges built alongside the I-11 project itself, connecting the trail's southeast end directly into the existing River Mountains Loop Trail near Railroad Pass. Multiple trail users, independently, note that the bridge is new relative to the freeway's completion. One reviewer's directions are about as plain as it gets: cross the bridge, then hook a right toward Railroad Pass.

That single infrastructure change, tied to the same August 2018 opening of the I-11 Boulder City Bypass, turned a dead-end neighborhood trail into a through-route. Before the bridge, Mission Hills' access point fed into a trail that ended at the edge of the freeway. After it, the same access point puts you on a continuous path toward Boulder City, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, and Hoover Dam, by way of one of Nevada's oldest continuously operating businesses.

What's actually waiting at Railroad Pass

Cross the bridge, follow the trail to the highway waystation, and you land at Railroad Pass Casino and Hotel, which holds the distinction of being Nevada's longest continuously licensed casino, dating to 1931. It's not a detour built for tourists passing through on their way to the Hoover Dam. It's a working stop with:

• The Iron Rail Café, open 24 hours, for the trail-worn version of breakfast
• DeSimone's Steakhouse, for the version of the trip that turns into dinner
• A Travel Center next door with a convenience store, fuel pumps, and a dozen Tesla Supercharging stalls
• The attached Ramada by Wyndham, if a day trip becomes an overnight

This is worth being precise about, because it's easy to confuse with a different, unrelated Henderson casino that also made news this year. Railroad Pass, the one at the end of this trail, is not the same property as The Pass on Water Street downtown, formerly the Eldorado. That casino changed hands in 2026, with DeSimone Gaming agreeing to sell it to ECL Water Street, the operator behind the Emerald Island and Rainbow Club, in a deal scheduled to close August 1, 2026 and give ECL control of all three historic Water Street casinos. Railroad Pass, the trail's turnaround point, wasn't part of that transaction. It's a separate property under separate ownership on the southeast edge of Henderson, and it's the one your feet or your tires can actually reach without a car.

The trail carries the same name as your neighborhood's history

There's a reason the name changed from the generic Union Pacific Railroad Trail to something more specific. In February 2017, the City of Henderson renamed it after former U.S. Senator Harry Reid, a Henderson resident whose connection to the area traces back to his father's work at the plants here during World War II. Then-Mayor Andy Hafen tied the renaming to something more concrete than sentiment: Reid's role in passing the 1998 Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, which redirected revenue from BLM land sales into public projects across the valley. Hafen specifically credited that funding stream with building the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve, the River Mountains Loop Trail, and Mission Hills Park itself.

That last one matters more than it might first appear. The same federal land-sale legislation that funds the trail behind your house also built the park it runs past. This isn't a trail that happens to be near Mission Hills. It's infrastructure the neighborhood's own park was built alongside, using the same money, around the same era of Henderson's growth.

Riding it in late August

Trail-log data from cyclists who track their routes marks August as one of the more actively used months on this stretch, which runs counter to the instinct that a paved, largely shadeless trail in the Mojave in late summer would sit empty. It doesn't, mostly because people have adjusted for the heat rather than avoided the trail altogether.

A few things worth knowing before you go longer than the usual loop this time of year:

• There's a water shelter positioned just before the I-11 bridge crossing, worth using as a refill point in either direction
• The stretch beyond the bridge toward Railroad Pass has little shade, so early morning or the last hour before sunset is the difference between a pleasant ride and a miserable one
• The convenience store and fuel pumps at the Railroad Pass Travel Center are reliably open even when the casino's own hours shift, making it a dependable turnaround point regardless of what's happening inside
• Past Railroad Pass, continuing onto the River Mountains Loop Trail toward Boulder City is a meaningfully different, longer undertaking best treated as its own trip rather than an extension of a Mission Hills evening walk

None of this requires specialized gear or a mountain bike. The trail itself is a paved, low-grade path built for exactly this kind of use, a fact that also explains why it draws a wider range of users than the region's harder desert trails. It's a route built for people who want distance without technical difficulty, which is precisely what makes it easy to underestimate how far it actually goes.

The part most residents miss

The generic version of this story stops at the park. Mission Hills has a nice trail nearby, good for the dog, fine for a jog. That's true, but it undersells what's actually connected to your neighborhood. The trail is a functioning corridor to a working casino, a Travel Center, and eventually to Boulder City and Hoover Dam, made possible by a bridge that's been standing for less than a decade and funded by legislation that also built the park at the center of the neighborhood.

If you've lived in Mission Hills for a while and only ever walked the near stretch, the next clear morning is worth trying the long version. Cross the bridge. Turn right. See what's actually at the end of your own trail.

For more on what makes Mission Hills and the surrounding Henderson communities distinct, including the parks, trail connections, and everyday details that don't show up in a listing description, visit our Mission Hills neighborhood guide or explore more of Henderson. And if you're weighing a move within the area or wondering what your current home is worth in today's market, Prescindia Misch is glad to help, starting with a private consultation whenever you're ready.