PhotoBlog : View from the Stratosphere Tower

The Stratosphere Hotel and Casino is located in Las Vegas, and essentially marks the “northern end” of the Las Vegas Strip. The Stratosphere, besides being a popular and very affordable hotel and casino, also has a unique “entertainment” area…or at least as unique as you can be in Las Vegas. 

Attached to the Stratosphere is what is called the Tower. The Tower rises 1149 feet above Las Vegas, and serves triple duty as a revolving restaurant/bar, observation deck and amusement park. At 1149 feet above Las Vegas, you get absolutely spectacular views of the whole metropolitan Las Vegas area. And needless to say, the views of the Las Vegas Strip are also superb, too.

Now, while the views from the Tower of the Stratosphere are superb…simply getting up to the observation deck of the Stratosphere is a royal pain in the neck. First you have to wind through a maze of cattle gates, then pay for your ticket ($15 the last time I was there), then pass through a metal detector and have a guard look at all your stuff. Why the strange security measures they have in place here…I have no idea. But it is a pain.

And if you are a photographer…BEWARE. They do NOT allow tripods to be taken up to the top of the Observation Deck. But of course, they don’t tell you this until you reach the security area. And by then…well…what are you supposed to do? Nothing…except get booted out of line. Which is what happened to me.

I was staying at the Stratosphere Hotel at the time, so I went back to my room, dropped off the tripod, came back down, waited for 30 minutes through the line again, bought yet another ticket since they wouldn’t honor my first ticket, and then finally got onboard the elevator.

The elevator ride to the top of the Stratosphere is a remarkably fast one…it takes less than a minute…to go 1100 vertical feet! Also interestingly, the elevator of the Stratosphere is a “double-decker” elevator…the only of it’s kind in Las Vegas to the best of my knowledge.

Since I didn’t have a tripod, I took over 200 photographs while at the top of the Observation Deck of the Stratosphere…secure in the knowledge that few if any would turn out. Happily, I did get a couple of good ones…and posted the good ones in the Stratosphere Observation Deck Photo Gallery.

But I thought this photo was the best one. It came out clear and sharp…and a touch of sharpening in PhotoShop brought out the rest. And I like the photo since I still had a touch of light left in the sky, bringing out the mountains in the background…yet it was far dark enough to fully bring out the lights of the city, too.

In this photo you can see most of the major hotels and casinos that are on the Las Vegas Strip, missing out on just a few like the Mirage, Treasure Island and the Circus-Circus.

The Wynn, MGM Grand, New York New York, Mandalay Bar, Luxor and ExCalibur are all very clearly visible. And if you know what you are looking for, you can also see the top of the Eiffel Tower of the Paris poking up, Bally’s, Caesars Palace and a few other places.

All in all…if in Las Vegas…make a point of making the painful trip up to the top of the Stratosphere Observation Deck. It is worth the cost and the hassle to get up to the top.

Just leave the tripod back in your hotel room.

Related Information on Exploring Nevada

• Photographs from the Observation Deck of the Stratosphere
• Photographs of Las Vegas
• Other Las Vegas PhotoBlogs

Camera Information

• model Canon EOS 20D
• exposureTime 0.020 s (1/50) (1/50)
• fnumber f/3.5
• exposure aperture priority (semi-auto)
• isoEquiv 1600
• DateTime 2006:06:16 21:40:47
• aperture 3.500006953035
• meteringMode matrix
• focalLength 100.00 (100/1)
• exposureMode Auto Exposure

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