I travel frequently by commercial air, and I have no problem carrying the essentials on the plane in my carry on bags. Emergency blankets, water purification, weather proof matches, lighter, tinder, cordage, signal mirror, EMT shears; all go on without trouble. My bags do get the hand search at times, but these items never have trouble. You can carry empty water bottles through security and fill them on the other side if you do not want to buy water.

I used to carry one of those very small survival saws, but TSA is now saying that saws are not allowed.

Put a TSA approved lock on your checked bags, along with your contact information. I have never lost anything out of a bag, and have never lost a bag. I have had bags show up a day or two late though. I have been traveling frequently like this for decades, and it works for me.

One of the lesser known areas to hike is in Sloan Canyon. It is a bit out of the way to the South, but there are many petroglyphs if you go far enough. It is not a difficult hike unless you go when I did, in the middle of July (116 degrees F!). The valley of fire has some nice trails and petroglyphs also. Death valley is a little drive, but has some nice hiking trails, as well as the dunes.

Red Rock Canyon and Mt. Charleston also have some good trails at higher altitudes than the others. Red Rock Canyon is also closer to Vegas than most of the others. Good scenery and you can reach the trail heads by car.

The REI in Las Vegas was very helpful to me in finding these areas. They also have some good maps.