This campground is inside Lake Mead NRA, operated by a Park Service concessionaire. It is right next to a national park campground. The park service has much prettier sites – spacious and treed – but we went for the amenities: full hookups and hot showers. From our site on a hill we had a great view of the lower part of Lake Mead.
We decided to take a bike ride to the visitors center. There is a nice off road trail, but more climb than we were expecting. We were panting by the time we reached the visitor center at the top of the hill. Near the visitor center is a historic trail. It is a remaining section of the railroad grade that was built to carry supplies from Boulder City for the building of Hoover Dam. There are 5 tunnels along the grade. The tunnels are enormous: approximately 25 feet in diameter. They were sized to fit penstock sections and other large equipment for the dam.
The next day, we went into Boulder City for a jaunt with Rail Explorers. They have tandem and quad pedal vehicles with railroad wheels. We pedaled for about 4 miles on a section of tracks that also were part of the railroad to Hoover Dam. Our trip was almost all downhill, giving us plenty of time to look at the scenery. At the end, an excursion train picked us up and delivered us back to the depot, where we had a chance to look at Nevada State Railroad Museum’s rolling stock. In chatting with our guides, we learned that the company is originally from Rhode Island and runs trips on Aquidneck Island.
We also joined a sightseeing cruise on Lake Mead. The boat travels up Black Canyon to the lake side of Hoover Dam. It was amazing to see how much the lake has dropped: the dam towers over the lake and the rocks surrounding the lake have a huge bathtub ring. The lake is 140 feet below full pool following 17 year’s of drought.