Lake Mead National Recreation Area

Lake Mead exists because of Hoover Dam. When the dam closed Black Canyon in the 1930s, the Colorado River backed up into the canyons behind it and formed the reservoir, named for Elwood Mead, the Bureau of Reclamation commissioner who oversaw the project. Downstream, Davis Dam later created a second, narrower lake, Lake Mohave. The National Park Service manages the land and water around both, about one and a half million acres of desert, canyon and shoreline across Nevada and Arizona, and in 1964 Congress made it the first national recreation area in the country.

The scenery is a study in contrast: blue water against bare, rust-colored and black volcanic hills, with almost no vegetation between them. In recent years the contrast has gained a third color. During the long drought on the Colorado River the lake has dropped far below its old high-water line, leaving a pale mineral band, often called the bathtub ring, along the cliffs. Marinas and launch ramps have been moved or closed as the water retreated, so conditions on the ground change from year to year.

The drop has also uncovered history. St. Thomas, a farming settlement on the Muddy River founded by Mormon colonists in 1865, was abandoned in the 1930s as the new reservoir rose over it. When the water fell back, its foundations, cisterns and old roadbeds came up again. The NPS now maintains a trail to the site in the northern part of the park, reached by a rough dirt road.

Closer to Las Vegas, the Historic Railroad Trail follows the grade of the line built in 1931 to haul materials from Boulder City to the dam site. Five tunnels, each roughly 25 feet wide, 30 feet high and 300 feet long, were blasted through the hills for the rail cars; the tracks were pulled up in 1962. The trail opened in 1992, and the connection through to Hoover Dam opened to the public in 2007.

The main visitor center sits on Lakeshore Road near Boulder City, a few miles north of Hoover Dam off US 93. It is a sensible first stop for current lake levels, closures and maps, and its garden of desert plants is a gentle introduction to the landscape.

Highlights