Boulder Beach Campground at Lake Mead National Recreation Area May 10

You can find Part One here, Part Two here and Part Three here.

Monday morning we had a good breakfast and headed out to hike The Historic Railroad Trail around 8:30 am. This trail used to be part of the railroad tracks that were built specifically to bring supplies and construction materials to Hoover Dam when it was under construction in the 1930’s. In constructing the railroad tracks they had to also bore tunnels through several sections of mountains. Since we’re old, we only hiked about a mile and half on the trail, enough to get us through the first two tunnels.

When we arrived at the trailhead, which is just down the road from our campsite, it was already 91 degrees at 8:30 in the morning! Fortunately it was not very humid, but believe me it was still hot.

The trail begins with several hundred feet of paved sidewalk. The sidewalk is lined with small, close to the ground desert brush, small rocks, sand and…

Rattlesnake!!

We have always been careful when hiking in areas that snakes may inhabit, whether it be desert environments or wet, swampy environments. Our aim is to keep Bella, in particular, toward the middle of trails and away from the edges where critters may lurk.

If you look in the photo album for this post; I had just taken a photo of the warning sign at the beginning of the trail cautioning not to hike from June to September because of the heat. Several things happened almost simultaneously:

I heard a rattle behind me and whipped my head around to see what it was (though instinctively, I knew)…

I saw Bella jumping into the air and something moving on the ground where her feet had been…

I saw Cindy pulling Bella away (even though Bella was in mid-air) with her leash and heard Cindy shout…

I started backpedaling away from the movement on the ground…

And once we were all away from the movement I spotted a rattlesnake slithering (thankfully) away.

Cindy told me that Bella had stepped on the snake at the edge of the trail and leapt into the air when the snake rattled in warning. I quickly grabbed a couple of photos of it as it made its way away from us. So glad it did not bite Bella or any of us, but just wanted to get away from us. There’s a photo of it in the album for this post. Full-grown rattlesnakes are between 3 and 6 feet in length. This one I estimated to be about 26 inches in length, so it was probably a young one. Before I actually saw his size I also knew that rattlesnakes can strike anywhere from one-third to one half of its own body length, which is why I was instinctively backpedaling away from the sound and movement.

Once all our heartbeats returned to normal, we started our hike again…but with an extra-cautious eye on the trail and nearby rocks/vegetation.

Railroad Tunnels

As you can see, we had quite a view of a part of Lake Mead we could not see from our campsite, including the marina. And where “Ragtown” used to be before Lake Mead was created by Hoover Dam. “Ragtown” is where hundreds and hundreds of workers and their families lived in shacks and tents during the construction of Hoover Dam. That area was abandoned and flooded by the creation of Lake Mead when the Hoover Dam went operational.

When we finally reached the first tunnel we were grateful for the shade it offered. Temperatures in these huge tunnels (18 feet wide by 27 feet high) drop an average of 20 degrees, so it was a welcome respite from the sun and heat.

Originally we planned to only hike as far as the first tunnel, but when we saw that the second tunnel was not very far from the first we decided to hike through it as well. This tunnel had some construction going on at the far end and a corrugated metal passageway lying at the exit for hikers to walk through.

By the time we hiked back to the trailhead parking lot we were ready for some rest, relaxation and hydration. It was up to 93 degrees by that time, so the relative coolness of Nomad was welcome.

This wrapped up our stay at Boulder Beach Campground in Boulder City, Nevada. The next day we would be heading toward Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah for a week of exploring. We hope you’ll be back for our next post about that stay.

Thanks for following The Wandering Wetheringtons.