Content including photographs are Copyright © 2009 - Don & Linda Gilmore
This is an inter-active Wikimapia Satellite Map. You can zoom in / out and drag the map to scroll. Mouse over the map. Try it! Shown here - Boulder Dam.
If your like a million other desert travelers; sooner or later you'll spend some time in Las Vegas. Now this is great for night life, but what do you do in the desert during the daylight hours? There are several day trips listed for tours to take during the daylight hours. Here's one. You can take one of the main roads that runs down along Lake Mead and see the sights on your way to the Hoover Dam. Beautiful scenery!
You'll have to go East on Rt. 93 to get to the Dam. On the way down from the mountains there are numerous pull-overs where you can park for a short time look around or take some pictures. We've don that on many of our day trips through this area and over the Hoover Dam. Of course other people want to do the same thing so be careful sometimes the traffic is pretty heavy.
From the pull-over shown above you'll get a good view of the face of the dam and the electrical transmission towers. Also you'll be able to see some of the maintenance crews at work. Wait till you see how high the dam is!
There was 3 guys working on this cable winch which stands right up in front of you when parked in the pull-over above. There are other places to park, see below. This is really fascinating as they are building a new road way so traffic no longer will be able to cross the Dam. I think that will be a shame.
This is part of the new section of roadway leading to the new bridge over the canyon -- this picture was taken in 2004, so I'm sure more of the roadway is finished now. I do know that the bridge is not finished as of November 2009.
This photograph shows a few of the new bridge's concrete pilings. The job of building the new bridge will take years to finish and it's next to amazing that they could even build such a big span across the canyon and the Colorado River. You just have to see this for yourself.
This is the entrance to the Visitors Welcome Center. It's right on Rt. 93 on the West bound side and accessible from both lanes. You can get tours of the dam here and there is a large parking area right behind the building.
The power line towers shown here an in the next photo hold a special meaning to us. One of our best friends (Jack Ross) was the foreman and lineman who jumped off of a helicopter onto the towers and helped to bolt down the top steel girders that hold the power lines. What a job that must have been.
Looking toward the dam you'll see these towers that lean out over the canyon. What a fall that would have been. Quite a few people lost their lives in the construction of the Hoover Dam.
As you get on the Dam you'll find that there is a check point run by Homeland Security to check vehicles going over the Dam. This has been in place since 9-11 and they said this is the main reason for the new bridge and road going over the canyon; so no will be able to cross the Dam on Rt. 93 anymore.
This view is looking back from on top of the Dam toward the Visitors Welcome Center.
Taken from one of the several parking areas on the Lake Mead side of the Dam. Looking down at the concrete water intakes and the Dam itself. There are times when these parking areas become overcrowded and almost impossible to get into. Be careful on this section of road; as a lot of the drivers are looking at the scenery and dam and not the road.
Looking out across one of the parking areas on the Eastern side of the dam; looking up into Lake Mead. What's interesting here is the lowered water level that's visible. You can tell by the white rock showing where the water level used to be. This is definitely worth seeing; get there before they open up the new road and bridge and you can't go over the dam anymore.
Have a good trip -----
