Out of Our Rut: Return to Boulder City NV

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We were really enjoying our stay in St George and could have easily extended our stay at the Elks Lodge here and found more to do but we had already made plans to head south out of Utah and spend some time at the Elks Lodge in Boulder City Nevada. We have actually spent 15 nights there back in 2019 during late November and early December so we are quite familiar with the area and felt it was worth heading back. Most Elks Lodges do not take reservations and simply rely on the first come, first serve system. Back in 2019, the BC Elks did allow traveling Elk to call a couple days prior to your arrival and hold a spot if there’s one available. But in the past 3 years, they have implemented an online reservation system. The lodge had 15 sites with water, electric and sewer for $31 per night but it you stay for a month, it only costs $725.

We had been checking it out while we were still in the Salt Lake City area and saw there was some availability in the November to December timeframe but until we had our Jeep configured for flat towing, we didn’t want to reserve something. But once we confirmed we were good to go with the car, we booked a site for a month. We had spoken with the campground host and she said the spot she had was a smaller one we would fit in but she would see what she could do to find a more suitable site for our size rig. She texted us the day before we arrived to tell us she had moved us to site #2. It is only 150 miles between the 2 lodges and it is mostly on interstate highways but it does go around the Las Vegas area and it was going to be a workday so I wasn’t looking forward to the possible traffic.

This is a fairly active lodge but we arrived before the parking lot was full so we didn’t have trouble backing into our spot. It was a nicer site than the original one we were going to be in although for some reason the water and electric hookups are on the wrong side of the coach so those lines needed to be snaked under the rig. At least the sewer connection was on the proper side. Initially we thought all was good but then I noticed our power monitoring system had shut off the power to the rig. Each time I flipped the breaker on the pedestal, we seemed to get good power for 30 seconds or so only to trip my monitor with either a high or low voltage warning. Fortunately the guy next to us, who is the park’s handyman, was home and came out to investigate. We pulled off the face of the pedestal and checked all the connections looked good. When it was snapped back in place and buttoned up, all was good. It took me a few days of paying attention to our power before I was convinced we had remedied the problem.

Home for a Month at BC Elks

I suppose the most popular destinations in the area are Hoover Dam, Lake Mead and Las Vegas. We aren’t really into gambling or the shows and buffets that Vegas is known for so this wasn’t high on our list. When we were here 3 years ago, we visited the dam and even did a dam tour. It was fun and interesting but we didn’t feel the need to go back to do it again. If you’re interested check out this blog post from our prior stay. 2019 Boulder City Blog Post We had driven through the Lake Mead National Recreation Area during our last visit but hadn’t really explored it. We plan on rectifying that during this stay but our first outing will take us to an area known as Bootleg Canyon.

Start of Bootleg Canyon Hike

We had done some hiking in this general area during our last visit out of the River Mountain Trail area. This time we head into the heart of the trails The trails here are probably more known for mountain biking, but we opt to go for a hike. We pick the Bootleg Canyon and Black Mountain loop. It is listed as just under 5 miles in length with nearly 1200 feet of elevation gain. We knew it could be a challenging hike but at least it tops out at 3600 feet so it wouldn’t be as bad as a similar hike in the Rockies. The sheer number of trails in this area are nearly overwhelming. The screenshot from AllTrails shows the intended route in red, but it is clear there are endless options, it could be quite easy to get off track.

Our Intended Hike in Red

The suggested direction is to take the loop in a clockwise fashion, head over to the peak of Black Mountain then back down the eastern side of the loop. But based on the steepness of the terrain, we decide it makes more sense to attempt this in the opposite direction. This means the trail starts up steep right out of the parking lot and will continue up over 800 feet for the first 1.25 miles for an average slope of nearly 13%. It does take us past the large painted “BC” on the side of the hill. Presumably for Boulder City although I guess it could also stand for Bootleg Canyon. We get right next to the painted rocks. Being close up makes it look a little less professional. Given the effort it took to get here, I’m going to guess that less than 1% of the residents or visitors of BC hike up to the “BC” to see how the white paint is just slapped on the ground. I wonder how often it needs to be repainted? There is a great view of town 500 feet below us.

"BC" Hill

Closeup of the "C"

View Over Boulder City

As we continue up, we see there is a geocache hidden off a side trail and decided to take the slight detour to look for it. Turns out this one hadn’t been logged as found in well over 4 years! But there were not a string of “did not finds” which might indicate it was missing. As we get within 100 feet of ground zero, it is clear why this one hasn’t been logged for so long. It is down the side of a hill in some sort of cave. Chris opts to stay up on the trail while I head down. I suppose this makes sense. She can be prepared to call 911 when I go careening down the side of the loose, gravelly hill. It took a bit of effort to find the right spot but the cache container was in excellent shape. The view of what is below me is a bit scary but I manage to make it back to safety.

Lonely Cache View

As we come around a corner of the trail, we spot some odd looking antenna array on the top of one of the hills. It isn’t like any I have seen before. Instead of being dished and pointing in some direction, this one looks to be perfectly flat and pointing straight up into the sky. The last section of the trail that takes us up the other side of the gully from the antenna is extremely steep and rocky. As we get a better view of the thing we see it is rather larger - about 200 feet in diameter. And it must be in operation because we saw a work crew at one of the outbuildings. Subsequent investigation tells us this used to be some sort of Air Force system but is now used in general aviation navigation and is named the Boulder City VORTAC.

Odd Looking Antenna

Even Steeper Section of Trail

Another VORTAC View

There were a couple other strange sights along this part of the hike. We had seen some overhead wires that at first we just assumed were power lines, but it didn’t take us long to realize it was actually a zip line course. Near the top of our climb was the starting platform for the descent. It looks like there are 4 lines but we never saw anybody using them and we never bothered to look into it any further. I was a bit surprised that there wasn’t really any kind of barrier to keep me from doing something stupid except for my common sense! The other thing that bothered us during the whole hill up the trail was the fact that this trail is used for mountain biking. We could see tire tracks and some banked curves that gave it away, but there didn’t seem to be any possibility that is could or should be biked given how steep and rocky the terrain is. But the dead give away that it is used for biking was the elevated starting ramp at top just a hundred feet from the zip line platform. We must be missing the daredevil gene because we could not imagine why a biker would need the extra 3 feet of drop the ramp provides when the ride back to the parking lot will drop over 800 feet! The views from up here are pretty amazing though.

Zip Line Platform

View Down Zip Line Course

Mountain Bike Launch Ramp

From up top here, we can see a portion of Lake Mead to the east. We can also see the dirt road that snakes up the canyon to a parking lot below. It also provides access to service vehicles for the VORTAC site behind the locked gate. As we start our way down the steep trail to the upper parking lot, we see a group of cyclists starting up the trail towards us. They were pushing their bikes up the trail and had all sorts of safety gear on. If we didn’t have a lot more hiking to do, we would follow them back up the hill to the starting platform to watch them go down and ask them the crucial question, WHY?

A Glimpse of Lake Mead

Dirt Road Coming from Below

Crazy Cyclists?

Just down from the parking area is the spur trail that heads over to Black Mountain. It’s strange because this section of the trail looks easier to mountain bike but is only for foot traffic. It’s about 3/4 mile over to the top of the mountain which gives us an even better view of Lake Mead. It’s definitely clear how low the water level is. Back to the west is Vegas. There are lots of planes that circle over us as they make their final approach into the airport. We enjoy the view and take advantage of the bench to have our lunch before heading back over to the dirt road. From here, it is an easy hike of just under 2 miles back to the car. There are numerous other trails that branch off from the road but this hike has proven to be a tiring one.

Better View of Lake Mead from Black Mountain

Looking Back at Trail Up to Black Mountain

A Marina at Lake Mead with Low Water Levels Evident

Heading Back down from Black Mountain

Another VORTAC View from the Road

To take it easy the next day, we head to the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve. Henderson is the larger city to the west of Boulder City before getting to Las Vegas. When Chris said there was a bird preserve there I was slightly skeptical. But off we went. As we were driving and getting within a couple miles of the place, I truly believed we had entered the incorrect address into our GPS. We were driving through some rather populated business districts. Even from the parking lot of the preserve, it didn’t look like any preserve we have visited before. But once we passed thru the visitor center and headed out onto the 140 acres that make up the preserve, it became clear that there really was a little oasis situated here.

Small Visitor Center at Henderson Preserve

Pretty Pond Setting in the Middle of Business Area

There are nine man made ponds that are part of the city’s water reclamation facility. There are a couple miles of walking trails that circle the various ponds. We pick the outer loop to try to maximize how much we get to see. As we were watching some of the ducks and geese on the pond, a group of 10 pelicans circled overhead as they searched for just the right place to land.

Pelicans on Their Approach for Landing

Pelicans Have Landed in Pond

It would be a very peaceful place except for one glaring problem. The main airport in Vegas is about 5 miles away and we were definitely on the approach path for all landing planes. As we continued around the ponds, we were amazed at the number of different species we found. The volunteers told us that this place is really busy during the busy migration season.

Strange Looking Pods on Screwbean Mesquite

Another Pond View

Snow Geese

Green Heron Hoping for a Meal

Common Gallinule with Colorful Beak

As we made our way back around towards the visitor center, a group of more pelicans (or maybe the same ones) were circling over our heads. It took them several minutes to decide which of the two ponds we were between to land in. I was pleasantly surprised with the preserve and wish I had brought along my DSLR camera and long telephoto lens. Since entrance is free, I figure I will come back but I don’t end up making it a second time.

Pelican in Flight

Pelicans Lined Up for Approach

Splashdown!

In keeping with the bird theme, we head a bit north to Clark County Wetlands Park. This place is more on the outskirts of town with mainly residential areas near it. It is a very impressive place with a huge, modern visitor center. The numerous displays inside are definitely geared towards kids but we found them informative. We were also fortunate to be the only ones there so we didn’t have to wait in line to read signs or try some of the interactive displays. After checking out the inside, we headed out to walk some of the many miles of trails. We even managed to find a few of the geocaches hidden on the grounds.

Wetlands Park Entrance

Visitor Center

Large Dragonfly

Multiple Displays

It was about this time that we recognized we had just under 100 more cache finds before we hit our 15,000 milestone. We usually try to find some significant cache to celebrate our achievement. Back in 2017, we carefully planned our finds so we could use Geocaching Headquarters as our 10,000 during our visit to Seattle Washington. There isn’t a hide in this area quite so significant but the one with the most favorite points is at the Welcome to Las Vegas sign. We also happened to be coming up on the anniversary of our first geocache find December 12, 2009. What if we timed our finds to have our 15,000th be on our 13th anniversary? We would need to average about 4 finds per day in order for this to happen. That might seem like a lot of caches, but back in 2017, we averaged 4.4 caches per day for the full year so it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

With that caching goal in place, we headed out the next day to find a series of caches hidden along a dirt access road next to some large power transmission line towers. Admittedly, this wasn’t one of the highlights of our visit to the area but it would end up giving us 15 finds on the way to our goal. It also brought us to a rather unusual location - geocaching has a way of doing that! As we parked the car to walk to one of the caches a quarter mile away, we noticed an odd sign “STOP, Pet Burials Prohibited”. It wasn’t clear why such a sign would needed but as we started across this portion of the desert, we discovered this was a large (illegal) pet cemetery. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of burial sites. Some just with faded tombstones made out of wood while others had small gated areas with several family pets identified over the years. It was hard to tell just how large the area was but likely several acres. We looked it up later to discover and found it started to be used as early as the 1930’s but for sure by the 1950’s.

Don't Bury Your Pets Here

Some of the Burial Sites

The next day we headed out for a bike ride. No we were not heading back to the hike we did the other day to see how our gonzo downhill skills work. This ride would be a bit tamer on a paved path. The River Mountains Trail is a 35 mile loop that is goes thru Boulder City just a few blocks from the Elks Lodge. The trail runs over toward Henderson then back through a large part of Lake Mead Recreation Area. We are in no shape to try the complete loop but we felt we could do a portion of it and grab a few caches along the way.

We pick up the trail along Yucca Street and head west. This is where a business called Rail Explorers is located. They offer scenic train rides and also have unique pedal drive rail cars/bikes. We had seen these during our last stay and thought it sounded interesting. They have cars with either two or four seats. The ride is about 4 miles down a slight grade and at the end, a train comes to bring everyone back up to the railroad museum. Our bike path would be right next to the train tracks for the portion we plan to do. We did see a few groups of people pedaling along the track and saw the train a couple of times. We ended up going past the stopping point for the rail ride by half a mile or so and we found a handful of caches. While it is a pretty ride, it wasn’t necessarily all that scenic and we decided that paying to ride the same route on admittedly a very cool looking vehicle wasn’t worth it for us. If you happen to be in the area without access to a bike, this would be a fun way to get out and see the area. We ended up getting in a 10 mile ride and another handful of caches or so.

Train from Boulder City

Track View

Example of Pedal Driven Rail Car

While we were making headway on our caching goal, we were finding it a pain to feel like we had to go out every day to find several caches to keep on track. We decided to remedy that by heading out to do some of the geo-art series that can be found in this area. There were three choices along US-93 just a little north of Vegas. We picked a series of 70 caches named the Deathly Hallows. Finding all 70 of them would be more than we need to get us to within easy striking distance of our goal. The caches are placed in the desert to form the pattern of a triangle, circle and line - a reference to Harry Potter. If we just did all the perimeter caches, we would get 40. This would leave us with about 20 more to find in the next 20 days. The location for these caches is in a rather desolate spot - although that might be said for a large portion of Nevada.

Chris Heads Out into Desert

Not too surprisingly, we had the place to ourselves. It was by no means flat but the terrain wasn’t too bad. Following the perimeter of the triangle would be about 5 miles. It wasn’t always possible to stay on a straight line between caches since there were a large up number of bushes, cacti and Joshua trees to get around. There were also several washes that come down from the nearby mountain range to get across. This was another of those hikes we do as geocachers that aren’t all that exciting but serve a useful purpose. We ended up finding all but 2 of those we attempted. My OCD nature to finish the rest of the series was overcome by our greater goal.