The day my dad couldn’t go, my college roommate Brooks and I went to hike in Lake Mead National Recreation Area. The intention was to keep it easy because of the injury I mentioned in the Zion entry. Instead we ended up on a trail that went down a canyon and got stuck in the middle of nowhere, and slid down the side of a scree field with me in a sling. We saw lots of history from when there used to be more water, and even the beginning of a canyon starting to form — a sort of loop including Owl Canyon and connecting to the River Mountains Loop Trail.
May 22, 201636.0500°N 114.7600°W
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Lake Mead is the reservoir behind Hoover Dam, and the receding water line is its own exhibit — you can read decades of drought in the pale ‘bathtub ring’ on the rock. The paved River Mountains Loop Trail is the easy, well-marked option; the canyon washes off it are where you get into the pick-your-own-line terrain we found.
When to go: not summer. This is low-elevation Mojave and it routinely clears 110°F from June through September. Go October through April, carry far more water than you think you need, and tell someone your plan — signal drops off fast down in the canyons.
