The Historic Railroad Trail to The Hoover Dam……6th November

Part of Lake Mead from the old railroad trail…….
Our legs have not quite recovered from yesterday's hike but it's a beautiful morning and we set off on The Historic Railroad Trail to The Hoover Dam…..

Because of the isolation of the dam construction site  almost 30 miles of railroad was built in 1931 to connect the site with all of the facilities required to build the Hoover Dam or Bolder Dam as it was then called……  over 4 million cubic yards of aggregate were taken from the Arizona side of the river transported by rail and crushed to mix with portland cement at Lomix the mixing plant situated at the base of Black Canyon…

The first of the 5 tunnels on our hike….  the trail is nice and flat for the first 3.5 miles…..

Tunnel 2 was burned in an arson attack in 1990 but has since been restored  by spraying shotcrete (just like our Hindhead Tunnel, not the arson attack but the shotcrete !!) to fortify the loose rock…we are still not quite sure how you can burn rock but some of the tunnels have wooden supports so we're making an assumption here…..

Tunnel 5 was burned (info didn't say if arson or …?) in 1978 and was then sealed until being restored and reopened in 2001.  Previously to 2001 the trail ended here but now continues a mile and half down to the Hoover Dam…..
The railroad tracks were dismantled in 1962 and sold as scrap….

The dam was constructed between 1931 and 1935 during the Great Depression….

We last visited here 33 years ago when  Highway 93 went across the top of the dam….. there is still some local traffic but mainly foot fall from tourists…..we did the tour back in 1980, it's big business now….

The Memorial Bridge built to take Highway 93 and the heavy traffic away from the dam, it also has a scenic walkway…..

The low water level can clearly be seen here…...

Back down to the beautiful colours of Fortification Hill on Lake Mead and visible from our campsite….
Our feet and legs are slightly sore but it was a great walk/hike and good to see the dam again….
We've enjoyed our stay at Lake Mead but tomorrow these snowbirds are flying south the weather is getting just slightly chilly….the high 60's !!!!