Hello fellow hikers! This week a very good friend of mine and I ventured out to Callville Bay in the Lake Mead National Recreational Area in Nevada. Callville Bay is about a 30-to-45-minute drive from Las Vegas. It sits east of Las Vegas on the northwestern shores of Lake Mead. The bay boasts a marina and has a huge boat launch ramp that was in use, prior to the extreme drops in water levels in the lake. Las Vegas and surrounding Lake Mead started experiencing the effects of this current drought since the early 2000’s, but the drop in water levels of the lake started significantly in 2015 and again in 2022.
I recently learned a little history about Callville Bay itself. Calville Bay used to be a settlement called Callville that was established in 1864, and by 1869 it was abandoned. With the creation of the dam of the Colorado River at this designated geographical point, the settlement of Callville was submerged under Lake Mead thereafter. You can read more about it here: (Callville, Nevada – Wikipedia, January 16, 2022) Another great interesting piece of history I learned about the state of Nevada 🙂
On this particular trip, we arrived around 7:30 am .We were putting on our gear to start our hike and I realized I did not have my hiking boots.How I forgot those, I do not know. I think my mind was on autopilot and I was still waking up from the early morning. My friend just laughed and wasn’t even upset.She said,” Okay, what do we do now? “ I didn’t want to waste the day or the experience, so we made the 30-40 minute trip back into Las Vegas. I live a lot further than the point of entry where we returned, so I decided to just go to a local store and buy a pair of hiking boots.
So after that whole fiasco, we drove back out and started our journey. With the water levels dropping over the last few years, Callville Bay had actually made a new boat launch, which was being used by quite a few people this particular morning. The old boat launch was not in use at this time. Instead of heading towards the marina, we actually headed for the hills. We climbed down a steep embankment to get to the bottom of where the cove once was. There was a lot of loose sediment, so we had to be careful on our way down.
We spent the better part of 2 1/2 hours exploring the outer banks of the dried up cove surrounding Callville Bay. After some time, we decided to perch ourselves on top of an old dock that had been left in the middle of the dried up land. We had our refreshing treat of watermelon and some much needed water. As we sat there admiring the haunting beauty of this now graveyard of old tractor tires and sunken boats, it dawned on me we were literally walking on the bottom of Lake Mead! As I thought those words, my friend spoke them. It is bittersweet in the sense of being surrounded by beauty that has been lost. Hopefully this drought is a temporary period our city is going through. Although we did see a small increase in water levels earlier this year from the snow packs melting over the winter.
That was our adventure for this week. We have resumed our regular hiking schedule, as we did a few years back and I am so happy. There’s just a peaceful and tranquil feeling when you are one with nature. I don’t mind getting up at 4:00 or 5:00 o’clock in the morning to go explore the wonders of this beautiful planet. If you plan on going out hiking in the summertime, just make sure you bring enough water and you are properly dressed for the weather. In the desert in Las Vegas, the temperatures can be extreme. Please exercise caution when planning any type of hiking trip!
I also have enclosed some affiliate links below for some of the products that I used, which means I will make a small commission if you choose to purchase any items associated with those links. If you’re interested in purchasing any items, it helps support the blog and my YouTube channel, and it is much appreciated. Happy Trails!
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