One day on the Las Vegas strip was enough for us. We needed another hike! We left the Vegas KOA for a day trip out to Lake Mead to walk the Historic Train Trail that sits within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Lisa had read about this trail online. She told me it had some cool, former train tunnels that we could walk through. And it’s only a 7-mile round trip hike! After yesterday’s walk through the Vegas crowds, I was all for it.

Spoiler: The hike ended up being a lot longer than 7 miles.

Historic Train Trail

The railway that is now the Lake Mead Historic Train Trail was built specifically as a supply line in the 1930’s for the construction of Hoover Dam. It makes its way from the Visitor Center around a portion of the lake. The highlight is definitely the 5 tunnels that can be hiked through. It was a busy trail with both pedestrians and cyclists enjoying the great weather on a Saturday.

Today has lovely weather, but it gets really hot in the summer and this trail closes to prevent people from getting heat-related illness and injuries and needing rescue. Ironically, when these tunnels were made and the train tracks laid, the men were working in 100+ temperatures.

Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam? Lisa never said anything about walking to Hoover Dam. Turns out the far end of the Historic Train Trail branches off towards the Hoover Dam visitor parking ramp. Well, we’re this close, so why not. We did a hardhat tour of the dam years ago, so this time we just enjoyed walking the length of the dam from Nevada to Arizona and back.

Memorial Bridge

We headed back up toward the train trail from the dam and saw another sign pointing towards the Mike O’Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge that opened in 2010. The sign said it was only another 1/2 mile walk to the bridge. In for a penny, in for a pound, so off we went. They built a pedestrian walk on one side of the bridge so we felt very safe walking along the very busy I-11/US-93 highway. The best part was they blocked off the exit from the sidewalk on the Arizona side, so we couldn’t be tempted to walk any further. 🙂

We made our way back to Usain and the cats parked at the Lake Mead visitor center some 10+ miles and 4 hours later. Train tunnels, a big dam, and a long bridge. What a day! Back to Vegas for one more night.