14 Death Valley and Hoover Dam - 2022

Vacation 2022
Death Valley National Park
Hoover Dam

Everyone has heard of Death Valley. And they’ve probably heard that it’s hot and dry there. It was hot and dry while we were there. No records were broken though. Despite the heat and lack of water, there is a surprising amount of animal and biodiversity in the park.

A lot of history at Hoover Dam. And an engineering miracle for the time, perhaps it still would be for our time. It’s economic and environmental impacts on Arizona, California and New Mexico is nearly enumerable. By damming up the Colorado River, the dam was able to bring water to many residential areas. In fact, without the dam and the water it provides, the major residential it provides water for would probably just be small towns (except L.A.).

May 28, 2022

Start – Heading Eastward toward Death Valley.

4:40 – We’re officially in Death Valley.

13:38 – Descending into valley.

30:08 – We should be seeing the ocean here.

32:38 – Sideways video #1.

38:19 – Borax refining site.

43:08 – Climbing out of Death Valley on the East side of the park.

The whole valley, all 2 hours of driving across it, looked pretty much as you had just saw. So I cut the video short of being in the valley and moved it along to the Eastern side.

52:03 – The outskirts of S.E. Las Vegas heading toward Hoover Dam.

59:04 – Mead Lake overlook.

1:14:10 – Parking at Hoover Dam.

1:17:42 – Leaving Hoover Dam and heading to Utah.

1:25:07 - Traveling through the Virgin River Canyon. Very pretty but it’s no Glenwood Canyon.

1:38:22 – Out of the Canyon and continuing on to Utah.

1:45:34 – In Utah just West of Zion National Park.

2:00:52 – Entering and traveling through Zion NP.

The road in the tunnel is very rough and vibrated my movie camera off of the dash. Hat takes care of any more video for today.

raveling the mountains getting into the valley of Death Valley are pretty and fun to drive. However, where we crossed through the valley was not very interesting. I’ve watched documentaries on Death Valley and there are places in Death Valley National Park that are interesting, it just wasn’t where we were. It took a little longer to cross the valley and probably 3.5 hours to get across Death Valley NP. Based on what we did see, I can not recommend visiting Death Valley NP unless you just have to check it off as on of the national parks you have visited.

Hoover Dam is not national property though it does reside in the Glen Canyon Recreational Area. Due to the 911 attacks, security is really high at the dam. So much so that Dad was allowed to enter any of the buildings due to the 2-inch Old Timer pocketknife he carries. I wasn’t willing to let Dad wait while I toured, nor was I willing to let him throw his knife away (an option that security suggested) nor was I willing to hike back ¾ of mile to the car and back in the 100+ degrees heat to stow his knife there. As the visitor’s center and museum were closed for remodeling (seems every visitor center and museum were being remodeled on this trip) we just took in what we could outdoors and left for Utah.

Hoover Dam is a huge American landmark. I highly recommend that everyone try to visit it sometime in their life.