0:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Often in the background of every national park's success story is another story of catastrophic failure. 0:20 [SPEAKER_00]: One giant towering, cascading, cautionary tale. 0:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Our government was so willing to protect areas like Death Valley, because we had already blown our one chance to protect the first great natural attraction America ever had, and I have a false. 0:36 [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the failure to protect Niagara from exploitation was so fundamental to the growth of the national park system that its unofficial motto might be something like Niagara never again. 0:48 [SPEAKER_00]: You might be wondering, so what happened at Niagara that was so bad? 0:54 [SPEAKER_00]: The answer is, much of what you see today. 0:57 [SPEAKER_00]: This beautiful singular natural marvel is basically one giant gift shop, such tourist trap, surrounded by the remains of old mills and power plants. 1:09 [SPEAKER_00]: I asked Jim Patties at more than just parks to say a word about the exploitation of my 1:19 [SPEAKER_01]: So obviously we expanded westward and early on really the exploitation was going on in the Eastern United States and so when we come up on Niagara Falls, obviously it's this incredibly scenic or just waterfall, but we didn't have a lot of systems in place at that time to frankly any to protect a place as grand as that and so what you ended up having was you actually had power companies came in. 1:49 [SPEAKER_01]: They wanted to harness Niagara Falls for hydroelectric power. 1:54 [SPEAKER_01]: And then, of course, you just had it absolutely overrun with tourists, tight shops and hotels and stores and everything. 2:02 [SPEAKER_01]: And so it got to the point where 2:05 [SPEAKER_01]: you go and visit and it's been completely spoiled. 2:07 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that stood out to Americans. 2:10 [SPEAKER_01]: And then we were very fortunate that we had some really great leaders who came up like fit or Roosevelt, who would rant and rave about the fact that he would drive out into the country or right out into the country and he'd see billboards on on trees and all the stuff and he would say we were defacing this beautiful land we have when he says, 2:32 [SPEAKER_01]: Leave it as it is. 2:33 [SPEAKER_01]: The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it. 2:38 [SPEAKER_01]: And that's I think that's the national parks in essence right there and that's kind of the The turning point in the way we think about our beautiful landscapes in this country. 2:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Niagara was America's first international attraction, the one exception to the European sneer that there was nothing to see here. 3:02 [SPEAKER_00]: But in the early 1800s, the land around the falls was auctioned off by the state of New York, on the American side, and leads to private owners on the Canadian side, hotels and milling operations soon crowded the site. 3:15 [SPEAKER_00]: In 1833, one visitor noted, 3:17 [SPEAKER_00]: The forest has everywhere yielded to the axe, museums, mills, staircases, tools, and grog shops, all the petty trickery of English resorts, read the eye of the traveler. 3:30 [SPEAKER_00]: A few years later, in 1847, another complaint. 3:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Now the neighborhood of the Great Wanderer is overrun, with every species of abominable fungus, the growth of ranked bad taste. 3:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Chinese pagoda, Manajari, camera obscura, museum, watch tower, wooden monument, tea gardens, and old curiosity shops. 3:53 [SPEAKER_00]: The biggest threat, however, was industrial, prompting the environmentalist Jay Horace McFarland to write an article called Shall We Make a Co-Pile of Niagara. 4:05 [SPEAKER_00]: McFarland lamented the engineers calmly agree that Niagara Falls will in a few years be but a memory of memory of what? 4:13 [SPEAKER_00]: A grandeur, beauty and natural majesty, unaccelt anywhere on earth, sacrificed and necessarily for the gain of a few. 4:21 [SPEAKER_00]: The words might be well-in-lasoned, and the letters of fire across the shamelessly uncovered bluff of the American fall, the monument of America's shame and greed. 4:31 [SPEAKER_00]: In his own words, if nothing was done soon to protect this natural wonder, all that would be left would be a bear cliff in a mass of factories, a maze of wires and tunnels and wheels and generators. 4:45 [SPEAKER_00]: To date, at least 11 power plants have set up at Niagara over the years. 4:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Summer's still operative, and the remains of others are still visible at the falls. 4:56 [SPEAKER_00]: I take the time to say all of this, because it's impossible to tell the story of the National Park system, without telling the story of this first national park that never was, to truly appreciate everything that went right with the National Park system. 5:10 [SPEAKER_00]: It helps to remember just how easily it could have gone wrong. 5:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Fear of a similar disaster has fueled the American conservation movement from its origin to the present day. 5:20 [SPEAKER_00]: I bring up Niagara in this episode specifically because it was centered on the exploitation of water power and the defacing of a natural landmark. 5:30 [SPEAKER_00]: In 1930, when our government created the Hoover Dam, an exponentially more ambitious attempt to exploit water power, the result was the destruction of some natural landscapes, but the creation of a new one, which was designated as a natural recreation area, straddling the border of Nevada and Arizona, standing on top of the Hoover Dam and looking down its long scope as a dizzying, almost panic-inducing experience. 5:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Though it is, in fact, more than twice as tall. 6:02 [SPEAKER_00]: With the height of 60 stories and a base more than 60 yards thick, it's the most amazing man-made thing I've ever seen. 6:09 [SPEAKER_00]: The result of this dam was a new massive 112 mile long body of water and the largest reservoir in the United States. 6:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Lake Mead 6:19 [SPEAKER_00]: In 1936, the lake in the surrounding shoreline were placed under the management of the National Park Service. 6:26 [SPEAKER_00]: And the resulting public land was called Boulder Dam National Recreation Area. 6:31 [SPEAKER_00]: It was renamed Lake Mead National Recreation Area in 1947. 6:35 [SPEAKER_00]: So while at Niagara Falls, we lost a potentially sprawling National Park. 6:40 [SPEAKER_00]: At the Hoover Dam, we gained a beautiful National Recreation Area. 6:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Incidentally, each spillway in the Hoover Dam 6:47 [SPEAKER_00]: is capable of handling the full volume of water that passes over Niagara. 6:52 [SPEAKER_00]: While the Hoover Dam gets most of the attention, Lake Mead is one of the many hidden gems of the National Park Service, or at least, so I thought. 7:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Because the Lake Mead recreation area lives in the shadow of the Hoover Dam, I had always assumed it was a lesser known, lesser appreciated destination. 7:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Our friend, Jim Burnett, was quick to correct me. 7:15 [SPEAKER_02]: You make an interesting point about that all those interesting that if you look at the number of visits to units in the National Park System typically late meed is in the top 10 certain the top 20 way ahead of a lot of better known parks but that's primarily because It's a big body water in the middle of a huge desert. 7:35 [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's just a big magnet for people who want a place to go and have things to do on the water. 7:40 [SPEAKER_02]: So that's one reason it's called a national recreation area instead of a national park. 7:46 [SPEAKER_02]: And there is some latitude to do a few more things there that perhaps would be considered quite as is appropriate for a national park service area. 7:55 [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's a good point. 7:56 [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why people go there. 7:57 [SPEAKER_02]: They want to go to 7:59 [SPEAKER_02]: a boat and fish and swim and water ski and camp and that kind of thing. 8:03 [SPEAKER_02]: And first timers may be surprised that a couple of things is a big recreation area and its name is Lake Mead National Recreation Area and it includes maybe it also has a second lake which is Lake Mojave 8:19 [SPEAKER_02]: which is downstream from Hoover Dam in pounds, like me did then the, what used to be the color I railroad would flow through Hoover Dam and continue on downstream. 8:28 [SPEAKER_02]: Now they've built a second dam, 67 miles downstream from Hoover Dam that impounds like Mojave. 8:36 [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's one of people, if they weren't familiar with area, might not know about that fact, 8:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Though the appeal of Lake Mead was immediately obvious when we visited, I would never have guessed it was as popular as it is. 8:49 [SPEAKER_02]: The second big surprise, and this has been on the news so much, made it's not a big surprise, but Lake Mead has fallen out on hard times because the serious drought that's been going on really for 20 years, and that the part of the country and the lake has really dropped 9:05 [SPEAKER_02]: dramatic. 9:06 [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, it's at its lowest point since Lake was first filled back in the late 1930s early 1940s. 9:13 [SPEAKER_02]: And so that means if you're planning to trip there and your purpose of going is to get on the water and go boating, water skiing, that kind of thing. 9:22 [SPEAKER_02]: My typical first tip for anybody planning to visit to any national park service area is to be sure you get good information. 9:31 [SPEAKER_02]: And the official park website is good place to do that if you just Google, like to be national recreation area and look for the site that includes 9:41 [SPEAKER_02]: in ps.gov for National Park Service Government, your own official site. 9:46 [SPEAKER_02]: And the home page of that site will have a link it's something called alerts and alerts or just what they say, maybe things are really urgent, important for you to know. 9:57 [SPEAKER_02]: And if you're going to late-meat for the person voting that those alerts report, they'll give you information about the current, late-level, and information about places that you can no longer use. 10:10 [SPEAKER_02]: have visited late-meat in the past there used to be a number of the big resort areas with marinas and the bunk ramps and lodges and those are closed because there's no longer any water there. 10:19 [SPEAKER_02]: It's really a pretty dramatic. 10:21 [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's why it's important if you're going to late-meat to check and be sure what you get into. 10:25 [SPEAKER_02]: If you went to Echo Bay 10 years ago for a great vacation, Echo Bay is all boarded up right now in the water there. 10:31 [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't want to be fair to the folks to be there still is a dice marina and resort and facilities down at the lower end of the lake down close to the to Verdam and you can certainly still go and do those kind of things. 10:44 [SPEAKER_02]: But the number places where you can do that around lake need itself for much smaller than they are. 10:49 [SPEAKER_02]: And there are interesting things to do there. 10:51 [SPEAKER_02]: People like to go and take the tour through Hoover Dam and see the power plant. 10:55 [SPEAKER_02]: There's some nice hikes do there during the cooler time of the year. 10:59 [SPEAKER_02]: summertime is not the time to go hiking it late me. 11:02 [SPEAKER_02]: It's it's hot there. 11:03 [SPEAKER_02]: Not quite as hot as the Beth Valley, but still implicitly warm. 11:07 [SPEAKER_02]: So warm. 11:08 [SPEAKER_02]: And in fact, the park closes some of the trails there during the summertime because they just got where they were overwhelmed with number of rescues that were taking place by people got into trouble there. 11:18 [SPEAKER_02]: So if you want to hike and let me go do that during the fall and spring not during the summertime. 11:23 [SPEAKER_02]: Another point to keep in mind if you're going to boat, it like me that I just saw while you took video today, where the water is continuous drop steadily, and there are rocks and reefs and hazards under the water. 11:38 [SPEAKER_02]: that are no longer very far under the water, places that you can just zoom through in your boat, a month ago, if you zoom to their area likely it's something. 11:46 [SPEAKER_02]: So you just have to be a lot more cautious if you're bugging there right now. 11:50 [SPEAKER_02]: Now the good news is if you still want to go and do all those water-related things and make me national recreation area, your solution is to go to their 12:01 [SPEAKER_02]: that's downstream from Hoover Dam. 12:04 [SPEAKER_02]: And interestingly enough, even though late media is way below a third full, Lake Mojave is 95% full is up to date. 12:13 [SPEAKER_02]: And that number has been further consistent for the last 10 years and there is a little but not very much. 12:18 [SPEAKER_02]: But the reason is that Lake Mojave is a lot smaller. 12:22 [SPEAKER_02]: It's a lot shallower, about smaller legs, so it doesn't take as much water to fill it up. 12:26 [SPEAKER_02]: But second, they're still generating electricity and still releasing water through Hoover Dam. 12:32 [SPEAKER_02]: Now for use is downstream, and that water all flows into Lake Mojave. 12:36 [SPEAKER_02]: So that keeps Lake Mojave in good shape. 12:39 [SPEAKER_02]: So if you want to go do those water-related things, plenty of ample opportunities to do that and it let me master it, record it a share. 12:47 [SPEAKER_02]: one that's not quite as well know. 12:50 [SPEAKER_02]: One point about Lake Mahave, there are three nice developed areas there. 12:56 [SPEAKER_02]: They have paved road and paved boat ramp and the Marina and the resort and restaurants and all those kind of things. 13:04 [SPEAKER_02]: One called Willow Beach is about 12 miles down 13:12 [SPEAKER_02]: Cottonwood coves that an hour's drive south of Las Vegas on the Navada side, and then about two-hour drive from the Charlotte Las Vegas is Katherine Landing. 13:22 [SPEAKER_02]: which is the forest south in Lake Mojave near the town of Bullhead City and Loffland Nevada, it's just about on the estate line down there. 13:31 [SPEAKER_02]: So if you're looking for a chance to go and have fun in the water, all three of those places are a good spot to go. 13:38 [SPEAKER_02]: So there's a tip, get good information. 13:42 [SPEAKER_02]: You can go to a late meeting and still have a good time, but if you're looking for maybe 13:47 [SPEAKER_02]: a little less restricted opportunity for where you can vote and not worry so much about having to keep an eye on the water levels and Lake Mojave is a good opportunity. 13:56 [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I do have another tip from my Ranger experience for anybody that's talking about going voting. 14:02 [SPEAKER_02]: If you're either a news to voting. 14:06 [SPEAKER_02]: Or if you just haven't had your boat out for quite a while, and in order to get to the river or the lake, you're going to have to haul your boat on a trailer down to the lake or the river, probably the most important tip I can give you for your body life is if you are not experienced and backing up a trailer, don't have your first experience with that on a business out in the morning or the boat ramp. 14:31 [SPEAKER_02]: of the folks who are trying to do the same thing, hook up your boat on the trailer and find an empty parking lot to go to the school parking lot during the summer or shopping center when they're closed, whatever, and practice to drive that risk around and backing it up so you can back that up in a straight line and not jackknock it all with the parking lot. 14:48 [SPEAKER_02]: And you'll have a lot happier trip to the water if you'll do that. 14:52 [SPEAKER_02]: You'll avoid a lot of uncompimateary stairs from 14:59 [SPEAKER_02]: And you'll avoid defining yourself as the star character and somebody's entry in America's fundamental videos. 15:07 [SPEAKER_02]: After years of being a ranger, I've seen literally thousands of people trying to launch some boat ramps and most of them are successful. 15:15 [SPEAKER_02]: And the ones that aren't, or sometimes really epic failures. 15:18 [SPEAKER_02]: So there's about to have the practice that the maneuver that I've infiltrated before you ever make it out to the lake. 15:24 [SPEAKER_00]: For what it's worth, I've tried to back up boat trailers just a few times, and it's way harder than it looks. 15:30 [SPEAKER_00]: For me at least, everything seems to have the opposite effect, and turn the opposite direction than you think it will, and the more I tried to correct it, the worse it got. 15:40 [SPEAKER_00]: I mentioned this to Jim, and it was good to hear I wasn't alone in my incompetence. 15:45 [SPEAKER_02]: You're exactly right at this counterintuitive, and interestingly enough, all traders are my equal. 15:51 [SPEAKER_02]: A short trader, for me, was always harder to back up than a longer, and just tended to jackknife faster. 15:58 [SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, practice makes perfect anything, including the voter trader, that's for sure. 16:02 [SPEAKER_02]: And it's the same thing applies if you've got a camper or an RV or whatever else. 16:06 [SPEAKER_02]: Same common applies there. 16:08 [SPEAKER_00]: I asked him what other advice he might have for enjoying the water at the recreation area, with as little trauma as possible. 16:16 [SPEAKER_02]: Talk a little bit about some spots to go there at the Oleg Mahave, and I'd be remiss if I didn't tell people that I mentioned the Willow Beach in Cottonwood Coal and Catherine Landing, all three have all those facilities, marinas and kept grounds. 16:30 [SPEAKER_02]: But Rants, but Rilla Beach is really a totally different kind of experience and depending upon what people want that might be good and it might not be worth looking for. 16:39 [SPEAKER_02]: Rilla Beach is just 12 miles down the Colorado River below Hoover Dam. 16:46 [SPEAKER_02]: And it's in the bottom of a really pretty impressive Canyon some places over a thousand feet deep called Black Canyon and that's comes from the main of the predominant color of the rock there and it still has a lot of the same look and feel as the. 17:01 [SPEAKER_02]: Colorado River did before all these dams were built. 17:05 [SPEAKER_02]: That's true, the water level fluctuates. 17:07 [SPEAKER_02]: If you're releasing a lot of water or through Hoover Dam, the level is going to be up and if they shut the turbines down, the water is going to drop, it can fluctuate by several feet, just in a matter of a few hours there. 17:20 [SPEAKER_02]: So technically, it's the upper end of Lake Mahavye, but it really has a lot of the feel, really of the old Colorado River. 17:26 [SPEAKER_02]: And that's kind of an appeal to some people. 17:29 [SPEAKER_02]: But that also creates some other factors to be aware of because it's really a narrow winding canyon. 17:37 [SPEAKER_02]: There are some rules and effect there that between Willow Beach going back upstream for the dam. 17:44 [SPEAKER_02]: You're not allowed to take a houseboat. 17:46 [SPEAKER_02]: You can't water ski. 17:47 [SPEAKER_02]: You can't wake forward. 17:48 [SPEAKER_02]: Those kind of things are prior to go fast. 17:51 [SPEAKER_02]: And the reason is you got these narrow winding 17:54 [SPEAKER_02]: canons at all once you zoom around the tight turn and here's a guy going full board for the water skier. 17:59 [SPEAKER_02]: It would not end well for anybody. 18:01 [SPEAKER_02]: So if you want to water ski and take your house boat you can go downstream for bullet beach but no don't go upstream before the dam with that. 18:09 [SPEAKER_02]: The flip side of that is 18:12 [SPEAKER_02]: that area is a great place if you want to canoe a kayak. 18:15 [SPEAKER_02]: If you've done canoe a kayak, you get out of a water or a wide open lake, especially if you get any wind, that just does not make for a fun trip. 18:23 [SPEAKER_02]: But you get in those in that narrow canyon, it's a it's really a good place so for canoeing a kayak. 18:27 [SPEAKER_02]: Now the wind can still blow and if you're patting the gets to wind even in the canyon, that's not necessary fun. 18:32 [SPEAKER_02]: But that's become a real peating place for people who want to go and have a quieter experience. 18:38 [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, the park is now created, what's called, the Black Canyon National Water Trail. 18:45 [SPEAKER_02]: The starts of Hoover Dam follows Black Canyon for about 20 miles downstream. 18:50 [SPEAKER_02]: Pastoral beach all the further away. 18:51 [SPEAKER_02]: And on Sundays and Mondays, you're around from will of each upstream to the dam, there's no boats, no power boats are allowed at all, strictly for hand-powered craft. 19:01 [SPEAKER_02]: So he's got it all in yourself if you want to canoe a kayak and mix it for a really nice experience. 19:06 [SPEAKER_02]: And there are some other regulations that deal with some restrictions on the other days of the week with horsepower limits on boats for that part of the canyon. 19:16 [SPEAKER_02]: If you just search online for Black Canyon National Water Trail, get all those details, so you're not surprised about that. 19:23 [SPEAKER_02]: And if you want to canoe a kayak, they went those at the Marina, they're at the Willow Beach Resort. 19:29 [SPEAKER_02]: And if you're a little unsure about your canoe, and you're a kayaking skills, there are several private companies now, they have the premise to offer a guided canoe, and 19:38 [SPEAKER_02]: kayak trips and even some raft trips that put in to just downstream from Hoover Dam and take out a little beach. 19:44 [SPEAKER_02]: So that's the way you can do that if you're not really confident about your skills. 19:48 [SPEAKER_02]: And there are, I have to trip them on a long, drawn out thing, but it's a good way to have that kind of experience on the water. 19:55 [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I mentioned they're launching below Hoover Dam. 19:59 [SPEAKER_02]: You can't do that with private boat. 20:01 [SPEAKER_02]: They limit those launches right at the foot of the dam to those private companies. 20:04 [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a security thing that I want just to everybody at the world. 20:07 [SPEAKER_02]: have an access down there to the bottom of a really important infrastructure area, but that's another neat experience. 20:14 [SPEAKER_02]: I worked there at Willow Beach, and also for whileing Catherine, and also up on Echo Bay years ago when that was still a going concern up at Lake Mead. 20:22 [SPEAKER_02]: In my opinion, rid of this scenery, I think, during the Willow Beach area, 20:26 [SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of unique, but I think it's the most dramatic and maybe the most interesting in all of Lake Mead. 20:32 [SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like granted can't know the desert places and in most of the daytime when the sun's high, it's just pretty double and bleak looking. 20:39 [SPEAKER_02]: But in the morning, early in the morning, and late at the afternoon, you'd guess. 20:42 [SPEAKER_02]: water is still and you get the sun or reflect it off that water or reflect on what's can. 20:47 [SPEAKER_02]: It can really be a very pretty place and so I suggest that people if they're at the Lake Mead National Recreation area, take a drive down a little beach if you just drive down there and stop and look at the canyon, look at the water and have a meal for restaurant and it can be a neat place to go. 21:03 [SPEAKER_00]: While the lake itself will be familiar to those who have done their fair share of boating, the setting for this lake is probably radically different than other lakes you've experienced. 21:12 [SPEAKER_00]: But there's a reason for this, bodies of water, like Lake Mead, don't naturally occur in situations like this. 21:18 [SPEAKER_00]: I asked Jim if he might point out any specific features that might surprise the first time visitor. 21:24 [SPEAKER_02]: There are, and this is definitely a surprise for people who have not been there before. 21:28 [SPEAKER_02]: You're there in the middle of the desert, and 21:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Sometime it's 110, 150 degrees and you stick your foot in the water and you yuck it back out because the water temperature there, your route is in the low 50s. 21:42 [SPEAKER_02]: And I can tell you from experience, if it's 110 in your way to have their deep deep and 52 degree water, it's a shock to the system, which is the other reason why water ski is not allowed on that. 22:00 [SPEAKER_02]: One of the big reasons they built Lake Mead was to generate electric power. 22:04 [SPEAKER_02]: So they draw the water for those turbines from point near the bottom of Lake Mead. 22:10 [SPEAKER_02]: And so the water is cool area around is it may become less of a factor now as a legacy in a lot of shallower, but the water is consistent still in the low fifties there in the lower part of Lake Beach and so when it comes through the dam and out into the river, it's shaded part of the day about a half canny walls and it's moving with some current. 22:30 [SPEAKER_02]: And so it takes it 15 16 70 miles from the canny before the water starts to warm up. 22:37 [SPEAKER_02]: And so that is a kind of unique experience there. 22:40 [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's why that's not a great place. 22:42 [SPEAKER_02]: You want to swim, well, the beach is not the place to go. 22:44 [SPEAKER_02]: But it's a unique thing. 22:47 [SPEAKER_02]: And it does create some kind of unusual situations occasionally. 22:52 [SPEAKER_02]: I've had people ask me to give talks where it's kind of groups over the years. 22:57 [SPEAKER_02]: during my years as a ranger. 22:59 [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the questions that almost always comes up, people are, if I may list the top 10 things, people are worried about, if they go in and out of the wars, snakes would be somewhere on that top 10. 23:10 [SPEAKER_02]: People are just really worried about having what I call a close encounter of the worst kind with the reptile. 23:15 [SPEAKER_02]: And the reality is that very ready happens. 23:18 [SPEAKER_02]: But if you try to reassure people, I say, well, I've got three basic rules about snakes to just follow these, you're probably going to be okay. 23:25 [SPEAKER_02]: The first is, if you see a snake, just leave it alone. 23:29 [SPEAKER_02]: And if you can't follow rule number one, at least don't pick up the snake. 23:33 [SPEAKER_02]: And the third one is, I just don't put your hands or your feet or any other body part in a place that you haven't already looked, carefully, be sure it's not already occupied by snake or some other life form. 23:45 [SPEAKER_02]: And if you follow all three of those and you're probably going to be in pretty good shape and you're going out of yours in terms of snakes. 23:51 [SPEAKER_02]: But some people don't follow that advice and one good example happened while it's working there at Willow Beach. 23:59 [SPEAKER_02]: In addition, I've been involved cold water and involved rattlesnakes, and strangely enough, rattlesnakes sometimes would get into that cold water. 24:10 [SPEAKER_02]: And you might remember from that long ago high school biology class that snakes and other reptiles were co-blooded creatures. 24:19 [SPEAKER_02]: That doesn't mean there at her. 24:20 [SPEAKER_02]: And the evil legend just means that they can't regulate their body. 24:23 [SPEAKER_02]: You can't put the same way that mammals can. 24:25 [SPEAKER_02]: But what happens if a snake would get into the water, 24:28 [SPEAKER_02]: that cold water that area would graduate start slow as metabolism down and pretty soon you would fall into a just state of spending animation. 24:38 [SPEAKER_02]: There was basically a carbonating for all pregnant purposes. 24:42 [SPEAKER_02]: And so if it's in the water, precented just floating on top of the water and to all practice purposes, I was sometimes kidding to say if snakes had feed it, it looked like it was going to 24:53 [SPEAKER_02]: So, one day these two guys were fishing, they're on the river up, not too far downstream, for the day I'm this spotted, this snake floating on the surface of the water, and that my joke is I say what I'm saying. 25:05 [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, Jim Bob, look at that snake. 25:07 [SPEAKER_02]: This is the fish that out of the river is taken home. 25:09 [SPEAKER_02]: We'll make it soon. 25:10 [SPEAKER_02]: But buckles and headbands and make us a necklace out of the vertebrae, there's people have all kinds of creative things they can do, and the folk aren't world out of stakes. 25:20 [SPEAKER_02]: And so what I've been grabbed is paddled and you restore and snagged this, they conflicted in the bottom of the boat. 25:26 [SPEAKER_02]: They went back to their purpose of being there in which was fishing. 25:30 [SPEAKER_02]: So they had the motor shut off, they were just drifting on downstream, taking it easy. 25:38 [SPEAKER_02]: and they flipped that sleetly snake up on the bottom of that aluminum boat and to leave there in the sun. 25:45 [SPEAKER_02]: It didn't take very long before a revival of sorts took place. 25:50 [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know whether you've ever heard a rattlesnakes warning buzz, it's a pretty intimidating in the sound up for it quite a few times. 25:59 [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for that. 26:00 [SPEAKER_02]: I've never heard it come from the vicinity of my feet when I'm sitting in a small boat out in the middle of a river. 26:05 [SPEAKER_02]: And so how this thing played out was I was on Boat Patrol and a couple of visitors flagged me down. 26:10 [SPEAKER_02]: And I got the classic ingredients into said, hey, Ranger, they flagged me down and came over and said, what's up? 26:16 [SPEAKER_02]: This is well, we think there's something going on up over that you need to go check on. 26:20 [SPEAKER_02]: I said, okay, what's that? 26:21 [SPEAKER_02]: I say, well, we found this boat drifting down the river. 26:25 [SPEAKER_02]: It had all the usual stuff, had fishing poles, tackle boxes, lunchbox, a couple of partially consumed cans of our favorite beverage or sitting there in the cup holders, there's no people on board. 26:38 [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I said, yeah, that's a little unusual, but yeah, but it was occupied, there was a rattlesnake on board and said, yeah, that might suggest there's an issue in the, well, we thought there was a problem, so we had some buddies with us, another boat, so we sent them, 26:52 [SPEAKER_02]: Upstream to see if they could fare what's going on, we came down to find you. 26:55 [SPEAKER_02]: So I headed up River for long. 26:58 [SPEAKER_02]: I found this conference going on one of the sand bars and here's these four guys down around and a couple of boats. 27:03 [SPEAKER_02]: And so rest of the story was that these guys were sitting the boat. 27:06 [SPEAKER_02]: They heard the rattlesnake rattle. 27:09 [SPEAKER_02]: and that they concluded pretty quickly that boat was not big enough for them and the rattlesnake had already made it clear that he'd stick the claim to the boat. 27:18 [SPEAKER_02]: The good news out of this story was that these guys were following a good advice and they had their life jackets on. 27:24 [SPEAKER_02]: because when they decided to do the man overboard drill, if they jumped into that picture tree water, it might not have been such a happy ending for them, but they were great shape, and it was only 20 feet to the back. 27:35 [SPEAKER_02]: So this way I'm over in, personally, these other guys came along and found them. 27:39 [SPEAKER_02]: Meanwhile, the other group and found, they're both drifting along and they had shoved it up on the sand bar. 27:44 [SPEAKER_02]: And everybody was reunited. 27:47 [SPEAKER_02]: But time I got there, and they told me this story, there's no sign of the rousing. 27:52 [SPEAKER_02]: And the bear story was that, 27:54 [SPEAKER_02]: before everybody else got there and the owners showed up to reclaim the boat to stake and just decided the bailout on his own bullish and he was gone. 28:02 [SPEAKER_02]: And that I followed my own rules for stakes. 28:05 [SPEAKER_02]: I saw no virtue and beat through that thick underbrush trying to see if the stake was still there or not. 28:09 [SPEAKER_02]: And so we just let the story just end right there. 28:12 [SPEAKER_02]: But my word to the wise out of the whole situation was, again, go back to our tips. 28:18 [SPEAKER_02]: And if you see a stake, just be alive. 28:22 [SPEAKER_02]: It may not be what it appears at first notice. 28:24 [SPEAKER_02]: So it worked out well, but the cold water certainly had a head of factor in that story. 28:28 [SPEAKER_02]: If there is one other factor of that cold water that is a plus, we'll have each for many years was renowned for a prime spot to go fishing for rainbow trout, trout, really, or a cold water fish. 28:42 [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, there is a national fitch hatcher there, the raised trout, just to release that area for the trout fishery. 28:48 [SPEAKER_02]: And that's still a great place for fishing today. 28:51 [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, if you look in some of the record books, the Colorado River Record for a rainbow trout caught on cooking line was 21 pound rainbow trout. 29:00 [SPEAKER_02]: It's called there on the Willow Beach area. 29:03 [SPEAKER_02]: And a little less appealing to me, but also the Colorado River Record for a carp. 29:08 [SPEAKER_02]: caught by spear fishing was 32 pounds. 29:10 [SPEAKER_02]: That was a world beach. 29:12 [SPEAKER_02]: And, interestingly enough, the record on the river for a strike bass was also caught in the World of Beach area. 29:19 [SPEAKER_02]: 67 pounds, just a half-inch shot of four feet. 29:23 [SPEAKER_02]: That's a big fish by any measure. 29:25 [SPEAKER_02]: Now, the kind of the asterisk for this is that, for many years, they did not have strippers striped bass there like my hobby they were. 29:34 [SPEAKER_02]: either introduce their, either intentionally or accidentally, whatever, but they've really taken hold. 29:39 [SPEAKER_02]: And the striper is reproduced down in the warm water down for the down the lake, but they've, they can survive in cold water. 29:47 [SPEAKER_02]: And they found that they really like trout for lunch. 29:50 [SPEAKER_02]: So the reason those stripers are so big is that there's an ample supply trout upstream side. 29:54 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure the trout fish is quite as good as used to be, but 29:57 [SPEAKER_02]: for all around fishing, we'll be sharing a still excellent. 30:01 [SPEAKER_02]: In any place else, for warm water, fish down for the Lake Mojave, it's another pretty good place to go. 30:06 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you can, but it's not required there. 30:08 [SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah. 30:08 [SPEAKER_02]: So, in fact, it's been a while since I was there, but the resort there, it will be their agenda. 30:14 [SPEAKER_02]: It used to be that if you caught a trout and you brought it into the resort, 30:18 [SPEAKER_02]: And it weighed at least five pounds. 30:20 [SPEAKER_02]: They would take your pitcher or hold it in a five pound trout as a pretty impressive fish. 30:24 [SPEAKER_02]: So you're standing there, you take your photo, hold your five pound trout. 30:27 [SPEAKER_02]: And they would frame it and put it on the wall. 30:30 [SPEAKER_02]: And every square foot of empty space on the walls, and that resort were papered with the photos of people with their trout. 30:37 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's still a neat spot, a good place to go. 30:40 [SPEAKER_02]: Just remember that it's a little different from the rest of the lake. 30:42 [SPEAKER_02]: Just again, it comes back to have good information. 30:48 [SPEAKER_02]: Water can do kayak will be just great if you want to water ski and other stuff go down further down the lake. 30:54 [SPEAKER_00]: In spite of the unusually cold water and the other environmental factors that shape our experience at Lake Mead, the single most important thing you should always remember is that you are still in the middle of a giant desert. 31:07 [SPEAKER_02]: You're exactly right and the desert is still the overriding factor in terms of 31:15 [SPEAKER_02]: trip and you're experienced there. 31:18 [SPEAKER_02]: Again, sometimes compared, particularly the wheel of beach here, everything where it like my hobby, like me, to death values, not as hot as death valley, but it's still already warm. 31:27 [SPEAKER_02]: And during the summer time, it's just not very pleasant there. 31:31 [SPEAKER_02]: It's not a place to come kit camp. 31:33 [SPEAKER_02]: I used to joke and say, we had one of the few campgrounds in the National Park System. 31:37 [SPEAKER_02]: You could go to the campground and wheel of beach on the 4th 31:42 [SPEAKER_02]: No problem, find a spot. 31:43 [SPEAKER_02]: It's a great place to go from about mid-October to mid-April. 31:47 [SPEAKER_02]: But if you've got a really enjoyable hot weather, if you want to go there during the summertime. 31:52 [SPEAKER_02]: There is one plus, interesting enough though, without hot weather, but another interesting thing to see there in that area, and particularly there are Lake Mahave or Desert, Big Horn Sheep, which are really an interesting and variety of wildlife, and there were numbers 32:10 [SPEAKER_02]: occasion now you will even see some there along a road there in the area. 32:14 [SPEAKER_02]: They've been a couple of overpasses that have been built across the U.S. 93 there's South Hoover down where they so they should get across the highway safely. 32:24 [SPEAKER_02]: But the best place to have a chance to really see some of those vision big horns is on the river. 32:29 [SPEAKER_02]: downstream, about the next 10 or 15 miles, we're going to be still in the canyon. 32:34 [SPEAKER_02]: Every place, there's a tributary or a side canyon that comes down into what used to be the color I'll remember. 32:39 [SPEAKER_02]: Now, like Mojave, there's a nice sandbore there. 32:43 [SPEAKER_02]: And during the hot weather or the sheep, I have to come down more often. 32:47 [SPEAKER_02]: than they would in the winter time just to get water. 32:50 [SPEAKER_02]: And so if you're bowed along there, you might be lucky and see a band of anywhere from two or three to maybe even a couple of dozen big corn sheep. 32:57 [SPEAKER_02]: If you do the tip is, if you want, if you're just zooming all by on the boat that's fine, but if you want to see the sheep, the key is just cut your engine, just let your boat drift and just to come on slow to buy, and they will probably just stay right about the water and just ignore you. 33:11 [SPEAKER_02]: If you got a nice telephoto lens on your camera, you can get some nice shots. 33:15 [SPEAKER_02]: However, if you pull your boat up on the shore, then they're going to be gone probably there up in the brush and back up the canyon. 33:21 [SPEAKER_02]: So we've got to enjoy them from the water. 33:23 [SPEAKER_02]: Don't try to get up close to personal with them. 33:25 [SPEAKER_02]: But that's another neat thing that you can do. 33:27 [SPEAKER_02]: They're at them the hot weather and they're sometimes going to get mixed easier to make this bottom because they have to come down and get water. 33:35 [SPEAKER_00]: We had hope to see some of these big horns and spent some time looking, but as hot as it was, it may not have been hot enough to lower them down. 33:43 [SPEAKER_00]: I asked of these unusual environmental conditions. 33:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And any other interesting stories he encountered. 33:49 [SPEAKER_02]: The hot weather, again, does lead itself to a lot of other unusual situations. 33:55 [SPEAKER_02]: And it's almost kind of like places like death palace on people really fascinated by the extremes 34:02 [SPEAKER_02]: One example is a lady that came into the registration one day, and it was, because we always checked the weather, if one o'clock, we had an official weather service instrument station there. 34:13 [SPEAKER_02]: And we, you've got to check it every day at one, you're riding down, mail the form in months and months to the weather, we're going to keep track. 34:18 [SPEAKER_02]: So sometimes locals say, hey, Jim, how hot did you get today? 34:22 [SPEAKER_02]: And it was kind of a point of pride also, but then one day it was up above 120 there. 34:31 [SPEAKER_02]: And she came into the range station and said, the need is, if I can borrow a bucket in this water and some dishwasher and soap and a cling rag and I kind of thought myself, okay, what's going on here, was a fishing for a few more details. 34:42 [SPEAKER_02]: And it turns out that she had heard somewhere over the time that it's hot enough for her expressions, it's hot enough you can fry and egg on the sidewalk. 34:51 [SPEAKER_02]: I just thought, well, if that's true, I wonder if I could fry an egg on the hood of my dark green truck. 34:57 [SPEAKER_02]: That's a dark metal surface probably kind of like a metal frying pan, so I wonder if that works. 35:04 [SPEAKER_02]: And so she tried it. 35:06 [SPEAKER_02]: And the short answer to that question is, yes, you really can fry an egg on the dark green metal hood of a truck when it's 120 degrees measured in the shade, by the way. 35:21 [SPEAKER_02]: very well. 35:23 [SPEAKER_02]: The last later, some maybe we should have just sprayed it on and it's thick cooking spray on the first. 35:27 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know. 35:27 [SPEAKER_02]: But the outcome was the left or really ugly stain on the hood and so should probably wish she hadn't tried that in retrospect, but it was an interesting experience for just one of those things. 35:38 [SPEAKER_02]: I guess maybe that would happen to me when you stand out in the sun. 35:41 [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm 20 degrees in your mind that goes down a different path, I don't know. 35:45 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that have always struck me about this experiment where you cook eggs on things in the sun, as if they were frying pans, is that it's just as impressive if you are using an actual frying pan. 35:56 [SPEAKER_00]: It's more or less the same surface and it won't ruin your paint job. 36:00 [SPEAKER_00]: The marvel is not that any metal can cook, but that you can cook outdoors in the heat of the sun. 36:06 [SPEAKER_00]: So next time someone tries to make an omelette on the hood of your minivan, 36:14 [SPEAKER_00]: You'll also be able to eat the egg when you're done and save all the cleanup food for thought. 36:20 [SPEAKER_00]: But when you're in a national park, coherent thought is sometimes the furthest thing from your mind as every ranger knows. 36:27 [SPEAKER_02]: People sometimes find out I read a couple books about my experiences of ranger and they say, well, what else about it, I say, well, 36:34 [SPEAKER_02]: The short answer is, they're fun, family, friendly, stories about what happens when American score on vacation and forget to pack their brains. 36:47 [SPEAKER_00]: I'll leave you with a few quick facts about Lake Mead. 36:50 [SPEAKER_00]: It was the first recreational area in America. 36:53 [SPEAKER_00]: At four capacity, it is the largest reservoir in America. 36:57 [SPEAKER_00]: There are mains of a World War II, B29 bomber, are available to scuba divers at the bottom of the lake. 37:04 [SPEAKER_00]: At the time of the crash, in 1948, it was being used for high altitude atmospheric research. 37:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Even Stranger, the entire town of St. Thomas Nevada, was submerged in 1938, as Lake Mead stretched to realize its forecapacity. 37:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Stranger than that, through a mains of a thousand-year-old Native American metropolis, are also buried in this area. 37:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Sadly, the town was discovered only shortly before the construction of the dam. 37:32 [SPEAKER_00]: in an area planned for flooding, so a full excavation was never possible. 37:37 [SPEAKER_00]: With the dam project already underway, archaeologist raised to uncover what they could, and some of these are preserved in the lost city museum of archaeology and over to Nevada. 37:47 [SPEAKER_00]: In one last, not so fun fact, as water levels in the reservoir have decreased, bodies have begun surfacing around the edges of the lake, at least some are believed to be the victims of mob violence, but the stories of most will likely never be known. 38:02 [SPEAKER_00]: The first of these bodies was found and are busted out there on the first day of my visit, though in a different area than I was staying. 38:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Here are your inevitable, one-star reviews for this incredible park. 38:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Ashley B says, Every time I come out here, Water level gets lower and lower. 38:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Of course I know it's a me and made like, but just looking at it is disheartening. 38:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Storm-ass complained. 38:27 [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't go to Lake Mead. 38:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Just drove by on our way to Vegas. 38:31 [SPEAKER_00]: First time I've been through since the Dan bypass. 38:34 [SPEAKER_00]: So disappointing, walls block all views from the skywalk, you could be anywhere. 38:39 [SPEAKER_00]: I used to love crossing the dam with the art echo statues, even those are gone now. 38:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Storm is talking here about the Hoover Dam bypass, but I'm not sure where she was expecting to find the statues. 38:51 [SPEAKER_00]: I love them too. 38:52 [SPEAKER_00]: And they're all still there at the side of the dam. 38:55 [SPEAKER_00]: This next one is fair. 38:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Like Jim said, you need to be more selective than Riccarda about when you go. 39:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Riccarda says, spent one night on the campground in June 2014. 39:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Hotest, night, ever, ever, ever. 39:11 [SPEAKER_00]: At 3am, still 40 degrees Celsius. 39:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Never again, in summertime.
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