Lake Mead Recreation Area - Liberty Bell Arch

Danielle, Sadie dog and I took another hike out in the Lake Mead National Recreational Area on Sunday. This time around we drove over the Hoover Dam into Arizona and took a relatively obscure hike known as the Liberty Bell Arch hike. The reason its my impression that its obscure is due to the fact that its not really an official hike according to the park service (its not included in their brochures), the trail is DEFINITELY not officially maintained (had some rough spots), there is NO trailhead sign or any signs at all of a trail from the highway and we ran into exactly ZERO other people on the trail on a Sunday.

The trail, however, is mentioned extensively on the internet as evidenced by a simple Google or Yahoo search of 'Liberty Arch Trail/Hike'. It's trailhead is also located near a very popular (and official) Lake Mead hike called Arizona Hot Springs. In fact, due to our unfamiliarity of the trail, we accidentally started off on a different Jeep trail at the beginning which lead us over to the Hot Springs trail, only to be told by some hikers over there that we were on the wrong trail. So about 45 minutes of our day was spent getting to know a nice jeep trail between the two.

This trail turned out to be probably the biggest surprise out of any hikes I've done so far. The stats of the trail are that its about a 5 mile out-and-back (2.5 miles each way) and there's only a few hundred feet in elevation change from the beginning to the end. However, as I've already mentioned, the trail itself is NOT a nice and tidy maintained trail. Its only a use-trail and there were several spots where we just had to stop for a few moments and get our bearings to make sure we were still on it. Cairns left by previous hikers also helped out. Another surprise was the total gross elevation change. There might have only been a couple hundred feet in difference from the beginning to the end, but there was way more Up and Down action during the hike that I was not anticipating. Couple that with some minor rock scrambling and you get a moderately strenuous hike! If this same hike had been at 8,000+ feet in Mount Charleston, I would have been sucking some major wind at times.

But the biggest surprise was the scenery on this hike! After thinking for a while, I'd definitely have to put this hike in my top three so far! The desert landscape along with the arch itself, an interesting mining area and the stunning views of Black Canyon and the Colorado River were just awesome! The only reason I even decided on this trail in the first place was the fact that I read that a crucial ladder on the Hot Springs trail was gone for repair. The Hot Springs hike might be our next adventure.

Anyway, here are a bunch of pictures of the hike yesterday. Enjoy.

Believe it or not, you CAN see the arch from this picture taken at the trailhead. You'd have to click on it to blow it up and look very close, but it is there in the middle of the picture (tiny).

Here's some nice scenery taken while we were on the wrong damn trail!

Danielle and the dog are descending the first part of the "correct" trail once we got back to it after 45 minutes of being lost.

There is an old WWII era mining area in the middle of this hike. Danielle and the dog are going off-trail to check things out up there. We'll get a little more mining pictures in on the way back.

This is approaching the Liberty Bell Arch. I'll get a better and closer picture of the arch on the way back when the sun is behind us.

Here are some interesting rocks. I believe this picture was taken past the arch on our way up to the Colorado River overlook (the end of the hike).

This might be my favorite picture of the hike. It's taken just a few steps before reaching the overlook. This picture is looking south with Black Canyon and the river to the right of this picture. This view is what reminds me of a smaller version of the Grand Canyon.

Here's our first look at the river. The scene in the picture above this one is off to the left.

We are now on the overlook looking down at the Colorado River 1,000 feet down. It seems like there's an optical illusion with this picture. Just to be clear, the rocks you see in the foreground on the bottom of the picture is what I'm standing on. Everything past those rocks is a 1,000 foot drop.

Just giving you a view of the cliffs on the other side of the river.

This is still on the overlook looking north. You'd have click on the picture to blow it up, but off in the distance you can see the Hoover Dam bypass bridge, which gives you some perspective of where we actually are in relation to the dam.

We're now turning back and heading back the way we came. That little squiggly line in the middle of the picture is part of our trail. That larger horizontal line way off in the distance is the highway where we are parked.

Here's a much better picture of the arch as we head in the other direction. This is about 2.5 hours before official sunset.

On the way back we doubled around a large hill to the other side of that mining area. Danielle is checking out a mine that goes about 60 feet back with some skylights, so flashlights are not needed. Normally, an abandoned mine would be completely off-limits, but in all of my reading on this hike on the internet, every person that has reported on this hike has also gone in there, so we went in too.

Looking up at a "skylight" within the mine.

For the second hike in a row I find myself walking toward the light!