Hoover Dam

...world, the one and only Hoover Dam. If you are pushed for time, Hoover Dam is the better option as it is only about 30 miles outside Las Vegas compared to the Grand Canyon with approx 280 miles (but doable in half a day if you either fly there or use a helicopter) and easily reached by either tour bus or rental car. And you don't need that much time either. Official tours can be booked in your hotel or anywhere along the Strip, really, take no more ...
...figures about the size of Hoover Dam, just let me tell you, it's big, really, really BIG and if you are interested, you can look up the specifics on Hoover Dam official websites. I don't think here is the place to actually rattle off all this dry information as it is freely available elsewhere.

However, I want to make a very brief excursion into the history of the dam. And I mean brief, no statistics, just the bare bones, nothing ... more

When visiting Las Vegas there are a few things you should do, apart from loosing all your spending money in the casinos. Trust me, you will loose, the casinos will win in the end, they are designed that way.

Everyone, when in the area, should try and do one of two trips, of course both would be best: visit Grand Canyon - that big hole in the ground will leave you breathless - as well as take time out to see one of the 7 engineering wonders of the world, the one and only Hoover Dam. If you are pushed for time, Hoover Dam is the better option as it is only about 30 miles outside Las Vegas compared to the Grand Canyon with approx 280 miles (but doable in half a day if you either fly there or use a helicopter) and easily reached by either tour bus or rental car. And you don't need that much time either. Official tours can be booked in your hotel or anywhere along the Strip, really, take no more than 4-6 hours, depending on what's included. And if you have a rental car at your disposal, 30 miles can be done in less than 45 minutes and you will be back before the day has even started.

I'm not going to bore everyone with statistics and figures about the size of Hoover Dam, just let me tell you, it's big, really, really BIG and if you are interested, you can look up the specifics on Hoover Dam official websites. I don't think here is the place to actually rattle off all this dry information as it is freely available elsewhere.

However, I want to make a very brief excursion into the history of the dam. And I mean brief, no statistics, just the bare bones, nothing fancy. And talking of bones, despite the rumour of a body being buried in the dam, there's no such thing. First of all, it would have been noticed with the dam rising no more than 6 inches at a time and a body would've destabilised the dam and caused it to leak.

By the way, the people working at the dam as guides or similar don't like the "L" word (leak); they prefer it to be called SEEPAGE - same thing, different word.

A Brief History In Time:

In 1930, President Herbert Hoover put his signature under to a project that was eventually to carry his name, to build a dam to stop the Colorado River from doing two things, flood the low lying areas or not producing enough water to irrigate the areas and thus depriving farmers in Arizona, Nevada and California from successfully working on their land. Something had to be done and taming the Colorado River by erecting a massive dam seemed the best option.

Hoover Dam was built during the great depression and 5000 workers and their families flocked to the desert area to find work. 5000 men who worked round the clock in three shifts, 7 days a week 365 days a year to get it done. Workers at the time earned $5.00 a day and had one day off per month. Boulder City was built nearby to house all the workers and their families and as it is built on federal land, gambling in any shape or forms is not allowed. Until today, Boulder City remains the only place in Nevada where gambling is illegal.

The dam was finished in 5 years, well ahead of time and under budget. You don't find that very often, just look at the Millennium Dome or Wembley Stadium.

Hoover Dam, or Boulder Dam as it was originally called, was scheduled to be built in Boulder Canyon. Unfortunately the area did not meet the specifications and the project was moved to Black Canyon. However the name Boulder Dam was retained, later changed to Hoover Dam (after president Hoover), then renamed Boulder Dam as president Hoover was generally disliked in the country. In 1947, the US senate decided to put an end to the naming and renaming game and the dam became officially known for all times as Hoover Dam.

Behind Hoover Dam you will find one of the USA's and the world's biggest man made lakes, Lake Mead (named after the person who oversaw the building of the dam), with thousands of miles of coastline and opportunities for water sport or similar. After the dam was finished it took almost another 5 years to fill up completely. It is said that Barbra Streisand has a villa overlooking Lake Mead. Seeing it from the air will show you how enormous it actually is and puts it all into perspective.

Interesting titbit on the side, the original hard-hat was invented here as the workers needed protection from falling rocks.

My Trip To Hoover Dam:

The idea was for my partner, his son and I to rent a car and drive to Hoover Dam, then on the way back maybe drive past Nellis Airforce base and find all the UFO hotspots. It seemed a good idea at the time but my partner had other ideas as he had spent most of the night before playing poker at the Wynn and was in no fit state to stand upright, let alone drive. And asking a teenage boy to see a marvel of engineering is utterly hopeless anyway. So, totally ticked off, I went downstairs at the hotel we were staying (Bally's Las Vegas) and enquired about tours to Hoover Dam. They had one departing only 15 minutes later and I decided to go on it.

Of course, booking at the hotel is a little more expensive than booking somewhere along the Strip where you are offered discount prices. The tour I was offered was organised by a company called Casino Travel or something like that. It was called the 'Discovery Tour' and took 6 hours from pick up at hotel to drop off. I paid $55.00 incl tax (approx £28) and included a luxury, guided bus tour to Hoover Dam with a trip behind the scenes and underneath the dam, time for all the touristy things you want to do and a stop at Ethel M's chocolate factory & cactus garden.

Just after the allocated time of 8.20 am (there's a second trip leaving around lunchtime) the tour guide arrived and asked for our tickets, photo ID (you need to show government official ID, I noticed that a UK photo driver's licence is enough in almost all cases, passport's not necessary) and provided us with a sticker so we knew what tour we belonged to.

There were about 15 people at Bally's for the tour and when we entered the bus we noticed that a few more pick-ups had been done before. Only one more stop after Bally's and we were on our way to Hoover Dam. The coach we were on was one of the official Vegas.com tour busses with a lot of space for each individual - the coach wasn't full - and air conditioning, we were fast approaching Hoover Dam.

It has to be said that the trip does not include any lunch - some trips offer a lunch but this one didn't. I had my own bottled water but each person on the tour was given a complimentary bottle of water. A nice gesture but to be honest, the water tasted vile and I only took it because it was free.

Our tour guide Andi was very knowledgeable and extremely chatty. There was no way I could just close my eyes and just nod off until we reached the dam. Andi's voice was going on and on and on about property prices and housing in the greater Las Vegas area ("You won't find for sale sign, all land/houses are sold within minutes of coming onto the market"), some of the famous people living around town ("privacy laws prevent us from telling who lives where but this house belongs to celeb A, that over there to celeb B…) all the way to Hoover Dam. Of course, we had a free history lesson thrown in when it came to the dam and the people building it.

What is interesting is that the government is currently building a new highway/bypass across the side of the dam which includes a big bridge (workers earn around $89 per hour - nice job if you can get it) and other projects.

You are travelling mainly through the desert with nothing at all to see and suddenly, just after Boulder City ("over there you see Andre Agassi's summer house") you have reached a small control station

Always remember you are entering federal territory and with terror alerts on high, your vehicle may be subject to inspection - all trailers, RVs, trucks and busses are automatically checked. A guard entered our bus and we were told to have our ID ready in case he wanted to see it. Alas, no frisking and our coach was allowed to continue on its journey to the dam.

Just before you reach the dam on the Nevada side you will come to a multi-storey car park. Busses get allocated a spot and the tour guide will give specific instructions regarding what you can and can't do at the dam. Always remember, you've entered federal territory and there will be hidden cameras and recording everywhere.

The coach passengers going on the Discovery Tour were given their entry tickets and Andi pointed us into the direction of the entrance of the tour. Apart from her warnings regarding being back at the coach stop at the allocated time ("you have two hours here, just remember the sum of $128 - that's what a cab back to Vegas will cost you") she will also tell you that you're only allowed water inside the dam, no food or chewing gum, etc. In case you forget, there's always big signs telling you what you can and can't do.

The Discovery Tour:

Together with most passengers on the bus I was booked on the Discovery Tour. This means you are allowed behind the scenes, behind the dam and get to see more than the normal visitor. The tour was included in the price of the tour but if bought separately would have cost in the region of around $11 per adult.

To enter you have to walk through airport style security, bags and jackets on the belt and you walk through one of those beeping doorframes. It's the same at most public/federal buildings - last time I had to do it apart from airports was at the United Nations in New York.

For this extra you will watch a short movie, about 10 minutes about the dam, how it was built, then you enter the lift and go down about 500 feet to the generator rooms where your guide will explain about the water running through the dam and how the electricity is harvested. Then another short trip on the elevator will take you down all the way to a room where you will feel the roar of the water beneath you.

After that, the rest of the tour is mainly self-guided and once back on top-soil, you are left to your own devices.

Next stop for me was the observation deck which you can only enter if you are part of the Discovery tour - or at least bought a behind the scenes ticket. The observation deck is one of the best places to have your photo taken with the dam behind you as you are elevated from the rest of the dam and you're basically looking down on it all.

Once outside you just go along at your own pace, if you're on a times tour you have to make sure that you check the time as you don't want to be left behind and pay for the taxi back to Las Vegas.

There are a number of interesting stops along the dam, one being the two bronze angels on the Nevada side. They certainly look impressive and are worth a photo but if you are pressed for time, just go ahead and walk across the dam itself.

I had been totally psyched about Hoover Dam. I had seen it on TV loads of time, seen it from a little Cessna plane when coming back from the Grand Canyon and even when flying over on the way to Las Vegas. I had big hopes for the dam, I was soooooo looking forward to it. I knew it had to the one of the greatest things on earth.

I got to Hoover Dam and I felt totally betrayed.

First of all, the Discovery Tour didn't allow us to walk out at the bottom of the dam where the power station is due to security and terrorism and all that. To be honest that was the one thing I had been looking forward to all the time, looking UP the dam.

Second, walking along the dam is not as exciting as it appears. You really think it's something special but it isn't. I was even disappointed about the state line between Nevada and Arizona. Normally there's a time difference as Arizona is on Mountain time but as they don't adopt daylight saving time (summer time to you and me) the time is the same. There's not even a big sign telling you on the dam wall or the middle of the road telling you that you are crossing the state line. I had my camera ready going all "Look, one foot in Nevada, one in Arizona". Bah, sooooooo annoying.

Walking over the dam I walked along the Lake Mead side and Hoover Dam doesn't look at all impressive. After all, it's a big lake and you can almost touch the water. What nobody tells you is the water/the lake at that point is about 700 feet deep so you don't really want to fall into the water.

At regular intervals along the dam you have the opportunity to cross over to the other side. I walked all the way to the other end of the dam and crossed over there.

Wow, I knew it was a bit of a drop on that side, but even the observation deck will not give you a proper idea how blooming deep the dam actually is. And it is really, really deep down.

But having said that, I was still a little disappointed. I had expected so much more of a WOW factor. I have always had an issue with heights and looking down from the top of both, the observation platform as well as the side of dam facing the canyon, I should have felt queasy. Nothing of the sort happened. I was curiously calm and not a single moment of nausea. And I don't think I'm getting over my fear of heights as I still get all woozy on bridges (nobody will ever get me over the QE2 Bridge in London or the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay again) or sometimes on roller-coasters.

I think looking down a concrete wall is not quite as exciting as looking up it. And not being able to walk out at the bottom of the dam really annoyed me, security issues or not. I am sure I would have been totally bowled over by its size had I been given the opportunity to view it from the bottom, at river level. If you think about it, most TV programmes show you the size of the Hoover Dam by flying up the dam and you get to see the sheer size of it. Looking down it is just not the same effect.

If you are interested in more of the history of the dam you can visit the museum with exhibits through the decades since it was built. I didn't have the time to go inside (it's free if you paid for your Discovery tour) and although I was mildly interested, time was running away and I had to make my way back to the coach. After all, the movie and two stops to the generator room had taken up almost an hour of the two hour slot we had been given.

I admit I am still in total awe when it comes to the sheer achievement of the workers. The dam is a beautiful piece of engineering and it's amazing the amount of water it holds back. Apparently, the dam is overbuilt so the chances of it breaking are slim to non-existent. I shot loads of photos to remind myself that I actually walked along the edge of the Hoover Dam. But when I was there I was thoroughly disappointed.

Before I had to be back at the coach stop I managed to buy a coffee at the little restaurant on the Nevada side. You can get all sorts of snack food and drinks there. Prices are not too bad and if you fancy your chips and burgers you have certainly come to the right place.

Of course, no trip is complete without the obligatory stop at the souvenir shop where you can buy everything under the sun as long as there's room to print "Hoover Dam" or something similar on it. I only bought a few postcards - after all, they had pictures from the bottom up - and after a quick nosey around, I decided to return to the coach.

Everyone on our coach was back 10 minutes early, I don't know if that means anything but maybe it's a sign that Hoover Dam is not really that interesting at all. Just like Grand Canyon is just a big hole in the ground, Hoover Dam is just a big wall of concrete sealing off another canyon. Though, from a distance, Hoover Dam is a totally different story.

The really strange thing is, when I sat at home, downloading the photos from my digital camera onto my computer I sat here for a few minutes just staring at Hoover Dam from all the different angles and I couldn't believe myself. Again, this feeling of being in total awe overcame me. I couldn't believe I hadn't actually enjoyed the trip itself that much.

Maybe it's just me but Hoover Dam looks so much more impressive on film than in reality. You may look down the walls and think to yourself "Wow, that's really huge" but seeing it on film or in photos, it looks more impressive that way. But it may be just me.

The rest of the trip was over rather quickly. We stopped off briefly at a look-out point over Lake Mead, a stop not really on the tour schedule but because we were early to leave, they squeezed it in. I don't think it was that interesting although it did give you a bit of an idea of the sheer size of Lake Mead as it went on for ages and everywhere you looked was still part of the lake.

On the way back to our hotel we stopped off at Ethel M's chocolate factory and cactus garden. Ethel M (or Ethel Mars, after all, she was the mother of the Mars people who own the Mars chocolate company) makes exceedingly good chocolate pralines, a bit like Thorntons or Lind, only better. It was Sunday and the factory was closed but the self guided tour was open and every visitor was allowed two chocolates to try, one you could choose yourself, the other the Ethel M employee picked for you. I went through twice, at the beginning of the stop and the end, after I had a look at all the cacti and the Joshua tree. They didn't notice I went through twice and if they did, they didn't say anything.

Well, the whole trip to Hoover Dam and back via Ethel M's (and past a few celebrity homes) took less than 6 hours. We were back at Bally's just before 2pm where I found the hotel room door with the "Do no disturb" sign they'd put out in the morning still hanging there. It was time for me to kick some butt.

I am glad I went to see Hoover Dam, it's one of those places you really should go and see, it's fantastic when it comes to the history behind it. But it might leave you wanting for more if you actually get there. I'm still not sure what to make of it, being there was a bit of a disappointment but then again, looking at the photos I took, wow, it looks absolutely breathtaking. Shame I didn't get the same feeling when I was actually standing there. That would have been something.

I don't think I will go back, after all, it's just a big wall, despite being such a great achievement in engineering - 71 years and still going strong - I will look at the pictures and enjoy the view as I am still convinced Hoover Dam looks more impressive on television and in film that when you are actually seeing it for yourself.

Oh, and if you are offered the 'Discovery' tour, don't bother, it's not worth the money as you are not allowed outside at the bottom. It's not worth for just the outlook platform and the self-guided tour through the museum.

There is no stopping of any vehicle on top of the dam at any time and pedestrian access is during daylight hours only, no pets allowed. After all, they don't want anyone to jump over the edge under cover of darkness - despite all the open and hidden security cameras around.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
For reservation information about Hoover Dam tours during operating hours contact us at:
Tel: (702) 494-2517
Fax: (702) 494-2587
Toll free: (866) 730-9097

http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/

NB: This review was posted first on dooyoo.co.uk 

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