We did a series of day trips across different weekends from Las Vegas. These were all in the Lake Mead area on the Colorado River near Hoover Dam (sadly the actual dam was closed due to Covid so we couldn’t see that)
Kayaking the Colorado River to Emerald Cove
On our first weekend as nomads in Las Vegas, Willy and I did a day-long (~8 mile) kayaking trip on the Colorado River from Willow Beach with a stop along this really cool-looking cave called Emerald Cave.
It was a hot day (~100 degrees!) so being able to take short dips in the cold and very clear water was really nice. Sadly, I jumped into the water with my phone on me and killed my phone so basically the only photos we have from this day are the ones above that were taken on Willy’s phone.
Willy and I found this guide from REI and this was probably the most useful in planning our trip:
There are some tours that will transport you from Vegas, include the kayak rentals, and has a guide that will take you, but we had a car and it was easy to get a rental ourselves and do things on our own time instead of with a tour group so we opted for that. We were able to get a rental from this place right on Willow Beach.
The thing that we didn’t have a chance to do that we’d love to do next time is canoe camping. We saw lots of people canoeing up the river and camping along the banks and it looked super fun!
Arizona Hot Spring & White Rock Canyon
On a different weekend, we drove back to the Lake Mead area and this time, instead of kayaking up the Colorado River, we did a hike out to the river along a trail.
There were two hikes that both end up at the Colorado River: Arizona Hot Spring (which was closed at the time we went, but would’ve been really cool because it passes through a hot spring), and White Rock Canyon which we did instead.
