Maximum velocity: New Colorado River tour offers another vantage of Lake Mead

Kimberley McGee

Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2001 | 8:31 a.m.

Many may look upon Lake Mead as a quiet tourism industry where families fish and frolic in the cool water.

But the owners of Lake Mead Cruises want you to look deeper.

"We wanted to create some way for people to see Lake Mead in a way that they might not have been able to before," said May Fair, one of four owners of Lake Mead Cruises. "There is so much to see."

That was accomplished with Velocity, a 57-foot catamaran boat that whisks tourists over the blue-green water of Lake Mead on a six-hour tour.

The tour cruises past Boulder Beach as guests settle into their blue canvas chairs beneath a shade canopy. The tour then sweeps past the dam and its popular, colorful coves. Once past the hulking cliffs of the Narrows and into the calm waters of Gregg Basin the boat anchors for a deli-style lunch and swimming. The tour ends at God's Pocket at the edge of Grand Canyon National Park.

The narrated tour includes colorful tales of the people who lived along the shores of the Colorado River and detailed facts about the geological wonders of the lake.

Last year more than 9 million tourists visited Lake Mead National Recreation Area, 13 percent of whom hit the water, said Bert Byers, public affairs officer for the park.

The lake becomes a curiosity for many tourists, Byers said, as they fly into Las Vegas and glimpse the large, blue body of water breaking up the expanse of dusty desert scenery.

"It is certainly, besides being very large, a geological marvel," Byers said. "It winds through canyons and coves that makes every turn on the lake an adventure."

Velocity offers another dimension of the lake, Fair said, that can only be experienced while skimming across the deep water on a boat.

"We've always enjoyed the lake," Fair said. "We want to show people what's out there."

The tour covers more than 60 miles of the lake to places the tourists could not reach by car or foot.

The eco-adventure tour tickets are $164.95 per person Tuesday through Thursday, and on nights and weekends the boat is available for charter and fishing excursions on the lake. The tours officially begin next week.

Recently a group of high rollers from Bellagio boarded the Velocity for a sneak peek of the powerful boat and a sunset fishing cruise. The boat has a full bar and a kitchen well-stocked with snacks, water and sodas.

"It's a very comfortable boat," Fair said.

Launch time

The tour begins at 8:45 a.m. with breakfast at the Lake Mead Cruises' dock.

The aluminum-hulled boat then launches from the dock and cruises past Boulder Beach and the glassy surface of the water near the ski wall to the east of the sandy beach.

Jet Skis and water-skiers dot the large, smooth area near the ski wall where the prevailing southern winds are buffered by the Black Mountains.

Tourists can listen to the historical narration of the building of Hoover Dam as the boat turns from the beach and heads for Black Canyon. The complimentary headphones plug into each canvas lounge chair on the boat's covered deck.

Velocity then picks up speed to its full-throttle pace of 36 mph and heads toward Hoover Dam.

On a recent afternoon a herd of Big Horn sheep was climbing the steep cliffs of Black Canyon approximately 8 miles from the Lake Mead Cruises' dock. Sheep are frequently sited along the cliffs where they munch on vegetation. The narrator points out that Lake Mead is home to one of the largest herds of the desert sheep in the country.

After a view of the back of the dam Velocity heads for Painted Pots, a cove of sandstone, limestone and other oxides that glimmer in the sun 10 miles from Boulder Beach. At sunset the cove seems to light from within its stone face and change colors with the waning sunlight.

Leaving Painted Pots, the tour follows the original flow of the Colorado River before the lake was created by the completion of Hoover Dam.

The tour then turns toward the Virgin Basin through the Narrows, a sun-dappled canyon with sandy coves tucked along the craggy shoreline.

The narration at that point includes a history of the Muddy and Virgin rivers, which met the Colorado River at Boulder Canyon.

Lake Mead Cruises worked with the park service to include local legends, historical references and geological facts in the narration to bring the lake alive in the minds of the tourists.

"We wanted people to know more about what happened around the area," Fair said.

And beneath the lake, as well.

What lies beneath

An hour into the tour the narration explains some of the lake's hidden treasures.

The advancing waters of the lake flooded some towns along the Colorado River. The stone structures of those settlements, such as Callville Bay, remain intact 400 feet below the surface of Lake Mead.

Callville was a thriving port along the river in the late 1800s. Freighters would traverse the rapids of the river to bring mining supplies, food and clothing to the desert outpost.

The town was abandoned at the beginning of the last century and is one of many abandoned cities that lie beneath the surface of Lake Mead.

The Anasazi Indians settled along the river from roughly 0 to 1150 A.D., when they mysteriously abandoned their village. Many of those stone homes were overtaken by the lake in the late 1930s, though some exist intact today near Overton at the edge of the lake's shores.

The lake also supposedly covers the stuff that miner's dreams were made of -- gold.

The narration tells the story of Pegleg Smith, a miner in the mid-1800s who realized too late that the odd-looking ore covering a small valley near Callville contained gold. He searched for the site he had stumbled upon years earlier, but to no avail. Smith never found that spot again. It is said that his lost site lies somewhere at the bottom of the lake.

Natural nourishment

Approximately two hours after leaving the Lake Mead Cruises' dock, the Velocity emerges from the Narrows and into the wide Virgin Basin. Waters ripple across the 45-mile wide basin.

The boat cruises past coves with such descriptive names as Napoleon's Tomb, Haystack Bay and the Head before stopping for lunch at Sandy Point.

The kitchen is open throughout the tour. The boat is beached to allow willing tourists to take a dip in the cool waters of the lake and play along the shore.

After a 30-minute frolic on the beach and box lunch, tourists are whisked to the edge of the Grand Canyon for the final leg of the tour.

While the beat of Indian drums plays in the headsets, the boat speeds past Hell's Kitchen and the jagged rock layers of Iceberg Canyon to God's Pocket on the edge of Grand Canyon National Park more than 50 miles from the tour's launch site.

When the water is high the shallow-hulled boat can travel slightly up the canyon via the lake. The water level is currently low because of high-usage, but tourists can glimpse the red canyon walls. The boat then turns toward home and the hourlong trip back to the Lake Mead Cruises' dock.

"We just want people to have a good time and enjoy the lake," Fair said. "But also (to) realize there is so much more to the lake than (the) water."