With a short stopover in Boulder City, NV, I took the chance to ride the Railroad Grade out to Hoover Dam and back again. We’ve done this ride a couple times before and the awe and grandeur of the dam never wains. I added on and made it a 15.5 mile ride but it could be shortened to just ride to the dam and back on this trail.
This is an easy ride that goes through five tunnels along the historic railroad bed previously used to haul materials for the construction of Hoover Dam. In 1931 the federal government partnered with Six Companies, Inc., a consortium of six major western construction firms, to build nearly 30-miles of railroad connecting the Hoover Dam and Boulder City with cement mixing plants, quarry pits, a gravel sorting plant, and other resources in Las Vegas needed to build the dam. The railroad tracks were dismantled in 1962. This trail was established in 1992, and connection to the Hoover Dam became open to the public in 2007.
I continued on past the trail and rode my bike across Hoover Dam to get some different view points. Imagine a four-foot-wide sidewalk wrapped completely around the Earth at the equator. That’s how much concrete it took to build the Hoover Dam. It’s amazing when you think about it. The dam is 726 feet tall and 1,244 feet long. That’s almost a quarter of a mile!
Please stop and visit the dam if you’re ever in the area. It is impressive.
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