Lake Mead: Waldenesque no more?

By Mike Trask

Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008 | 2 a.m.

At the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, after you pay the five-buck entrance fee and drive down Lakeshore Drive with its panoramic views of the man-made masterpiece, the cell phone coverage gets spotty.

The little bars drop like the lake level, only to pop back up as you enter Boulder Beach.

Three cell towers are hidden in the mountains. But the signals disappear in the valleys.

How refreshing to be 30 miles from the rat race of Las Vegas and the boss can’t call.

“It’s nice,” said one tourist from Arizona as he and his wife sat on the beach. “I don’t really want to talk to anyone right now.”

Other visitors have a different view. They are bothered by the idea of being off the grid, even in remote areas where they go to escape from the bustle. So the federal recreation area is considering adding as many as seven cell phone towers across its 1.5 million acres.

The feds are sensitive to concerns that the towers, which could reach 125 feet in height, would be unsightly. They would be placed only in developed areas, where other, albeit smaller structures, already exist. In short, they would go in the places most of the 8 million yearly visitors go. The structures could also be painted some shade of beige to blend in with the desert.

Officials stress nothing is certain and the towers would be added only if cell phone companies make formal proposals. But if they do, the towers could go up and people like the Arizona couple will find that Lake Mead is one more place in the world that is always connected.

Mike Boyles, an environmental compliance officer for the recreation area, admits that finding a place to slip off the communications grid is getting harder.

“If you’re looking for that wilderness, get away from technology experience, then yeah,” says Mike Boyles, an environmental compliance officer. “But a lot of people want to be connected.”

One reason is safety. It’s not uncommon for hikers to get lost, bikers to run out of water or boaters to run out of fuel. Park rangers use shortwave radios, as do most boaters. Many of the hard-core hikers say they carry satellite transmitters.

Outdoors enthusiasts who use the park acknowledge that expanded service could make for safer outings in the desert. They could easily call for help or just let people know they are safe.

“I know no one wants to listen to some idiot screaming on his phone in the middle of a hike,” says Leon Dekelbaum, the organizer of a local hiking with dogs group. “But people should be able to call for help if needed.”

There is another point of view.

In the words of John Hiatt, a local environmentalist: “For most of human existence, humans had to be self-reliant. With modern electronics it’s easy to always communicate. How much is really needed?”

Or to quote Edward Abbey: “A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”

We can carry a cell phone lifeline into a wild area and have a perfectly wonderful outdoor experience, yes. It just won’t be in the wild.

Maybe we will be missing something when we can always be heard.