More and more tourists flooding to Lake Mead

Editor's note: This is the second of a four-part series examining public access to federally managed lands in Clark County. Part three will appear on Dec. 11.

Under a clear November sky, National Park Ranger Ellen Anderson asked a group of Las Vegas fourth graders for some wise words to hike by before they hit the trail at Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

Their answers came fast like bullets from a Gatling gun.

"Leave the animals alone."

"Don't litter."

"Don't touch the cactus."

"Don't stick your hand in holes."

Yipes! Definitely don't do that.

And remember to leave the rocks where they are, Anderson said.

"Even the rocks are protected here," the ranger said. "We have 10 million visitors a year. If everybody were to take one, there wouldn't be any rocks. It would be a real wasteland."

After laying out the ground rules, Anderson led 30 Rowe Elementary School pupils along the park's historic railroad trail for a lesson in how supplies were shipped to crews building the Hoover Dam.

The class was among the lucky ones in Clark County this year. The number of requests for field trips and classroom presentations has grown so quickly that Lake Mead rangers developed a lottery system for choosing participating schools this year. It's the first time all requests couldn't be honored.

"When we started eight years ago the demand wasn't that big. Now we have such a demand," said Anderson, who is in charge of Lake Mead's environmental education program. "It was a phone jam. Teachers would just call and call."

It's a popular place. Used to be most of the 10 million annual visitors were from outside the Las Vegas area, Park Superintendent Alan O'Neill said.

But not anymore.

"As Las Vegas grows at least 50 percent are from the local community," he said. "It's one of the top four most-visited areas in the national park system. We get more visitors than the Grand Canyon, Yosemite or Yellowstone."

They come with boats, tents, campers, mountain bikes and hiking boots.

They explore the 200,000 acres of surface water on Lake Mead and on Lake Mohave, Mead's smaller counterpart to the south. They romp on the roads and trails that traverse 1.3 million acres of land.

They leave evidence of their travels everywhere.

Litter is an ongoing problem. Pit toilets that are clean on Thursday are disasters come Monday morning. Off-road vehicle enthusiasts scar the desert with unauthorized trails. And an endless succession of boats and personal water craft create their own brand of traffic congestion.

Lake Mead officials confront many of the same challenges found at the three other federally managed recreation areas outside Las Vegas. So National Park Service managers have been working with the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to solve crowd-related problems they all share.

Earlier this year a group of Southern Nevada residents and politicians began work on creation of a private foundation that will help raise money and rally volunteers for improvements to all four areas.

But Lake Mead officials also are looking to their visitors for help. Next spring they will impose fees for the first time.

Entrance will be $3 a person or $5 a vehicle for a five-day pass. Visitors also will be able to buy an annual pass for $20. Boaters are to be charged $10 for a five-day pass and $5 for each additional motorized boat or personal water craft they bring along. Annual boat passes will cost $20 for the first boat and $10 for each additional one.

There will be no charge for nonmotorized boats such as canoes and kayaks.

Park officials say the fees could raise an extra $4 million to support the $1 billion in facilities and staff maintained at Lake Mead.

The money will help pay operation and maintenance costs for the park's nine water treatment facilities, law enforcement officers, search and rescue officials, firefighters, 240 miles of paved roads and 800 miles of dirt roads in addition to maintaining the area's 950 miles of shoreline.

"Within our boundaries we operate like a city. We provide all utilities, law enforcement, emergency medical response, search and rescue and roads," O'Neill said. James Blackwell, who sells and rents personal water craft through Action Water Sports in Las Vegas, said $10 for a week or $20 for a year is pretty cheap.

Other public lakes in the West charge user fees, and Lake Mead boaters and visitors have been playing for free too long, Blackwell said.

"I think it's a pretty good deal. It will allow (the park) to do some work on the facilities," he said. "They need better policing out at the lake."

Blackwell recalled an incident this past summer in which his brother and sister-in-law were harassed by a group of teenagers while camping at Government Wash near Las Vegas Bay.

"It was a gang of kids. They were throwing rocks at the camper-trailer," Blackwell said.

In addition to raising money for better security, opening fee stations helps keep mischief-makers at bay, O'Neill said.

"About 3 percent of our visitors cause about 90 percent of our problems," O'Neill said. "By locating these as you enter the park you've got a chance to create a different feel. People with trouble on their minds generally don't go through an entrance station."

Four of the park's nine entrances will have fee stations next year, and the others will be added in 2001. O'Neill said he expects locals will continue to make up an increasing number of the visitors. Right now, Lake Mead's average local visitor shows up 11 times a season.

Rowe Elementary teacher Alan Fox said if it weren't for Lake Mead's field trip program many Las Vegas schoolchildren wouldn't get to go even once.

"A lot of these children do not get the opportunity to do this type of trip. It's just not part of their family routine," Fox said as he hiked along the railroad trail behind his fourth grade class. "It allows them to see a totally different experience than they see in their own neighborhoods."

Anderson stopped the group and stood in the middle of the wide trail that once held rails for the supply train that helped Hoover Dam builders tame the Colorado River.

She asked Fox's students to close their eyes and imagine how it would have been for families whose lives depended on the project.

She brought their Nevada history lesson to life by encouraging them to think about how decisions made more than 60 years ago affected how fourth graders live today.

"Imagine a huge dam almost as tall as the Stratosphere," Anderson said.

"That's the Hoover Dam," one child whispered.

"Shhh," a classmate replied.

"Imagine kids your age living down by that river. The things we really enjoy today ... kids your age in 1931 hadn't even thought of," Anderson said. "Without this trail, not a single one of us would have been here today in Southern Nevada.

"Instead of just reading about it, you can see it. You're sitting in the middle of a very historic road for all of Nevada," she said. "Imagine that river."

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