KAYAKING TO EMERALD CAVE

If you're into the outdoors like we are then the Las Vegas area may be for you! Traveling beyond the lights and excitement of Las Vegas, you will find that the surrounding area offers an abundance of recreational activities besides gambling. One of those activities is kayaking on the Colorado River. Evolution Expeditions offers a variety of kayaking trips including Emerald Cave, Black Canyon, Hot Springs, Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. On our recent trip to the area, we chose the Emerald Cave Trip and were not disappointed.

No need to have a car for this trip! Evolution Expeditions will pick you up and return you to your hotel, which is great because if you have a great day of paddling you will end up taking a nap on the way back to your hotel. The cost of the trip includes all of the required gear as well as bottled water, juice and snacks. 

Our day of paddling began at Black Canyon Willow Beach, which is a 45 minute drive from Vegas and part of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. After a quick paddling and safety lesson, and getting geared up in life jackets, you jump into your kayak and head up river for two miles. [Note: there are single and tandem kayaks available] This section of the Colorado River is fed from the bottom of Hoover Dam and is 50 degrees fahrenheit. Falling in will take your breath away, so don't do it! :)

Black Canyon is on the state line of Arizona and Nevada. Arizona is on the west side of the canyon and Nevada is on the east side. Where the canyon narrows you will have the opportunity to touch the canyon wall in Arizona, paddle across and touch the wall in Nevada. After this trip, you will be able to brag to all of your friends that you kayaked from Arizona to Nevada. No one needs to know that the paddle across was about the length of a city block. #YourSecretIsSafeWithUs

Just before reaching Emerald Cave we stopped at a beach for a snack and to learn about the historic sites we would be passing. 

History Lesson Alert! The stretch of Black Canyon that we paddled was a potential site for Hoover Dam. To determine if the site was feasible for an arch-gravity dam, an engineer - let's call him Bob - was assigned to the area to record flow rates and water levels. As part of Bob's daily routine, he would leave his residence along the river and pull himself past a side canyon using a cable tramway. #BobLovedCardio

Bob would then walk across a catwalk along the canyon wall to a second cable tramway, where he would once again have to pull himself across the river to the gauging station. At the end of the day, Bob would retrace his route back to his house and do it all over the next day. #GroundhogDay

Because of Bob's wealth of research it was determined this spot would not be an ideal place to build a dam. So Hoover Dam, originally called Boulder Dam, was built up river from this location providing irrigation and hydroelectric power to Arizona, Southern Nevada and Southern California. When you head back to Vegas, you'll see all of this clean, renewable energy being put to work! 

Emerald Cave, your final destination, is a small cave where we backed our kayaks in to enjoy the view and hear more history. When the sun shines at the right angle it reflects off the water and turns the cave emerald green, hence the name. It was overcast the day we made the trip but, as you can see in this photo, the water was still a beautiful emerald green. 

Click on the video to see trip highlights.

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