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 The National Park Service (NPS) administers the Lake Mead National Recreation Area (NRA), which includes both Lake Mead and Lake Mohave. The range of available recreational activities, its 1.5 million acres, and nearly 1,000 miles of shoreline, warm water, scenic setting, and high water quality as well as the diversity of natural and cultural resources make Lake Mead NRA the premier inland water recreation in the country. Visit the Lake Mead National Recreation Area website.
Facts:
While the lakes dominate much of the area, less than 13 percent of the 1.5 million acres is water.
The recreation area receives almost 10 million visitors each year, making it the third most visited of the 385 units in the National Park System.
Lake Mead NRA is a "wilderness park" in an urban setting. Although some parts of the recreation area are very accessible and intensively used, the park contains some of the wildest and most rugged landscapes in America.
Three of the four North American deserts converge within the recreation area, making for unique assemblages of vegetative communities.
The recreation area's unique geology, spanning more than 1.8 billion years, marks it as one of the top half dozen geologic sites in North America.
The recreation area's bighorn sheep population, number close to 2,000, is globally significant, having been used as a gene pool for repopulating other areas in the Southwest, where populations are in jeopardy or have been extirpated over time.
And lastly, Hoover Dam, which backs-up Lake Mead, is the pre-eminent dam in Western history and is designated a "national engineering landmark" as well as being listed as an engineering wonder of the world. |
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