Amid the woozy desert haze springs an incongruous streak of blue. Lake Mead is the most mirage-like thing I’ve ever seen that turns out to be real.
Along the dusty gravel approach road, the horizon wobbles. The relentless desert heat has roasted reality into a flitting, shimmering semi-blur. Several weeks of 40 degree-plus temperatures have cooked the landscape so thoroughly, it appears heat is rising vapour-like from the ground.Amid the woozy haze, however, is an incongruous streak of blue. Lake Mead is the most mirage-like thing I’ve ever seen that turns out to be real.
Heading towards Fortification Hill, a dark volcanic plateau rising more than 1000 metres above the water line, the lonely paddlewheeler has only a few hardy ducks for company. But there is more wildlife in this swathe of eerie starkness than meets the eye. Desert tortoises burrow in the ground to escape the midday heat. Jackrabbits stay cool by circulating blood through their massive ears. Coyotes and bighorn rams occasionally make appearances on the steep hillsides.
This is where two enormous fault lines meet, sending the Colorado River sharply turning to the south. And it doesn’t take too long for the monster that gave birth to Lake Mead to come into view.Completed in 1936, Hoover Dam was the biggest dam in the world at the time. The mighty barrier caused the Colorado River to flood across the desert, sending valleys deep underwater and condemning small settlements to a watery grave.
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