08/22/2026
We Went to Vegas and the Best Thing We Saw Was a Herd of Sheep
In Fenton, we get deer in the yard. In Boulder City, Nevada, they get bighorn sheep in the park.
The bike people told us to stop at Hemenway Valley Park. It is about a block off the trail. We went because they said to, not because we expected anything.
We pulled in on an April morning and Rob saw them first. They were right. They are here. On the grass between the picnic tables and the tennis courts, curled horns and all.
Rob walked down to get a picture. I stayed by the bikes. I told him if he got rammed I was going to laugh.
He did not get rammed.
They were not bothered by us even a little. They have done this before. And once you have driven around out there you understand the appeal, because there is nothing green anywhere else. The park has grass and it has sprinklers. That is the whole reason they walk down.
They are the River Mountains Herd, and they come down out of the hills most mornings to graze and water. They are not there every day, and we did not know that yet. Boulder City has put up a RamCam so you can check before you drive over.
It is a real city park. Playground, softball fields, tennis courts, wild sheep.
🚲 THE TRAIL WE ACTUALLY CAME FOR
The reason we were in Boulder City at all is the riding.
The loop is about 35 miles around the River Mountains, and apart from one flat stretch on the old railroad bed, it climbs. Several of those climbs are no joke.
This is where I stopped apologizing for riding an e-bike. Out there it is not a shortcut. It is the difference between seeing the whole loop and seeing the first four miles of it.
We stopped at the top of a few hills. That is where you get it. Lake Mead sitting out there blue in the middle of all that brown, mountains stacked up behind it, and no shade anywhere in any direction.
You ride past houses set into the mountain with views I could not stop looking at. Nothing like the houses in Vegas. A different feel entirely. Palm trees and green yards, and then bare rock the second the property line ends. The only green out there is where somebody is paying to water it.
Boulder City feels like the moon to me. No shade. Still picturesque.
The wind is the other thing nobody warned me about. We rode early every day to get ahead of it, and even then I could feel it pushing on me. Nothing out there breaks the sun and nothing breaks the wind. A headwind on a climb is a different kind of tired than a climb on its own.
The trail is also completely separated from the highway, so there is no traffic to think about the entire way. After a few years of riding Michigan rail trails that cross a road every mile or so, that took some getting used to.
🚂 FIVE TUNNELS AND A VERY LARGE DAM
In 1931 the federal government partnered with Six Companies, Inc. to build nearly thirty miles of railroad connecting Hoover Dam and Boulder City to the cement plants and quarry pits that fed the construction. Trains ran around the clock until the dam was finished in 1935. To get the equipment through the mountainside, they blasted tunnels.
Five of them are still there, and you ride straight through them.
The tunnels we have ridden before were the kind you need a headlight for. You go in and you cannot see the end. These are three hundred feet and the daylight is waiting for you the whole way. Gravel underneath, washboarded, and I bounced through every one of them.
The lake is out there the entire time.
It is the only piece of the Hoover Dam railroad system you can still get to. There are 22 interpretive panels along the way if you like to stop and read, and we did.
It ends at the dam. You come around the last bend and there it is.
Here is the thing I did not know going in, and it turned out to be the best decision of the trip. You can ride all the way down to the dam. We parked the bikes, took an elevator, and walked out onto it. No circling for a parking spot, no shuttle, and we came in past most of the crowd instead of through it. People were still hunting for spaces while we were already standing on the thing.
Then we hiked stairs. A lot of stairs. Rob needed to see the dam from every possible angle, and I have the leg soreness to prove it.
🛶 THE WATER PART
We also kayaked to Emerald Cave, which people also call Emerald Cove, and it is worth the early alarm.
The cave sits about 2.2 miles upstream of Willow Beach Marina on the Arizona side, which is the only public launch. It is roughly 45 minutes to an hour of paddling at an easy pace, then the same back downstream. The canyon walls run up to 600 feet over your head, and the water stays around 55 degrees year round because it comes out from under Hoover Dam.
That river is the only water for miles and it has cliffs on both sides of it. In Michigan a river that size would be loud with wildlife. The only thing we saw the whole paddle was rams. Two, probably. Up on the rock where the green quits.
The green in the cave is real. It is not a filter. The rock above the water is brown. The water is green. You can see the bottom through it.
It is a dead end, and it holds about five boats. Everybody has to turn around in there before anybody behind them gets in. I have never sat in a traffic jam in a kayak before.
🎰 AND THEN VEGAS
We stayed at the Palazzo, and our window looked right at the Sphere. It changed all night. I would have been perfectly happy to leave it there and watch it from the room.
Rob had to see the inside. He wanted to know how it worked.
We sat in the 200 level. I am scared of heights and the angle up top looked like too much.
I told him the show was the Wizard of Oz. He said ok. He is not a musical movie person, and the tickets were not cheap. The movie started, the singing started, and he leaned over and asked me how long it was. I told him it was as long as the tickets cost.
It runs 75 minutes, for the record.
We were less impressed than we expected to be. We lived in Florida for twenty years, and Orlando has spoiled us on special effects. It is enormous and it is worth seeing once, but I had built it up higher than that in my head.
What I did love was the Palazzo and everything around it. Shops, restaurants, something open no matter what hour you wander out. You could fill a night without trying. We did not, because we were leaving at seven in the morning most days, which makes us the most boring people on that block.
Sheep in a park at seven in the morning, and that at night. Boulder City is 26 miles from the Strip and it may as well be a different state.
📌 SAVE THIS PART
🚲 THE BIKES. We rented from Loop Trail Rentals. I found them because their daughter recommended them in a TikTok comment section, which is the most 2026 sentence I have ever written, and it turned out to be the best call of the trip. When we went they were mobile, a couple who brought the bikes out and met us right at the trailhead at seven in the morning. Partway through the ride they drove out and swapped our batteries. We probably did not need it. They did it anyway.
Here is the part you need if you are booking now. Starting in September they are no longer mobile. They have a spot in the new Boulder City Adventure Center at 101 Nevada Way, Suite 101, in Boulder City, a building with several outfitters in it. You check in and sign your waiver in the office, then they walk you out to the trailer and set you up with a bike, a helmet and instructions. Maps and locks come with it and the bikes have insulated cooler bags for your water and snacks. It is $119 plus tax for three hours.
Two things that new location does for you. It is directly across the highway from Hemenway Park, with a tunnel under the road that puts you straight onto the loop trail, so the sheep and the trail are the same stop. And it sits about five miles from the Historic Railroad Trail, which makes the tunnels and the dam roughly a 17 mile round trip instead of the 27 we rode.
Book ahead at looptrailrentals.com. We would rent from them again in a heartbeat.
🅿️ SKIP THE DAM PARKING. Ride down instead. Park the bikes, take the elevator, and you walk in past the worst of the crowd without ever looking for a space. This was the single best thing we did.
👟 WEAR REAL SHOES. There are more stairs at the dam than you are picturing.
🔦 NO LIGHTS NEEDED. The railroad tunnels are short and open at both ends. If you have ridden the Taft and packed lights for it, you can leave them home.
🛤️ THE TRAIL. The River Mountains Loop Trail is paved, 12 feet wide, and about 35 miles for the full loop. The Historic Railroad Trail is the flat gravel piece with the tunnels, 3.7 miles each way, and it shares a trailhead with the loop at the Lake Mead visitor center on Lakeshore Road.
🌅 RIDE EARLY. Not just for the heat. The wind picks up as the day goes, and there is nothing out there to block it. We were on the bikes by seven most mornings and it was the right call every time.
🗓️ WHEN TO GO. This is the important one. The National Park Service does not recommend the railroad trail in summer, with temperatures running 100 to 115 degrees and no shade for the first mile and a half. We went in April and it was perfect. Fall through spring is your window. If you are looking at July, look at a different trip. Loop Trail Rentals close for June, July and August and reopen early to mid September, whenever the heat lets up, which tells you everything about how serious the summer is out there.
🐏 THE SHEEP. Hemenway Valley Park in Boulder City, about a block off the trail, mornings. Check the RamCam before you go, because they are not there every day. Leave the dog in the room. Dogs are not allowed in the park because of the herd.
🛶 THE KAYAK. Willow Beach Marina, about an hour from the Strip. Book ahead and go early.
🔮 THE SPHERE. We sat in the 200 level. If heights bother you, the upper sections are steep.
