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This page last updated on 01/16/2020
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| (Fig. 01) Picture by Robert Croke |
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| (Fig. 02) |
Directions: From Las Vegas, drive south on Highway 95/93 towards Boulder City. Past Railroad Pass turn right onto Highway 95 towards Searchlight and drive south for about 10 miles to Nelson Road (Highway 165). Turn left onto Nelson Road and drive east for about 9.5 miles to the trailhead turnoff. At the trailhead turnoff, either park off the pavement or drive up the fairly rough road for 0.17 miles to the end of the road. There is a circle cleared, park here; this is the trailhead. Sorry, I had problems with my camera. I took pictures of the area, but they didn't get captured.
Description of the Natural Bridge and Hike: The natural bridge (Fig. 01) and spring trail makes for a great winter hike. Natural bridges are rarer than arches. What’s the difference between a natural bridge and a natural arch? Arches are formed by various geological processes, weathering processes but not flowing water. Over time, persistent winds and freeze-thaw action have slowly eroded openings through vertical sandstone blocks. All natural bridges are all formed by flowing water and either spanned a waterway or did so in their past, and hence are a less common feature than an arch.
The hike is a good, but due to the couple of up and down of ridges and the fact that the return is uphill all the way make it a moderately strenuous hike. It is about 2 miles round-trip and requires some rock scrambling, especially at the end near the bridge. The hike is marked by "RED" on the map in Fig. 02. At an elevation of 3,510 feet, it loses about 200 feet in elevation on the way down the wash to the bridge.
01/14/2020 Hike Notes: After leaving the pavement, drive up the fairly rough road for 0.17 miles to where the road ends at a cleared circle. Park here, this is the trailhead. Hike up the first small ridge directly in front of you. From the top of here, head toward the ridgeline on a faint but obvious trail. The trail gently undulates for the first quarter mile. Eventually you drop into a well-defined wash, which will serve as the trail for the rest of the hike. After you drop into the wash, you will go left or downstream. Hiking the the majority of the wash is relatively easy. The further downhill you hike, the more you begin to encounter larger rocks and vegetation closer to the spring (Figs.08& 09). After about one-half mile, you will come to a giant boulder that is about 25 feet tall and 15 feet wide (Fig.10). It seems very out of place and seems to defy gravity and looks like, if you pushed on it, the boulder might fall. In (Fig. 11) Jim and Ron are trying to prevent if from falling.
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| (Fig. 08) |
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| (Fig. 09) |
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| (Fig. 10) |
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| (Fig. 11) |
Notes Continued: Just after the big rock you begin to see signs of water and some more thick vegetation such as healthy and large scrub oak. The wash gets rockier and the vegetation becomes quite dense as you approach the bridge. Directly before the bridge, you either have to crawl through the heavy brush and drop down about six feet off of some large boulders or slide down between two large boulders that required a drop of again six to seven feet. Neither Ron nor I attempted either of these. Getting down we could have done, but were quite nervous about how to get back up. In the center of (Fig. 12) is the only glimpse I got of the bridge (Its left side). Both Bob and Jim made it and got to the bridge and took some great pictures (Figs. 13 thru 17). Pictures 13 thru 17 were taken by Jim Herring. The bridge that spans over the wash/canyon is about 30 feet across and the opening about 15 to 20 feet high. The last three pictures show ice that we encountered on some boulders and shots of the trail. After we backtracked out of the spring, we drove down highway 165 past the Techatticup Mine site to the Eldorado Wilderness Road to have lunch. This road showed us nothing. We drove about seven miles until we began to see the water of the Lake Mead river (Fig. 21). Because the road ended in just another three miles and we decided to turnaround and return to highway 165. Refer to the yellow shaded road on the map in (Fig. 02)
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| (Fig. 12) |
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| (Fig. 13) |
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| (Fig. 14) |
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| (Fig. 15) |
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| (Fig. 16) |
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| (Fig. 17) |
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| (Fig. 18) |
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| (Fig. 19) |
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| (Fig. 20) |
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| (Fig. 21) Pictures taken along the Eldorado Wilderness Road |
