I was later told it looked like I was doing some sort of bizarre, avant-garde dance: Whipping and whirling and hands flapping wildly as my legs bent at completely unnatural angles, scrobbling and pedaling cartoonlike for purchase on the water-slicked rocks. We were hiking up Boy Scout Canyon — just one stop on our daylong kayaking trip down Black Canyon — and I’d clearly met my nemesis in the form of this rocky keyhole waterfall. Between the babbling water and the slimy coating of moss, negotiating the tight pass was already a slippery proposition. Add in my natural clumsiness that makes me an unwitting slapstick act most of the time, and we had on our hands a recipe for OW MY FACE.
Then, a miracle. Somehow, my hooves found safe ground — I seem to recall my knees locking like parking brakes at the first faint intimation of solidity — and I was spared the dubious souvenir of a skull tattoo courtesy of mondo faceplant. That didn’t prevent the later jabs and jokes from tripmates about my dork ballet debut, but better that than the alternative — sucking chicken broth through the mouth slot of a head cast. In short, this little backways tour of just one facet of Lake Mead took me unawares — and I lost my footing.
The stumble is a facile metaphor, but apt: Lake Mead surprised me. To be frank, I’ve always thought of Lake Mead National Recreation Area as an outsized blue-collar kiddie pool, a place for ruffian staycations enjoyed by people who wear Daisy Duke cutoff jeans without a whiff of irony. That’s more or less how I used to partake of the lake in my youth (minus, I should say, the Daisy Dukes): We’d trundle out there in a friend’s van, veer off a side road, build a roaring pallet bonfire and ingest inadvisable volumes of Funyuns, Schaefer beer and other substances while blaring very important and awful punk rock tapes. We kept the lake at a moral distance — and not arbitrarily. In our mind, Lake Mead’s artificiality inspired an amused contempt for it. Besides, how seriously could you take a lake whose most notorious feature was carp as big as Yugos? Any body of water that hosted such brutes surely hid other mutant horrors in its turgid waters — say, tentacled dominatrix mermaids with machine guns and flesh-eating pro wrestlers.
Well, I’ve never enjoyed being proven wrong so much. At the urging of the National Parks Conservation Association’s Lynn Davis — an undying fan of and tireless advocate for Nevada’s natural gems — Art Director Chris Smith and I spent three separate days exploring the lake we thought we knew, from its lazy, lolling river solitudes to its sun-dappled open water, from its historic secrets to its wild and severe outlands. We chronicled our adventure on page 46 — and that’s where yours begins in our annual travel issue. Of course, if you’re looking for escapes further off the horizon, we’ve got those too — whether it’s one-tank trips in our big Southwest backyard ( p. 63) or splashier excursions around the continent ( p. 57). In short, whatever your taste for a trip this summer, we’re sure to have only pleasant surprises in store. In all cases, buckle your seatbelt or strap on your life jacket. But most importantly: Don’t forget your capacity for wonder.
***
Corrections
Artist Brent Sommerhauser was an assistant gaffer in the creation of the Domsky Glass sculpture for The Cosmopolitan’s Book & Stage venue. Artist Larry Domsky conceived, designed and fabricated the piece.
The location for April’s “ British Invasion” fashion spread was the theater for The Beatles LOVE by Cirque du Soleil at The Mirage.