Grand Wash Bay, Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

The Map.

Denis picked up a couple of maps at the Trumbull School.
The maps are of the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument.
They are pretty detailed and have road numbers on all the roads.
I studied the map and highlighted a couple roads that go to the rim in different places.

The only problem with the map, is that all the roads aren’t on the map and not all the roads that have numbers on the map have numbers signs on the roads.
This makes navigation a bit tricky.

Kelly Point.

We decided to try to get to a place on the Grand Canyon’s north rim called Kelly Point. The trail to the point is the longest distance trail from Mesquite that I highlighted on the map.

Starting.

We got a little bit late start. I think the time change had a little to do with that but were finally on the road by about 10:00.
We got gas and headed southwest on W. Mesquite Blvd.

The Ride.

On Highway 170 and just past a long bridge we turned south on Road 242. The trail goes through Lime Kiln Canyon.
The road conditions vary greatly; from smooth, wide, graded roads…

To some smaller and rougher roads.

Toward the top of the canyon you get a nice view.

The road number changes when you leave the canyon to 1027.

After several more miles we came to an intersection.
Here we continue straight ahead and in a short distance we come to another intersection.
 
This is where we messed up.

The road to the right had no number on it and it looked like a secondary road so we went straight on road 101. Well, that was a big mistake we ended up making about a 30 mile loop before we got back to road 1027.
That used up a lot of time, so when we got back on the right road we found that we didn’t have time to go all the way to Kelly point.
Therefore we decided to try and get to a closer destination (Grand Wash Bay).
We headed west around 5 miles and turned southwest on 1007 which took us to 111 then to 113 and then to 1213. You can see how easy it is to get confused on these roads.
All along the way the views are wonderful.

Some red rock sticking out of the ground.

We pass a nice side canyon.

It was lunch time so we stopped alongside the road to eat.

After lunch we continued along and came to this sign.

We still have a long way to go.

The road gets a little rough in spots.

The further we go the worse the road gets.

The road becomes a wash going uphill. It is very soft, deep, sand and gravel.

We get over this obstacle and continue toward the Grand Wash.

Grand Wash Bay.

Grand Wash Bay is an arm of Lake Mead.  It looks like it has water in it when the lake is high but today it was dry.

We enter a wide valley.

As we approached the wash we can see a large dust cloud blowing across it.

At first we thought that someone was driving on the lake bed but it turned out to be just the wind blowing dust off the lake bed.
The road ended on a point where we could walk down to the dry bed.

I took these pictures of the lake and surrounding mountains.

Tassi Ranch.

After walking around here for a while, it was getting late so we started for home.
When Patti and I drove here we missed the Tassi Ranch ruins so on the way back we stopped to check it out.

This ranch was started in the 1930’s and was abandoned in 1947.
This is a hard place to make a living.

The ranch house.

This is a neat barn that appears to be made out of railroad ties.

Heading for Home.

We followed road 113 all the way to Mesquite passing through a nice red rock canyon.

With a nice view of the setting sun lighting up the rocks and  mountains.

Back on Pavement.

Eventually we got back on a paved road. We were going to stop and air up but there wasn’t a good spot so we kept going. That turned out to be a good call as the pavement that was on the road was rougher than many of the dirt roads we were on today.

Sunset.

Patti and I stopped at Peggy Sue’s Diner for supper. It was just ok. I had fried chicken and Patti had fish and chips. The breading on the chicken was so hard that I could barely bite through it so I stripped the breading of the meat and ate the meat. Patti’s fish was like Hortons fish sticks.
We got home around 6:00.

Okay that was our ride on Sunday.

Today we are going to go play on some red rock.