During my time in Las Vegas, I used the time to re-visit the Hoover Dam. I was here before a couple of years ago when the new Mike O’Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge was still under construction.
I wanted to come back and see the finished bridge. I also went across the state border to get my first caches in Arizona to make my statistic map look even nicer. I followed Highway 93 to a trailhead with a virtual cache. There I did some research for more caches on the Arizona side of the Columbia River. I found one close to the Dam, which I wanted to visit anyway. After reading the description, I saw that it was a Dam challenge with 3 caches hidden around Hoover Dam. Since I had such a great experience when I did the Three Dam Tour and the FWEE Hydro Cache Challenge, I was hoping to get something similar here.
It was already around 4 pm (Pacific Time Zone) when I started the challenge. The boxes with the puzzle papers were found quickly, but unfortunately, the Visitor Center closes at 5:00 pm. Too late for me after I found the last one. I came back the next day and went straight to the visitor center. Once there you have to get through a metal detector and your stuff gets x-rayed. After that, you must normally purchase a ticket to enter the visitor center. I told the cashier that I was only here, because of this Geocache challenge. She called someone and told me to wait. Very short time later a woman came out to me with one of this cheap kid toy hard hats. That was the price for doing the challenge. Well, the puzzles were not very hard, it was a crossword, fill-in and find the words puzzles. All very easy with enough hints on the papers, that everyone can finish it.
I was expecting something extraordinary, just for geocachers. You get the same toy hard hat if you do one of their tours, which I highly recommend. The tours are awesome, the challenge is very poor and was probably stitched together in 10 minutes. Even on the page the link to in the cache description doesn’t state anything about a geocache challenge compared to the other once mentioned earlier.
For right now just log the caches, they are good for your statistics but that’s about it. Don’t even bother to get the so-called “gift”. This is for me more or less trash, because I can’t take it home with me and I don’t have any use for it. A keychain, geocoin or a patch would have been nice. That’s the stuff you get if you do the Three Dam Tour or FWEE Hydro Cache Challenge.
After all that I still added the cache to my Geocache Challenge Index, because it is an official challenge. I will contact them and tell them they should put a little more effort into this and they will get a lot of positive feedback and even more visitors just for the challenge itself.
Parking Tip
If you come by car, drive across the dam and park at one of the parking spots at the Arizona side. Parking there is free of charge compared to the parking garage located next to the visitor center at the Nevada side of the dam.
Peter has a passion for Traveling, Photography, and Geocaching. These are the best ingredients for amazing adventures all over the globe. “Traveling is fun, no matter if you stay in a luxury hotel or travel like a backpacker.” Peter shares his experiences on his Blog www.gatetoadventures.com
Some of Peter’s photos are published on corporate websites, in-flight magazines, travel guides, and much more.
