One Thousand Miles of Shoreline

When the westbound motorist enters Kingman on U.S. 66, he just can't help noticing a puzzling sign which announces the claim that Mohave County boasts 1,000 miles of shoreline. The sign is about 100 feet high, painted on the Santa Fe water tanks that used to supply the steam locomotives that chugged through Kingman. It's one thing to advertise, but the traveler who hasn't seen enough water to sneeze at since entering Arizona hundreds of miles to the east may be justifiably skeptical. It's all true, however, and constitutes one of the most exciting factors that go to make up this big county. It all starts in the middle of the Grand Canyon, where the Canyon is deepest and most narrow. It's the area of Toroweap Point, designated as Grand Canyon National Monument bounding the better-known Grand Canyon National Park on the west. This is wild and harsh country, the land of Lava Falls, Bridge Canyon, Quartermaster Canyon, the bat cave, the sloth cave, and Emory Falls. The lower end of this Mohave County portion of the Grand Canyon was a prime excursion area during my youth, filled with the calm waters of Lake Mead. Pierce Ferry was the primary boating and fishing camp in those days for these upper waters of Lake Mead, but it has long since been choked off by huge walls of silt deposited by the Colorado River. There's a new boat launching ramp now called South Cove, located downlake from Pierce Ferry in an area where Lake Mead is untouched by the silt problem. There are once more boaters in the Grand Canyon above Pierce Ferry, too, and this is due primarily to the drive and enthusiasm of two young men Frank Glindmeier and Paul Mullane. Frank and Paul founded a new community on the Pierce Ferry road they called Meadview, and decided the people who lived there and their visiting friends should get out and explore the surrounding scenery. Their periodic boat caravans uplake and upriver from South Cove have attracted as many as sixty boatloads of outdoors-loving folks, and have gone as far upstream as Bridge Canyon. When they aren't boating they are exploring back country trails by jeep or dunebuggy, and generally having a lot of fun.

Downlake on Lake Mead is Temple Bar, a major recreational facility boasting marina, motel, and all the other facilities required by those who camp either indoors or under the stars. Lake Mead is still the king of them all in these parts when it comes to size.

Below Hoover Dam the Colorado River runs clear and cold, just right for the rainbow trout that are raised at the Willow Beach National Fish Hatchery about ten miles below the dam. These are the upper waters of Lake Mohave, and we used to think there was a place somewhere in this beautiful lake where the fisherman would catch trout from port and bass from starboard. I am now corrected by no less an authority than Ham Pratt, manager of Lake Mohave Resort at Katherine Landing, who assured me that the fighting rainbows are now found everywhere in the lake, with some of the best trout fishing experienced right down near Davis Dam itself. The bass are still there, too, so it's the best of two worlds of fishing throughout Lake Mohave.

The western boundary of Mohave County isn't all lakes, however. There is a nice stretch of the Colorado River left below Davis Dam and extending below Needles, California to the upper reaches of Lake Havasu at the Topock Swamp area. The river waters by Bullhead City, Colorado Riviera, and other communities springing up in this strip, are famous for big rainbow trout.

Bullhead City is also renowned for its annual Santa Claus Water Lane Parade, in which gaily decorated boats float down the river or lake at night to add a distinctive touch to the holiday season.

Mohave County's 1,000 miles of shoreline concludes in Lake Havasu, where three notable sports contests are held each year in the area of Lake Havasu State Park at Lake Havasu City. The sailboat set starts it off in May with the Desert Regatta for Pacific Class Catamarans, followed in midsummer by the Lake Havasu City National Invitational Ski Championships, and winding up in a grand finale with the world's richest race for outboards the Lake Havasu City $30,000.00 Outboard-Enduro in November.

Strange goings on, these, for a desert land!