Liberty Arch Bell 05.19.2010

South of Hoover Dam, there is a nice good distance hiking trail. Liberty Arch Bell. This is almost like monument. Nature force curved the dirtrock and created the shape of Liberty Bell. The trail is well distinguished and following is quite easy. The path is in the middle of flat dry land, all vegetated area with lots of short shrubs everywhere. No shade. Wrong idea to do this hike during the hottest summer. We did it in May and it was already too hot that I got a little dehydrated on the way back.

Total hiking distance is about 3 miles one way. As we moved on, we passed some kind of a carrier that was used from mining time. According to www.birdandhike.com (the site i love), it was used for magnesium mining from World War II era. Interesting! It was as if I time-traveled back to the era :-)

Moving on! Passing nothing but air and desert scenery, we find the Arch from far away!

Can you see? The finger is pointing at it. So there we go! The use-trail is getting thinner and narrower but it's clear enough to follow. Soon we were right below the arch. It is actually really big! 

Group Picture

We took couple of pictures here. Wanted to rest a little but there were no shade to rest and have lunch under. Just flat desert under the full sun. The Liberty Arch Bell is the first of two highlights of this whole hike. This Arch is located two mountain ridges away from Colorado River. After passing the Arch, the hike started to get up-hill. By following the trail up one ridge, go down and up another again, suddenly we were at the overlook of Black Canyon Colorado River! Where we stood was the ridge of 1000 ft drop off.

Black Canyon Colorado River

Woo! Scary!!!

I love his profile :-p

To me, this overlook of the canyon was the #1 highlight of the whole hike. We stayed up here for a while for lunch. I also snacked a little too much junk foods that I was not feeling well on the way back. Not so smart of me to hike in a hot weather with full stomach. Since we didn't expect the day to turn out this hot, we weren't portion-controlling our water! By the time we got back to the car, Oh my god, we were SPENT!  However, it was GREAT HIKE!  We will do it again in a heart beat, but next time, definitely before May :)