Liberty Bell Arch Hike

This hike is located along Highway 93, south of the Hoover Dam in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, about 38 minutes southeast of Las Vegas. Hiking distance is 2.5 mile to the Liberty Bell Arch and additional 0.5 mile to Black Canyon Overlook.

Liberty Bell Arch Hike Map

The trail follows the White Rock wash.

Trail sign: Liberty Arch

The trail runs down White Rock Wash

On trail, upper mine area with cable-car ore chute

Trail switchbacks

View of the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tilman Memorial Bridge.

Liberty Bell Arch

We've made it.

Continue climb to Black Canyon Overlook

Arrive Black Canyon Overlook: 1,000 feet down

Summit Register at Black Canyon Overlook

View of the Colorado River gorge

Black Canyon Overlook Summit - Elevation 1,707 feet, cumulative distance is 2.79 mile. Incredible hike. Great panoramic views the entire way.

Today's Thought - Anger

Ephesians 4:26-27, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.”

An author for “Readers Digest” writes how he studied the Amish people in preparation for an article on them. In his observation at the school yard, he noted that the children never screamed or yelled. This amazed him. He spoke to the schoolmaster. He remarked how he had not once heard an Amish child yell, and asked why the schoolmaster thought that was so. The schoolmaster replied, “Well, have you ever heard an Amish adult yell?” (Source: “Counter Attack,” Jay Carty, Multnomah Press, 1988, p. 41ff).

Anger can often get the best of us at times. Things don’t go our way, we react harshly, and tempers rage. Sometimes we justify our anger too. We feel hurt, someone didn’t treat us right, we want revenge, and we let that anger soak into our heart and consume us. While it may feel right to hold onto anger, God commands us, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.”

Oftentimes, Ephesians 4:26 is applied to married couples in resolving disputes before the day is done, but God makes no specifications for who should let go of anger. This verse applies to everyone. God simply tells us to resolve our anger and not carry it over into the next day. Everything in you wants to throw the coal (make right the wrong) but the hot coal of anger is going to hurt you more than it hurts the one who wronged you.

Ask God to reveal any hurtful feelings and seek His help in offering forgiveness to those who wrong you. Giving forgiveness rather than getting revenge is only done through God’s help.

Petroglyph Canyon Trail, Nevada

The Petroglyph Canyon Trail, follows a shallow ravine through the western section of the McCullough Range mountains to one of the most important archaeological sites in Nevada, with over 300 separate rock art panels and around 1,700 individual designs. We weren’t able to find all 1,700 designs but we did enjoy few as you can see from our photos.

The petroglyphs are etched into the weathered patina of the dark volcanic boulders which are scattered all over the mountains, and many of the designs are large, clear and easy to locate. The rock art has a great variety of designs, including anthropomorphic figures, animals, hunt scenes and geometric shapes.

The hike was relatively easy but does require climbing a couple of minor drywalls. We approached by the main canyon (trail 100) and returned the same way, about 4.1 miles, gaining 500 feet.

Today's Thought - Prayer

Mark 11:24 – “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

A tale is told about a small town that had historically been “dry,” but then a local businessman decided to build a tavern. A group of Christians from a local church were concerned and planned an all-night prayer meeting to ask God to intervene. It just so happened that shortly thereafter lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground. The owner of the bar sued the church, claiming that the prayers of the congregation were responsible, but the church hired a lawyer to argue in court that they were not responsible. The presiding judge, after his initial review of the case, stated that “no matter how this case comes out, one thing is clear. The tavern owner believes in prayer and the Christians do not.” (Source: J.K. Johnston, Why Christians Sin, Discovery House, 1992, p. 129).

Jesus is saying that when we ask for something, the kind of faith that will bring results is a settled assurance that at the time we prayed for something, God agreed to grant our specific request. This assured faith will often come when we ask God for something and then quietly wait before Him for an answer. When you pray, pray without a wishful thinking or a vague hope but trusting or depending on God that you have received it in faith already. 

Candlelight Wedding Chapel (1966, restored to 1996)

This Carpenter Gothic style chapel was once in the middle of the Las Vegas Stip. By the late 1970s, it was one of sixteen wedding chapels in Las Vegas.

On Valentines Day, Saturday February 14, 1981, the Candlelight Wedding Chapel made the Los Angeles Times and national news when it hosted 150 weddings in a single day. Nobody wanted to get married on Friday the 13th, so the next day, Saturday, February 14, was very busy.

In 1987, Saturday Valentines Day, 450 weddings were performed at the chapel, a record number of weddings at a single site over a 24 hour period. That's one wedding ceremony completed every three and one half minutes.

The Chapel's final wedding ceremony was performed in 2005. The chapel was moved to the Clark County Museum in 2007, and re-opened to the public in 2009 to become on one of the museum's most popular historic buildings.

A Ghost Town - Clark County Nevada

A Ghost Town is a town completely abandoned because the businesses that supported the town have failed and the people who lived in the town moved somewhere else.

A Ghost Town

Las Vegas Helldorado Fundraising Jail. From 1934 until 1998 the Elks Club would sell Helldorado buttons during the annual Helldorado rodeo. Someone caught without a button would be sent to this jail until they could get their friends or relatives to buy a button to bail them out.

General Store were like malls for early mining communities.

This jail, built in 1877, was not used much because serious criminals went to the big prison in Elko, 60 miles away. Tuscarora was a rich gold and silver mine town named for the USS TUSCARORA, a US Navy warship from the Civil War.

Blacksmith Shop

1880s Toll Cabin. The one-room cabin could be used by travelers who needed to stay overnight along the way. The traveler would pay the rancher a fee or "toll."

Twenty Mule Team type Wagons.

Scale House. This corrugated metal sided Scale House was used like an office for weighing and grading ore samples. This scale house was built and used during the construction of Hoover Dam.

Ingersoll Rand built this compressor in 1924.

Cranes were mounted on trucks so the crane could be easily moved from one place to another around the jobsite. Because the crane was so heavy, the truck-mounted crane was quite slow. Eventually, they became known as creepers.

1934 Chevrolet

1927 Chevrolet AA Capital 1-ton stake body truck.

Esslinger Barn (1955). Although it looks like a barn it was used more like a garage.

Boulder City Depot (1931). When Boulder City was a new community, this depot was built to provide passenger and freight service from Las Vegas to the city and Hoover Dam.

Union Pacific Caboose 25147 (1944). The most common American caboose in the most common caboose color, Armour Yellow, has a small windowed box on the roof called a cupola.

Today's Thought - God

 

Psalm 33:12 – “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD.”

One of my heroes is the sixteenth president of the United States who did tremendous things for our country, and he earned the lasting respect and loyalty of American citizens. But was he a Christian? A minister from Illinois just a few short months before Lincoln’s death asked him, “Do you love Jesus?” Lincoln responded, “When I left Springfield, I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But, when I went to Gettysburg, and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated my life to Christ. Yes, I do love Jesus.” (Source: William J. Johnson, Abraham Lincoln, The Christian, p.172).

Lincoln was a humble and forgiving person, and he exemplifies our need as a nation to humble ourselves before God. In our day, with the COVID-19 pandemic, we would do well to heed Lincoln’s words, “it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.” (Source: “Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day, March 30, 1863.” Abrahamlincolnonline.org). Today, let us humble ourselves before God, and ask Him to grant His mercy upon us.