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Kayak the Colorado River, USA

Kayaking the Colorado River with Desert Adventures USA offers a front-row seat to the raw beauty of the American Southwest. Gliding through calm stretches of water framed by towering canyon walls, this guided experience combines adventure with accessibility, making it ideal for both first-time paddlers and experienced kayakers.

With expert guides, quality equipment, and routes designed to showcase dramatic desert scenery, Desert Adventures USA turns the Colorado River into an unforgettable journey, peaceful, scenic, and deeply connected to the landscape that defines this iconic region.

If there is one thing you must do when in LasVegas it’s go on a trip with these guys! We chose to go on a half day trip because despite being busy as HECK all week long with our day jobs, they’re really ‘at our desk, to our car, to our client’s desk, to our car, to back to the office’ jobs which is not a lot of physical exercise overall. We have taken a #canoe trip before & that was a lot of fun so we signed up for this one.

DEPARTING FROM WILLOW BEACH, USA

Our tourguide was Dani Larget and she was awesome! From the first minute we met her she was energetic, informative & full of life. It was only my husband & I plus Dani so we got all her attention & could ask ask much as we wanted about the local #history & where we were going. Don’t let her slight build fool you, this girl can load up a van full of supplies, emergency gear & 2 #kayaks in the blink of an eye! We took off through the Lake Mead National Recreation Area where we learned a ton of the history of the area including Boulder City. This community was built in 1931 to house the workers building the Hoover Dam. It’s still a quaint town that looks a bit old fashioned & would be fun to check out if you have time, but since the Colorado River awaited us, we sped on through.

We arrived at Willow Beach where we would launch our kayaks & where the view was stunning! It couldn’t have been a more perfect day, for the sun was up, there was a really nice breeze & the water wasn’t too fast. Dani took us through a few safety rules & we loaded lunches, water, first aid gear & ourselves onto the kayaks and set off. BlackCanyon is really beautiful – very craggy, very sheer & you can see where the water has left its imprint over the years – showing how the water level has dropped quite drastically.

There is a fascinating little “tram” that the gauger would take to pull himself across the river when he would go to work monitoring the levels of the Colorado River to aid the building of the Hoover Dam. There is a small building perched precariously on the side of the canyon where he would go to do this & an even more precarious catwalk he took along the canyon wall. We hiked to the spot where his home once stood along the river, you can still see the foundation, and imagine him sitting at the end of a long day enjoying his peaceful, beautiful view.

WHAT A SURPRISE – EMERALD COVE

There is a really cool little cave called Emerald Cove that you can go into. You back up into the cave so that you’re looking out and the water there is green yet crystal clear. There was a little beach spot where we stopped for lunch (which was SO GOOD) & were joined by a drake & mallard duck. It was so beautiful there & even though the water is quite cold, it felt good to dip our feet & hands in after the heat of the sun. We refilled our water bottles, doubled up on the sunscreen & started off again back to Willow Beach.

We did see some other animals, such as turkey vultures, a few cute, spike haired ducks, a mama Bighorn sheep & her little one wayyyyy up in the canyon but luckily NOT the swimming rattlesnake nor the scorpions that Dani mentioned to us are native to the area. On our way back to the office to leave our gear, before returning to our hotel, we make a quick stop at Hemenway Park where there are a herd of Bighorn sheep were in the field of a recreation park… yes, right next to the picnic tables & slide! It was pretty neat to see them so up close & fairly tame but we still gave them plenty of space as there were at least three males & we didn’t want them to feel threatened at all.

All in all, we couldn’t have asked for a better trip. When we travel, we always want to learn the history of the area, we want to see the landscape, the architecture… we definitely learned a lot about the many trips & trails we could take if we wanted to go back and learning more of the history of the builders of the Hoover Dam was neat since we were fascinated by our tour at the Dam a few years ago.

I would give this tour 5 tickets out of five for sure. Dani, of Desert Adventures was knowledgeable, safety conscious & fun. The trip was well worth the money & we would go again. See, it must have been good because we bought T shirts & have already talked about what type of kayak we now need to get for ourselves!

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With every trip, we offer feedback to travel companies along with honest views for you, the reader. We rate adventures on a scale of one to five tickets, judged on quality, service, memorability, and price. A perfect ‘Ticket Rating’ of a five-ticket score means the experience was flawless and we’d eagerly return. Your desire to go back is the ultimate measure of a trip’s worth. Exclusive to My Return Ticket.

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