Sight · Lake Mead National Recreation Area
See quartz veins inside a 19th-century gold and silver mine.
Overview
Map
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Lake Mead Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Lake Mead National Recreation Area. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Lake Mead audio tourRecorded for this area
A Cactus That Travels in Pieces“A fallen joint of teddy-bear cholla can become a whole new cactus. Its branches grow in short, spiny sections that detach easily.”
Plays on the road 1.3 mi from Techatticup Mine in the Parkwolf Lake Mead Tour Guide.
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“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
Techatticup Mine is a privately operated hard-rock mine tour in Eldorado Canyon, near Nelson. Its draw is a guided underground walk through the old workings and an outdoor collection of vintage vehicles, mining gear and movie props. It fits a Lake Mead and Lake Mohave drive, but it is a private attraction rather than an NPS-run site. Come for mining history and an unusual photo stop; expect an eclectic yard, not a preserved ghost town.
Reserve ahead and check in at the general store. The route is about a quarter-mile over level gravel and takes around an hour and 20 minutes. Underground, you can see quartz veins where the gold and silver ran. It is cool and breezy below ground, a noticeable contrast with the desert outside.
Techatticup operated from 1861 to 1942. For roughly its first 40 years, steamboats on the Colorado River were the main way into Eldorado Canyon. The workings follow quartz veins that carried gold and silver; copper and lead were also produced in the district. Disputes over mine ownership, management and labor made the 1880s a rough chapter in the canyon’s mining-camp history.
The grounds gather old buildings, cars, pumps and mining objects, along with a fighter-jet prop associated with the film 3,000 Miles to Graceland. The mix is part of the appeal if you like odd collections and movie backdrops; visitors looking for a carefully restored historic town may find it cluttered.
The old fuel pump, Texaco sign, vintage vehicles and water tower give you distinct subjects to frame against the rocky canyon. Pick one object for the foreground and leave room for the ridge behind it; a wide shot of the whole yard can feel busy. Check directly what casual grounds access and photography include before you go.
Wildlife
525 sightingsBighorn SheepMost seen around 5 PMSighting map
116 sightingsBurroMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
18 sightingsBald EagleMost seen around 4 PMSighting map
99 sightingsWhite PelicanMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
145 sightingsGreat Blue HeronMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
106 sightingsTurkey VultureMost seen around noonSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Lake Mead. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Parkwolf’s Lake Mead ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
