An abandoned speedboat that once protruded vertically from Lake Mead National Recreation Area has been displaced to the great dock in the sky, as the country’s fifth-most visited site in the National Park System prepares to reopen a section of the lake that had fallen into extreme disarray.
The National Park Service extracted the boat — nicknamed “Skyward” for how its bow stuck up through the water — from the inlet Government Wash in July. The boat’s removal is part of a larger clean-up effort at the cove, located about 40 minutes from the Las Vegas Strip, where park officials hauled away over 20,000 pounds of rubbish over the last year.
More than just tons of debris were cleared away during the massive project. For over a decade, Government Wash was popular for dispersed camping among mobile home dwellers and people overstaying the two-week limit. Lake Mead’s previous chief ranger estimated there were over 300 people living there as the population fluctuated with the seasons…