Cycling outside Vegas
I opted for a different kind of risk the last time I visited Las Vegas, said Matt Villano in The New York Times. Turning my back on the casinos, I spent a day pushing myself to the limit on the nearby River Mountains Trail, a newly completed, 35-mile bicycle route that winds through a “sprawling desert wilderness with rumpled mountains and a huge artificial lake.” I joined the paved trail outside Boulder City and soon found myself hurtling down a “terrifying” descent, “like a luge run on a bike.” But more gradual slopes lay ahead, plus “a glorious game of peek-a-boo” with vast Lake Mead. I couldn’t resist a short detour that took me along the old railway right-of-way used to build the Hoover Dam. Eventually, the main loop forced me into an encounter with the dreaded Three Sisters—a mountain of three peaks, “each one steeper than its predecessor.” By the time I reached the summit of the third, I was exhausted, but also exhilarated.
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