In 1931, a construction contract was let to Six Companies, Inc., a consortium of six major western firms. Together with the government, they built almost 30 miles of railroad connecting Boulder City with all the facilities needed to build Hoover Dam (eg., cement mixing plants, quarry pit, gravel sorting plant). The Hoover Dam construction railroad system had three segments. The first, from Las Vegas to the Boulder City site, was built and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad.

• Tunnel Slot Hike Games
• Tunnel Slot Hike Trail
• Tunnel Slot Hike Grand Canyon
• Tunnel Slot Hike Grand Staircase

The second segment was built by the U.S. Government. It ran from Boulder City down Hemenway Wash to Himix, the concrete mixing plant on the rim of the Black Canyon overlooking the dam. It provided concrete for the final 242 feet of the dam and the buildings on its crest. The airline distance from Boulder City to Himix was 6.7 miles. A drop of 1,100 feet in elevation however, necessitated ten miles of winding tracks to keep the grades from being too steep.

Six Companies, Inc. built and operated the third segment of the system. The tracks branched off the U.S. Government Construction Railroad at Lawler, about a mile up Hemenway Wash from the Visitor Center. It crossed Hemenway Wash and followed the base of the River Mountains and then looped eastward to the gravel plant on the flat overlooking the Colorado River. One branch went upstream 7.3 miles from the gravel plant to the gravel beds on the Arizona side.

Tunnel Slot Hike Games

Isolation demanded the tons of concrete needed for the dam to be manufactured locally. An electric dragline with a five cubic yard capacity loaded gravel into railroad cars. Concrete was made by mixing sand and crushed rock, called aggregate, with Portland cement and water. More than four million cubic yards of aggregate were taken from the Arizona side of the river. The other branch followed the river downstream into Black Canyon, to Lomix, a concrete mixing plant situated at the base of Black Canyon. Lomix provided the concrete for the diversion-tunnel linings, the powerhouse foundation, and two-thirds of the dam. To prevent the concrete from drying during transportation the mixing plant was put as close to the river as possible. Locomotives hauled tons of gravel to a screening plant on the other side of the river 24-hours a day. A round trip took slightly more than two hours.

The Six Companies, Inc. Railroad was abandoned after the completion of Hoover Dam in 1935. The U.S. Government Construction Railroad section was sporadically used until 1961, when the last generator was hauled over its rails and installed at the power plant.

Tunnel Slot Hike Trail

1. Tunnel Slot is located down Harris Wash about 20 minutes away from Zebra. If you have plans to do this, get information at the BLM Visitor Center in Escalante before you get here. We chose to skip Tunnel Slot and continue down Hole-in-the-Rock Road to Peek-A-Boo and Spooky Gulches. To get back to your car, return the same way.
2. Zebra Slot Canyon and Tunnel Canyon Hikes, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. Zebra Slot Canyon and Tunnel Canyon are two classic and easily accessed canyons of the vast canyons of Grand Staircase-Escalante. In spite of their notoriety, the canyons are still difficult to hike and require careful planning.
3. Utah - Escalante - Zebra and Tunnel Slots Hiking trail in Escalante, Utah (United States). Download its GPS track and follow the itinerary on a map. A hike up to 2 slot canyons. Take the Hole-In-The-Rock road at highway 12, about 4 miles South-East of Escalante. Park just past the 3 th cattle guard (after about 8 miles). (The first cattle guard, is at the beginning of the road.) Take the.
4. Hiking-The Subway The Subway is a classic semi-technical slot canyon hike in Zion National Park. To complete the hike you wade/swim/scramble/climb down the Left Fork of North Creek. The stream is the trail for most of the route. Some of the holes are deep enough that you do have to swim, and the water is cold.

Tunnel Slot Hike Grand Canyon

Tunnel Slot Hike Grand Staircase

Tunnel Slot Although the hike to Zebra takes some time, the canyon itself is small and can be explored in 30 minutes. To extend your adventure, check out Tunnel Slot, which is a bit further down Harris Wash. Tunnel Slot is aptly named.