Overview

Las Vegas Bay Campground sits on a flat-topped bluff overlooking Las Vegas Wash. The surrounding landscape is sparsely vegetated with stunted creosote bush, white bursage, beavertail pricklypear cactus, and few other shrubs. In contrast, the campground is irrigated and well vegetated with Australian eucalyptus trees, European olive trees, California fan palms, oleander bushes, velvet ash trees, and a few other native shrub species that provide the only green habitat in this dry area.

When the lake level was up, the campground provided a nice, elevated position for looking down on waterbirds foraging in the lake. However, the camp now overlooks Las Vegas Wash, and the lake is in the far distance. In the campground, watch for Greater Roadrunner, which hunt among empty campsite and sometimes beg for meat scraps. Gamble's Quail, Common Raven, and Coyote are common.

Link to map.

Location

Las Vegas Bay Campground is located in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, just east of Las Vegas, along Lakeshore Road. After turning onto the Las Vegas Bay Road, the ranger station is the first building on the right. Just past the ranger station and just before a dry storage yard on the left, a road to the left runs out to the campground. The signs here could use a little work.

At the campground, birders should avoid parking in campsites. Instead, park at the entrance, park by a restroom, or drive all the way to the turn-around loop at end of the campground road where a parking area overlooks Las Vegas Wash and the lake in the far distance.