An Eldorado Canyon ATV Tour with an 1861 Gold Mine Visit
Ride a quad through Eldorado Canyon, walk through Nelson's historic remains, and tour the Techatticup gold mine, opened in 1861.
Forty-five minutes southeast of the Strip the road drops into Eldorado Canyon, and Las Vegas stops being the point. At the bottom sits Nelson: timber storefronts, dead gas pumps, and rusting trucks banked against the rock. The gold underneath is the reason any of it is there. The Techatticup opened in 1861, worked into the 1940s, and still takes visitors underground.
This trip strings the three together. You ride the canyon, you eat, and then you go into the mine.
Plan on roughly five hours once you are on site, or about seven door to door if you take the hotel pickup. You choose your machine at booking: a single-rider ATV, a two-seat RZR, or a four-seat RZR. The side-by-sides are priced per vehicle, so four people in a four-seater split a single fare.
Lunch is a Capriotti's order and the operator asks you to call ahead and pick from the menu. Between the ride and the mine there is a shaded Adventure Zone with misters, hatchet throwing, corn hole and horseshoes. The photo and video package from the day comes back to you at no extra charge.
Wild Old West ATV Tour + 1861 Ghost Town & Goldmine Tour + LunchAwesome Adventures Inc · 45 minutes from the Strip · single ATV or 2- or 4-seat RZR · lunch and safety gear included · rated 4.8 from 804 reviewswww.viator.comThe Ride Asks for No Experience. It Does Ask for Shoes.
The canyon run takes 75 to 90 minutes. Guides hand out helmets, goggles, gloves and a neck gaiter, walk you through operating the machine, and then lead the group out along marked track with safety flags on the back of every vehicle. Nobody expects you to have ridden before.
Two rules do the actual gatekeeping. Closed-toe shoes are mandatory: sneakers or boots. Turn up in sandals, flip flops, Crocs or anything open-toed and you will not be allowed to ride. The operator also recommends long pants over shorts, because this is open desert and cactus and rattlesnakes come with it.
To drive, you need to be at least 16 and hold a valid driver's license, with a parent present. Anyone under 18 needs a parent or guardian there regardless. Riders with spinal injuries, cardiovascular problems, or who are pregnant are advised against it.
A Quarter Mile In, All on One Level
The Techatticup is a hard rock mine, and the tour walks you in along a gravel floor to where the quartz veins that carried the gold and silver are still visible in the rock. The mine puts the walk at roughly a quarter of a mile, on a single level, running about an hour and twenty minutes. There are no shafts to climb and no ladders.
The air changes at the entrance. The mine describes its own interior as breezy and cool, noticeably so in winter. Coming in from desert heat that contrast lands hard, so carry a layer even in August.
Deserters Made It Lawless. A Film Crew Left the Plane.
Nevada's state tourism office dates the naming to 1775, when Spaniards working this region found gold here. The rush proper arrived a century later, and the canyon's remoteness did the rest. Union and Confederate deserters camped here on the theory that no military authority would come looking this far out, and through the 1880s shootouts and killings were frequent enough to be unremarkable. Through all of it the mine kept producing gold, silver, copper and lead. A state historical marker at the canyon counts the Techatticup among the three largest mines here, which together yielded more than six million dollars.
One of its miners, John Riggs, put it this way in 1880: "I think there never was another place where, in proportion to the population, so many murders were committed without the criminals being brought to trial or even apprehended."
What you walk through today was put back on purpose. Tony and Bobbie Werly bought the Techatticup property in 1993, when most of its buildings had fallen down or been moved off to other sites, and with help from the Bureau of Land Management they bought fourteen of them for a dollar each and brought them back. The clutter around them has a different origin. Nevada's tourism office calls the ghost town a photographer's paradise built on hundreds of leftover props and set pieces, and Breakdown, 3,000 Miles to Graceland and Eye of the Beholder all shot scenes on the property. The wrecked plane out in the open is one of those props. It was blown up on camera for 3,000 Miles to Graceland and never left.
Settle the Waiver and the Deposit Before You Go
Every rider signs a damage waiver, and the operator asks for a credit card by phone before the tour starts to cover anything that happens on the trail. The card holder carries that liability, so it is worth knowing the numbers in advance.
- Single ATV: a minimum of USD 300 for a roll, a tip onto its side, or tire damage, whether or not anything looks broken
- Two-seat RZR: a minimum of USD 600 for tire or rim damage, and a minimum of USD 3,500 if it is rolled or tipped
- Four-seat RZR: a minimum of USD 600 for tire or rim damage, and a minimum of USD 4,500 if it is rolled or tipped
Two other things shape the booking. Departures need a minimum number of riders, so a confirmed booking can still be cancelled, in which case you are offered an alternative date or a full refund. Cancelling yourself gets you a full refund as long as you do it at least 24 hours before departure, and bookings close four hours before the start time. One booking covers up to four travelers. Gratuities are not included, and the drive-to-location fares do not include hotel pickup.
Departures run seven days a week. Hotel pickup leaves earliest, at 8:30 or 9:30 in the morning, and collects from four Strip properties for parties up to six: Horseshoe, Excalibur, Resorts World and Golden Nugget. Groups of seven or more are collected from their own hotel. If you drive yourself, start times are 9:30 or 10:30.
Driving out is where people go wrong, and both companies on the site put it in writing. Search 16880 NV-165, Nelson in Google Maps, which is exactly what the operator tells you to do. Its Las Vegas office on North Bronco Street is flagged on that same page as not a pickup point. The mine adds the other half of it: you are two miles past the town of Nelson at mile marker 13, so if you reach Searchlight you have driven too far. The office confirms your pickup or arrival time by phone, text or email beforehand.
Past the last bend the canyon opens out, the tin roofs come into view, and the only thing left to do is pull on a helmet.