Lake Mead’s Iconic Vertical Speedboat Removed

• An abandoned speedboat sunk in Lake Mead has been removed from near the shoreline
• Nicknamed “The Monolith of Lake Mead,” the boat rose to attention in 2022 when the water level in Lake Mead dropped 188 feet due to climate change

Was it really just an eyesore, as National Park Officials claimed? Or was the so-called “Monolith of Lake Mead” a beneficial reminder to visitors, and the world at large, of the pending water catastrophe faced by the 40 million people who depend on the slowly vanishing Colorado River for sustenance?

Either way, it was removed on July 25 as part of the Love Lake Mead program, an effort to remove debris and restore the shoreline of the lake to its natural character.

We understand that some were curious about the abandoned boat in the Las Vegas area,” Lake Mead Superintendent Mike Gauthier said in a statement to KLAS-TV/Las Vegas. “But the boat, like other abandoned boats, was also viewed as an eyesore and nuisance — and poorly represented the quality of boating recreation at Lake Mead.”

Gauthier first made known his impression of the sunken icon during a virtual community meeting in September 2023.

“We don’t want our visual to be abandoned boats,” he said. “We want our visual to be people having a great time at the lake.”

Drought of Sight

The vertical speedboat, stuck stern-down in the since-hardened bottom where it landed decades ago, plummeted as much as 174 feet from where the Lake Mead surface was at full capacity from 1983 to 1999.

The Monolith of Lake Mead first garnered attention when it surfaced for the first time in the summer of 2022, when Lake Mead dropped 188 feet from its full capacity due to climate change. In fact, it became the symbol of the crisis, much as the unfinished Fontainebleau became the symbol of the Great Recession in nearby Las Vegas. Hikers hunted it down as a background for their social-media selfies.

“This was our Statue of Liberty,” one fan wrote on Facebook.

The 112-mile-long lake near Las Vegas has seen an average decline of six feet per year since 2000, exposing boats and the bodies of missing people, though recent conservation efforts have led to temporary rises.

Projections suggest the lake could drop to 1,041.06 feet by May 2027, nearing the 2022 record low, with a potential worst-case drop to 1,030 feet.