Groom Lake Entrance to Area 51
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To Storm or Not to Storm
This is not my typical post where I provide hiking recommendations. Rather it’s a more humorous anecdote about a day trip from Las Vegas that I took my 8 and 12 year old during COVID / March 2021. If you can’t socially distance safely at Area 51, where can you?
I left more curious than when I arrived, with zero of my original questions answered and added at least a hundred more. It took a whole day to travel here and back from Las Vegas, and the vast majority of the day was in the car - not my favorite type of day. I really doubt the US government was excited that we travelled to the outskirts even though we remained well in front of the boundary. But we still laugh about this day, which makes me think it was worth it, although it wouldn’t be the top thing I would recommend you spend your time on when traveling near Las Vegas.
Joshua Trees fill the desert along the dirt road to Area 51
A Journey to the Area 51 Groom Lake Entrance
From the middle of Las Vegas, it’s at least a two and a half hour drive north of the city. If I timed our drive, I’ve since lost my notes, but I doubt I was paying that close attention to the clock. I was more worried about all of the possible “what if” scenarios that could happen if my car broke down somewhere along this dirt road journey. It’s not possible to simply create a route in GoogleMaps to “Area 51” - so I can’t quite recreate the trip. In case I’m a little off, round up to 3 hours for expected travel time.
Head north on I-15 to get out of Las Vegas and then turn onto US-93N for 86 miles. Exit at Crystal Springs where NV-318N connects with NV-375N (otherwise known as the “Extraterrestrial Highway”).
Photo Op by the Extraterrestrial Highway sign
The only reason we travelled here was simply for a day of silliness, so as we turned onto NV-375, of course we stopped at the parking lot to get pictures next to the sign.
From this spot we could also see the huge pretend alien in front of the Alien Research Center, which is, of course, just a gift store. Obviously, we stopped here too!
Alien Research Center in Crystal Springs, NV
This is an actual picture of the Alien Research Center - I kid you not. There was no one around except a poor high school-ish aged kid working as a cashier. The parking lot is just a bunch of desert gravel. It felt extremely weird walking in here, but we had to buy shirts - that was the whole point in driving out here!
Alien Research Center
We did not actually enter Area 51, so we can’t claim we “stormed it” and it was March 2021, not Sept 20, 2019, but the whole “Storming Area 51” event was what started a “what if” conversation in my house, which led to figuring out where Area 51 was, which led to this day trip. So it still seemed an appropriate picture to pose in front of.
From the Alien Research Center, it’s still another 19 more miles down the Extraterrestrial Highway until the “Black Mailbox”.
The Black Mailbox
GoogleMaps will take you this far if you simply type in “The Black Mailbox”. Note that some personal accounts state the mailbox is white. Not sure if it is frequently painted, but regardless of color, this is the only mailbox around. This is where we turned onto an unmarked road referred to as “Mailbox Road.”
Everything from this point forward was unmarked. There wereno road signs, and GoogleMaps won’t take us further. I used the GAIA app and had pre-marked the route before I ventured out in the morning. It was good we had the map, as there were a couple of turns that I needed to make, and I would have missed them without the app. I hesitate to put the map on this blog as I don’t think US government wants to actually attract visitors to this location. But I’ve given you the tools to find it if you want to put in the effort.
Mailbox Road
It’s a beautiful desolate drive along Mailbox Road. So much so that I stopped the car a few times to capture all of the Joshua Trees. It seems like there were more Joshua Trees here than even at Joshua Tree National Park.
Funny thing about Joshua Trees - I’ve described these trees for years as “Alien Palm Trees.” So when I found them here, I immediately thought of this as being evidence of my theory. Clearly Joshua Trees are an extraterrestrial invasive species. Laughing aside, this landscape is like none else. Incredibly beautiful.
More Joshua Trees outside the Groom Lake Entrance to Area 51
Everything I’d read about visiting the Area 51 Groom Lake Entrance explained we would see a white truck guarding the area. I could tell we were coming up to the entrance before we got there as I could see the below red diagonal lines on my map as we approached. I kept looking for that white truck but didn’t see it. Just before we got to those red lines, we saw the sign, and stopped the car well in front of it. Even though I didn’t see the white truck, I assumed someone somewhere could maybe be watching us, and then eventually forgot about it. We got out of the car and did the “storm Area 51” run over and over again, laughed a lot, and did our best to search nearby for aliens. Finding none, after about a half hour of pure silliness, we started to get ready to go. After being solely focused on my boys, I looked up into the mountains, and spotted that white truck, which had been watching us make fools of ourselves the whole time. Clearly this truck has the high ground, and this expression suddenly made a lot of real-life sense to me.
GAIA app map to Groom Lake Entrance. The sign is where the orange line ends.
Not “storming” Area 51 but staying well away from that sign
Lots and lots of alien running
At this point I feel very sheepish, as I realize we’ve been watched the whole time. Now that my attention is on the mountains, I turn towards my right, scanning the mountain peaks, and I see a watch tower way off in the distance. Now realizing we haven’t just been watched for the last half hour, we’ve likely been watched since turning off the main road at the mailbox.
White Truck clearly watching us on the nearby mountain top
At worst case these guys caught me in a moment being a good mom, playing with my boys, having a good time when good times were really hard to create during March 2021. But what on earth is this white truck guarding??? I’ve heard from reading other blogs if you get too close to the sign that it flashes its brights as a warning, so I’m positive there were people in that truck, even though we didn’t test that theory, but why??
Watch tower can be seen if you zoom in on the mountain peak
As to if anyone is in the watch tower, I have no idea. That really surprised me as I hadn’t heard anyone comment on that in other posts that I had read. But why have people in the truck if you aren’t also monitoring the watch tower?
Current Warning Sign at Area 51 border
Despite being even more curious at this point in our trip than when we started, this is where we stopped. The current warning sign does not state anything about being authorized to use deadly force, which thankfully we live in a country where that might not seem like a real threat. It wasn’t the $1000 fine or the cost of towing that had me necessarily worried - those are super expensive yet possible things to deal with for the right incentive. But, it was bullet points 4 and 5 - being processed in Hiko and then responsible for travel from Hiko anywhere else. Hiko is back near that Extraterrestrial Highway sign and Alien Research Center. The population is 124 people. We did not have cell phone service, there was no place to eat, and it is at least a two hour drive to Las Vegas. A well worded warning if I’ve ever read one.
After opening our car doors slowly, we checked around, over, under, and in the car for aliens. Finding none, our adventure was over, and we made our way back to Las Vegas, contemplating on the way whether my car’s license plates are now in some secret government database and wondering if that will ever come back to me in some sort of unexpected problem.
So would I recommend this trip to someone else? Probably, if that person loves Joshua Trees, or if your kids really want to go “alien hunting.” But beyond that, there are better places in Nevada where you can actually hike. If you are looking for answers about Area 51 though, I don’t think you’ll find them at this border.