Tour of Nevada atomic test site?

Has anyone done the tour of the Nevada test site? Not the Atomic testing museum. This is a tour where you take a bus to the desert and see a bunch of places where they used to test atomic bombs. My friend always wants to do it when we go and I could not think of a bigger waste of time. Fortunately it books up months in advance (the next one that has availability is August), it is only once a month and is for a pretty small group, and we never plan our trips that far ahead of time.

 

I've been wanting to do this for a couple years, but it requires booking the tour before the flights and vacation time.

It really hurts that the tour is entirely no photos. I really want my own photos of the Sedan crater.

 

I was all set to do this several years ago, maybe tweleve, with my father in law, unfortunately he became ill and we had to cancel. When I did it we did have to sign in far in advance, pass a background check, and had to be US citizens. I believe the citizenship requirment is no longer required, not sure about background checks.

It was either a Tuesday or Thursday, and one per month. You are correct, no photos, pack your own food and water, and anytime out of the van you had to wear booties. As I recall it was eight hours total, I don't remember where the marshalling point was.

I would still like to go......such a chunk of history. One flight to Vegas I believe we were routed over the test site and being able to see some of the divets in the desert floor from the underground tests, though I am not certain that's what they were. I know I have never approached Vegas the same way again, that's what makes me think we were over the site.

 

Where can I find info out about this tour? I don't see anything on the museum website?

Apart from this, has anyone been around Area 51? is it worth going?

 

http://www.nv.doe.gov/library/factsheets/DOENV_1033.pdf

 

That sounds like an amazing tour. Pity about the no-camera rule :/

 

In another life I was a B-52 pilot and got a tour of the site. It's a full day long tour spent mostly in a bus as the site is about two hours away from Vegas and it's huge. You only really go to five or so places on the range as they are all a good distance from each other.

The highlights to me were the Sedan crater and two test sites, one where they built a small town and another where they constructed various structures like bridges and small shelters to evaluate weapon effects. A lot of the stuff is still out there. If you search youtube for some of the atomic test films you can see the results on the buildings and you can look at most of the range on google earth.

One of the "houses" was still standing from the Apple-II test, but it was a long way from ground zero. The Sedan crater was a part of test to see if nuclear weapons could be used essentially as earth moving equipment to build dams and such!! We did some really dumb stuff in the '50s. I think it was over 1000ft in diameter and about 300ft deep from a buried 100kt weapon. It's impressive, but I honestly expected a 100kt blast to do more. The underground test sites aren't much to look at, just depressions in the ground, but it's interesting how all that was set up. They still do toxic waste/hazmat testing and response training on the range.

It was worth doing once, especially with my "professional" interest, but I don't think I'd do it again unless I could get around by helicopter! I you go, take lots of water and a lunch, there's no place out there to get anything.

There's absolutely nothing of interest in "Area 51"...it's just desert.

 

I did the tour about 3-4 years ago and enjoyed it immensely. But, I am a cold war buff and the testing sites were a Mecca type of visit for me. Unless you are into this aspect of Nevada and US history, it might not be your thing to do.