Established in 1964, the Lake Mead National Recreation Area encompasses two reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Mohave, and three rivers, the Colorado, Virgin, and Muddy, at the heart of a network of surrounding national parks, national monuments, state parks, tribal lands, and more than twenty wilderness areas. It offers year-round recreational opportunities for boating, fishing, hiking, bicycling, photography, picnicking, and sightseeing, and it is home to thousands of desert plants and animals adapted to survive where rain is scarce and temperatures can soar. With rugged mountains, deep canyons, stark desert, and two large blue reservoirs, it is a place of great contrasts, with expanses of water and more than a million acres of diverse upland landscape around the lakes and rivers.