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Welcome to Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe is a masterpiece of nature and most locals can tell you just how it was created. In a nutshell, the Tahoe Basin was formed about five to ten million years ago by the rising and falling of the land due to the shifting of geologic faults.

Tremendous forces began the western tilt of the Sierra Nevada block. As a result, two principal parallel faults developed. The eastern margin created the Carson Range and the western margin created the Sierra Nevada. The up-thrown fault blocks created the highest peaks in the region. The down-thrown fault blocks sank to create a deep v-shaped valley, now called the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Later, about two million years ago, volcanic activity followed and played a key role in further reshaping the landscape of the region. Lava flowing from Mt. Pluto formed a barrier across the Basin's northeastern outlet, creating a natural dam across Lake Tahoe's original outlet, the Truckee River. Water from the snowfall and streams gradually filled the Lake Tahoe Basin, over 600 feet higher than its present lake level! Eventually, a new outlet eroded through the northeastern lava dam, creating the present path of the Lower Truckee River, the only outlet of the lake.

Then an Ice Age developed and huge glaciers grew in the surrounding mountains and gradually moved down the v-shaped canyons on the western side of the lake. The glaciers scoured away loose rock and reshaped the canyons into the broad, u-shaped valleys of Emerald Bay, Fallen Leaf Lake and Cascade Lake.

Today, the highest point in the Tahoe Basin is Freel Peak at 10,881 feet. The deepest part of Lake Tahoe is near Crystal Bay, measuring a water depth of 1,645 feet.

LAKE TAHOE Tahoe residents are extremely proud of their lake and sooner or later you will hear all of the following facts, persuading you to grant them bragging rights.

Surrounded by mountains, the present day lake sits in a valley at an elevation of 6,229 feet. It is the highest lake of its size in the United States. It is the third deepest lake in North America and the tenth deepest lake in the world.

Lake Tahoe is 22 miles in length and 12 miles in width and covers a surface area of 191 square miles. The consistently beautiful shoreline is 71 miles, with the California shoreline being 42 miles and the Nevada shoreline being 29 miles.

This breathtakingly blue lake is so clear that in some places objects can be seen to depths of 75 feet! The reason the lake is so blue is that the thin, clear mountain air allows the lake's pure, crystalline water to reflect the blue sky above. The lake can also appear red during sunsets or gray-black during storms.

The average annual rainfall in the Lake Tahoe Basin is 8.3 inches and the average annual snowfall is 216 inches or 18 feet, for a total annual precipitation of 30 inches. (The ski areas average 350-600 inches of snow per year!) Most of the snow and rain falls directly into the lake or drains through lakeside marshes and meadows that act as water filtering systems, preserving the purity of the water.

Sixty-three streams flow into Lake Tahoe, but the Truckee River is the only one that flows out, past Reno and into Pyramid Lake.

The maximum depth is 1,645 feet, near Crystal Bay, and the average depth is 989 feet. The water shed of Lake Tahoe is 519 square miles. The lake holds over 39 trillion gallons of water, enough to cover a flat area the size of California to a depth of 14 inches. If drained, it would take 700 years to refill the lake!

Lake Tahoe loses much if its water to evaporation. If the water that evaporates from the lake every 24 hours could be recovered, it would supply the daily requirements of a city the size of Los Angeles.

The maximum surface water temperature is 68 degrees F. and the minimum surface water temperature is 41 degrees F. Below 600 feet, the lake's water is extremely cold, staying at 39 degrees F. year-round.

And for the curious, Lake Tahoe never freezes because the huge volume of lake water is always in motion. Each winter, the cold water on the surface sinks while warm water rises from the deep. Some protected inlets like Emerald Bay have been covered with a layer of ice at times.

So, let the locals have their moments by resisting the urge to say, "I knew that!"