Sand Harbor, Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe looking south from highway 431. I visited Lake Tahoe in early August 2019 on a road trip across I-80 with some old friends and it was much more than I expected.
We arrived late in the day on a Monday arriving in town right at sunset.
Our stay lasted for 3 days, camped out at a Forest Service campground just 20 minutes from the lake. We couldn't of asked for a better site or experience, our camp host and neighbors were all incredibly cool and unique people with enough campfire stories to last a lifetime.
Anticipating the crowd we'd have to compete with due to the popularity of Sand Harbor, we planned accordingly and got one of the last spots in the lot around 9:00AM. After a few hours of paddling around the water we decided to head inland to check out the rest of the park.
The park had an integrated transportation connected with Tahoe regional transportation, providing those near and far with opportunities to access the park.
Visitors of Sand Harbor have many choices with ways to spend their time from paddle boarding to kayaking and for a brave few, cliff jumping.
The dark spots seen in the water are boulders on the lake's floor from the surrounding mountains. Due to the clarity of the water the rocks seem very close to the surface but as I discovered while paddle boarding, most rocks were many feet from the surface.
Lake Tahoe draws in diverse crowds of many ages and ethnicities.
The reality we faced on our second day at the lake. With a later start that morning we got parked out of Sand Harbor, but thanks to a secret beach our camp neighbors Evan and Alfredo told us about we were not phased.
This was the reality for the most popular and iconic section of the beach. We decided to stake a claim further south on the water where we found more spacious options.
The views from the lake were unreal. After living in various parts of Colorado I was still blown away by the contrast the lake and mountains created. The drive along I-80 to Tahoe just gave us an even greater perspective on the geography of the region. We drove through about 6 hours of Nevada desert until we reached Reno, located on the other side of the mountains from Tahoe. Then a quick 30 minute drive up a mountain pass and we had gone from arid desert to a mountain oasis.
Surrounding the lake were huge stands of Ponderosa Pine trees, filling the air with a scent similar to Pinesol and providing shady hide aways when the sun became too intense.
Sadly, the water quality and beauty of the lake will not remain forever. Due to an increase of human activity and the eutrophication of the lake in addition to increased sediment load, eventually Tahoe will no longer be blue or clear. This made me very thankful that I was able to visit when I did and take observe it's beauty while it lasts. I would like to say thank you to all my viewers, please share my work with anyone that would be interested and feel free to message me with any questions about my trip! Thanks for viewing!
