Ok, so after 20 some years of living in the the San Francisco, Bay Area / Lake Tahoe Truckee, and then having to move to the east coast, I’ve got a few observations.
First of all, I miss Lake Tahoe. I always took it for granted when I lived there, or just a 3.5 hour drive away, but now that I’m living “elsewhere” where a trip to Tahoe involves almost 8 hours of plane rides, transfers etc (only to then land in Reno and still have to drive “up the hill” to Lake Tahoe, to I really understand what I’ve left behind.
Lake Tahoe is perfect in almost all ways. First, I love to ski and snowboard, but I don’t love the cold that much. I’ve lived at ski resorts in Colorado, and grew up skiing in Vermont and New Hampshire. Lake Tahoe’s weather is perfect for skiing. Unless there’s a storm, the temperature is normally very tolerable. It’s rarely below 25 during the day, and when that California, Nevada sunshine kicks into gear you’ll barely notice it’s below freezing. Many days, even mid-winter, the temp doesn’t even dip below freezing. At night of course it can be cold as a witch’s —, but who cares unless you’re night skiing. I’ll sum it up with this sentence: In twenty years of skiing Lake Tahoe, (barring stormy powder days), I’ve never once had to go in to let my feet warm up. Contrast that to my days in Colorado, and especially Vermont, where often you’d take a run, go in and get warm, take a run, go in and get warm. You get the point.
Back to why Lake Tahoe rules. On top of the skiing and boarding bonanza (there are sooo many resorts within an hours drive, I won’t list them all here, you’ve got Lake Tahoe SUMMERS. All caps for a reason. It took me almost ten years of hitting the ski slopes in Tahoe before I realized what a spectacular place the lake is during the summer. First of all, once again, the weather is perfect, normally mid to high seventies. The type of weather where you don’t even notice the temperature. Never humid, almost always crystal clear blue skies.
Now I’ll agree with everyone who argues that the water in Lake Tahoe is COLD, almost too cold to swim in. If you compare it to the the ocean temps anywhere in CA, I have to disagree. I’ve spent plenty of weekends in August in San Diego, freezing my ass off in the water there. Tahoe’s water may be slightly colder, but you can also find plenty of beaches where the water is shallow, and the sun heats the water up until it feels like you’re in the bath. Try finding somewhere like that in Santa Cruz. (Plus there’s no chance of something large and toothy taking a bite out of you).
Enough for now, I’m planning on adding to this ode to Lake Tahoe pretty much everytime I get the urge to hit the High Sierra’s and can’t.
