(Photo courtesy of El Dorado County Surveryors Department)

Ahh, there’s nothing I love more than majestic Lake Tahoe.  Clear, deep, private-part-tinglingly cold all year round, Tahoe is one of the most beautiful places in this fair country.  Take a look at these stats:

- 71 miles of total shoreline

- 22 miles across at its longest point

- max depth approx. 1,650ft

- 191 square miles of surface area

- 1990 Secchi depth of 20m (65ft)

For the uninformed, the “Secchi depth” is a measure of water clarity where an 8inch white disc is lowered uniformly into the water until it is no longer visible.  The very last point where the plate is visible is known as the Secchi depth, and in tahoe, you can see this plate for 65ft!  There’s a reason why the League to Save Tahoe’s mantra is “Keep Tahoe Blue”.

Image via Wikipedia

Tahoe is a year-round outdoorsman’s playground, with alpine/nordic skiing, snowmobiling and backcountry travel in the winter time, as well as camping, boating, rafting on the truckee river, and hiking/biking in the summertime.  You can do it all here.  I once had a friend ski 7 days straight here during a 100-inch week, and we had to carry him out of his car by time he was able to finally make it home.

Now, one of my favorite spots at Lake Tahoe is quite possibly the most beautiful; Emerald Bay.  Not only is it a pristine, tree-shodden bay with eye-piercingly green water, it also has an island with an old viking lookout shack!  Yup, that’s right, it’s Norse approved by Sven, Thor and the rest of the boys.  And, our featured campsite of the month is located damn-near on top of Emerald Bay at Eagle Point.  Description as follows from www.campingguidenevada.com:

Eagle Point campground is located on a peninsula with Lake Tahoe and Emerald Bay surrounding it. You enter camp way up on a high ridge off of Highway 89. Shortly you come to the entrance where you pay the camping fee (If you want to select your campsite yourself, you can obtain a pass here and continue). After the guard shack there are some campsites along both sides of the road. These are removed from the rest of the camp and used when the camp is near capacity, due to the fact most of these have no views and are far from the water. The last four sites in the top section are perched on a bluff and have good filtered views of Lake Tahoe and Emerald Bay. After the amphitheater the road starts a good descent and there are no camp sites for a 1/4 mile.

Down at the bottom section of the campground, there is one big loop with sites scattered all around. Many of the back sites have great views over the water. There are trails that you can take to access the rest of Emerald Bay State Park from this section. This area of the campground is the most desirable and therefore the busiest.

Good luck in camping here on the weekends, this place is always full, definitely make reservations. Weekdays are less busy, except around holidays. Try Fallen Leaf campground if full.

Map

• Social Bookmarking
  
  • Subscribe
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon