Since I was a child, Lake Tahoe has been my favorite place on Earth! I now live thousands of miles away from it, but I still take every opportunity dive in it whenever I visit my parents in Reno. It is Lake Tahoe, in fact that inspired me to learn to scuba dive at the age of 12 years old.
Over the holidays we had planned to do two deep(ish) dives off of Hurricane Bay, but we were snowed out the first day, and blown out the second. I could have made it in pretty easily with my slim rebreather, but many of the team members were using doubles and slinging 80’s, which would have been tough in the 4-foot waves, so we decided to have breakfast instead. The upside to the trip up there was that I got this nice panorama of the lake!
Lake Tahoe, as lakes go, is very interesting. It is the second deepest lake in the United States and the tenth deepest in all the world. The Lake is amazingly clear with a water clarity of about 100 ft. This is partially due to the fact that about 40 percent of the precipitation that falls into the Lake Tahoe Basin lands directly on the lake and because the remaining water drains through granitic soils, which are relatively sterile and create a good filtering system.
It was created about 2 to 3 million years ago by a geologic block fault, which is a fracture in the Earth’s crust causing blocks of land to move up or down. The Lake Tahoe we know today was shaped and landscaped by the scouring glaciers during the last Ice Age.
As a dive site, it is nothing short of perfect! The altitude makes planning technical dives a little tricky, but the amazing water clarity and interesting boulder features make it well worth the extra trouble. I’ve been down below 300 feet on Rubican Wall, and I have to say that it is still one of my most memorable dives.
- Lake Tahoe Facts:
- Maximum depth (second deepest in the U.S.): 501 m 1,645 ft
- Average depth: 305 m 1,000 ft
- Maximum diameter (north-south): 35 km 22 mi
- Minimum diameter (east-west): 19 km 12 mi
- Surface area: 495 km2 191 mi2
- Average surface elevation (above sea level): 1,897 m 6,225 ft
- Highest peak (Freel Peak): 3,320 m 10,891 ft
Info from: USGS.com
