Monday morning I drove down to Lake Tahoe from where I am staying in Sparks, Nevada. It is an easy drive which takes less than an hour. I took Route 395 South, then Route 431, the Mt. Rose Highway, and drove down to the lake after having crossed over Mount Rose (reaching a driving altitude of 8,900 feet). This was the view from an overlook as I started down the southwest side of Mount Rose:
Lake Tahoe has a surface altitude of 6,225 feet above sea level and covers 191 square miles. There are casinos and ski areas near the lake and many wealthy people live here (behind electronically controlled gates).
When I got down near the lake I was in Incline Village. I started driving around the lake by heading south on Route 28. They were doing road construction and had many potential overlooks and parking areas closed (and what wasn’t closed was private). I saw some great views but had absolutely nowhere to stop. Once I got past Sand Harbor things started to improve and I ended up fairly happy with the photos I took. Here are shots from various locations on the east side of the lake:
One thing I’ve always heard about Lake Tahoe is the amazing water clarity and colors which can be seen – almost like in the Bahamas.
There are some people on and in the water around these rocks. You’ll be seeing lots more of them when I post closeups taken with the digital camera.
When I got down around Cove Rock I found these newlyweds (or soon to be) posing for pictures with friends of theirs. I asked if I could take one for the blog:
I took many closeups using the digital camera from the eastern shore as well as from South Tahoe and will be posting them shortly, just as soon as I group them by topic.
