ACROSS LAKE TAHOE
From painting by H. H. Bagg
The descent from the summit of the divide to Truckee is gradual, some twelve hundred feet in nine miles, though there are a few short, steep grades of from fifteen to twenty per cent, according to our authority. It was dark when we reached Truckee, but as there was no chance of going astray on the road to Tahoe Tavern, we determined to proceed. The road for the entire distance of fifteen miles closely follows the Truckee River, a swift, shallow stream fed from the limpid waters of Lake Tahoe. It was a glorious moonlight night and the gleaming river, the jagged hills on either hand, and the dark pine forests, all combined to make a wild but entrancingly beautiful effect. As we later saw the Truckee Canyon by daylight, we have every reason to be glad that we traversed it by moonlight as well.
Tahoe Tavern, with its myriad lights, was a welcome sight, none the less, after an exceedingly strenuous trip, the personal details of which I have forborne to inflict upon the reader. We were given rooms in the new annex, a frame-and-shingle building, and were delighted to find that our windows opened upon the moonlit lake. The mountain tops on the opposite shore were shrouded in heavy clouds through which the moon struggled at intervals, transmuting the clear, still surface of the lake from a dark, dull mirror to a softly lighted sheet of water with a path of gleaming silver running across it. Directly a thunder storm broke over the eastern shore—very uncommon in summer, we were told—and we had the spectacle of clouds and lake lighted weirdly by flashes of lightning. The thunder rolling among the peaks and across the water brought vividly to our minds Byron’s description of a thunderstorm on Lake Geneva in the Alps. For a short time it seemed as if “every mountain peak had found a tongue,” but the storm died away without crossing the lake.
We may as well admit that we failed to carry out our resolution to see sunrise on the lake, for we did not waken until the sun was shining broadly into our window, to which we hastened for a first impression of Tahoe by daylight. We beheld a smooth, steel-blue sheet of water with a sharply defined mountain range in the distance—no suggestion of the color miracle we had heard so much about; we learned that you must see Tahoe from many viewpoints and at many periods of the day to know a few of the myriad phases of its beauty.
Tahoe Tavern, a huge, brown, rambling building in a fine grove of pines, fronts directly on a little bay and commands a glorious outlook of lake and distant mountains. It is a delightfully retired and quiet place, ideal for rest and recuperation, while the surrounding country is unmatched in scenic attractions for those inclined to exploration, whether by steamer, motor, on horseback, or afoot. We found the service and the cuisine equal to the best resort hotels in California—and that is saying a great deal, since California in this particular leads the world. The Tavern’s popularity is evidenced by the fact that the main building, capable of accommodating several hundred guests, has been supplemented by the large annex and even then in season it is well to engage rooms in advance of arrival. Here we found a quiet yet exhilarating spot, the toil and tumult of the busy world shut out by impregnable mountain barriers, where one may repose and commune with nature in her grandest and most enchanting aspects.
After making the acquaintance of the friendly chipmunks about the inn—which have so far overcome their natural timidity as to take morsels from your fingers or even to rifle your pockets in search of peanuts—and laughing at the antics of the blue jays, almost as fearless, we decided to board the excursion steamer, which makes a daily round of the lake. Once out from the shore and well started on our southward journey, we began to realize something of the wonderful colorings that no one who has seen Tahoe can ever forget. About us the water was of the deepest, clearest, ultra-marine blue, shading by many gradations into emerald green near the shores. The colors were more intense than we had ever seen before in any body of water and cannot be entirely due to great depth, for though the bottom of Tahoe in places is nearly two thousand feet below the surface, the hue is deeper than that of the ocean. It is more like liquid, transparent lapis-lazuli, if we may imagine such a thing, than anything else I can think of. No doubt the depth of the water and the deep azure of the skies are the chief elements in producing this glorious effect. Yet, for all its blueness, we could see the bottom of the lake as we steamed along—indeed, they told us that only in the deepest places is the bottom invisible on clear, still days.
We followed the coast at a little distance, stopping at the different stations, chiefly camps and resorts of various degrees. Most of these are along the west side of the lake between Tahoe and Tallac, and scattered between them are many summer villas, chiefly of San Francisco people. This part of the shore is the most picturesque, being well wooded, while much of the eastern side is lined with barren and rocky mountains. At Rubicon Point, mighty cliffs rise high above the lake and their sheer walls extend far beneath the water that laves their base. Here is the deepest, bluest water that we cross, and they tell us one of the best fishing spots. Passing from the ultramarine deeps of the Rubicon Point, we round a sharply jutting promontory and glide into the jade-green waters of Emerald Bay, a long, oval-shaped inlet at the southern end of the lake. Surely, it is rightly named, for here green predominates, from the steep sides of the encircling hills to the very center of the shallow bay. At the upper end of the bay, rising almost sheer from the green water, is a rocky, scantily-wooded island where for many years an eccentric Englishman made his home. Nearly opposite on the shore is Emerald Bay Camp, perhaps the most popular of the many permanent camps around the lake. At Tallac the steamer stops for an hour to give opportunity for luncheon at the huge wooden hotel built many years ago by the late “Lucky” Baldwin. It stands in a grove of splendid pines and on a site in some ways superior to that of the tavern. Certainly the surrounding country is more picturesque and has more to interest the tourist. Just over the hills is the beautiful Fallen Leaf Lake and there are several other jewel-like tarns set in the hills a little to the west, while Cascade Lake and Emerald Bay are within walking distance. During luncheon one of our party expressed disappointment that the coloring of the lake hardly measured up to expectations formed from the enthusiastic descriptions of guidebooks and railroad literature.
“You can never see the color beauties of a lake at their best from a boat,” I declared. “We once had the opportunity of making the Great Glen trip by steamer and a year later of following these splendid Scotch lakes with our car; the effects of color and light which we saw on the latter trip were indescribably the more glorious.”