LAKE TAHOE 



LAKE TAHOE, the "High Water" of the Indians, is about twenty-one 

 miles long by twelve miles wide, and lies partly in California and part- 

 ly in Nevada. The pass over which the Southern Pacific crosses the 

 Range is 7,01 7 feet above the sea, and the lake is at an elevation of 

 6,225 feet. The depression in which it lies is from 1,500 to 4,000 feet 

 below the summit peaks, and the bottom of the lake over 2,000 feet lower 

 still. The size of this "Gitchee Gumee" of the Sierra — this "shining big 

 sea water" — makes it a striking object in the landscape at a distance, while 

 near at hand its majestic proportions here among the encroaching moun- 

 tains. Its splendid color, its great unsounded depth, the grandeur of its 

 mountain setting, and the beauty of its bays and all its shore lines excite 

 every one's admiration. Stay by it a few days; note the changes of ex- 

 pression on the face of the waters; watch the rare cloud effects thrown back 

 as from a mirror, or the blue sky, or the green-forested hills; see the most 

 glorious sunsets you have ever known, or watch the full moon come up 

 over the shadowy summits and light up the lake, and you are a clod If 

 you do not feel the unequaled beauty of Tahoe. 



In this depression between the summit ridges lie most of the Sierra 

 lakes. They are known as glacial lakes, and John Muir thinks there are 

 fifteen hundred of them that may be counted, including only those that rise 

 above the dignity of ponds. The largest of them all, and perhaps the most 

 beautiful mountain lake in the world, is Tahoe. As is fitting, it has in its 

 immediate neighborhood many lesser lakes, jewels studding the outcropping 

 bedrock — star-points on the margin of this patch of blue sky dropped on the 

 Sierra granite. 



The night ride from San Francisco in a Pullman has its compensations. 

 If we miss the topography of the mountains, we are at the summit by 

 daylight, and get off at Truckee for a leisurely breakfast. Then the Narrow 

 Gauge of the Lake Tahoe Railway and Transportation Company whisks us 

 up the little valley of the Truckee River for fourteen miles, and without a 

 glimpse of the lake, sets us down on its shimmering margin at the door of 

 a great hotel among the pines. Much of the margin of the lake is lined 

 with summer hotels and private homes, and these will multiply as time 

 goes on. This is one of the great playgrounds of the world, and civilization 

 will invade it and summer cities grow upon its banks; but the forest will 

 hide them and the air of the virgin solitude will hear no clank of machinery 

 or sound of toil. Tahoe is yet of the wilderness, and this is its chief charm. 

 It is at the doors of cities, easy of access and hospitable, provided with 

 the comforts of a luxury-loving age, while preserving the virtues of the 

 simple life and freedom from the scrambling conceits of over-refinement. 

 The lake itself is uncontaminated and the region is wild and primeval, 

 invested with a sense of remoteness and brooded over by the spirit of 

 solitude, and you may, if you will, become part of the inarticulate life of 

 Nature. 



"In somer, when the shawes be sheyne 

 And leves be large and longe." 



it is health of body and mind to get away from the frictions of civilized life 

 into primitive conditions; and of a thousand charming places up and down 

 the great Range, I know of none where one can more easily fall in with 

 the large harmonies of Nature than here beside this sweet water distilled 

 among the giant hills. 



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