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Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Calendar of Annual Events
MARCH
North Lake Tahoe Snowfest
 (916)
583-7625
JUNE
Incline Village Bet 'n Boogie
831-4440
JULY
Music at Sand Harbor Festival
(916)
583-3101
AUGUST
Shakespeare at Sand Harbor
831-4440
Welcome to Lake Tahoe
Local Area Information & Services
INCLINE VILLAGE & CRYSTAL BAY Visitors
& Convention Bureau
969 Tahoe Blvd. 800-GO-TAHOE. Tahoe's Special Place! Choose from world
classhotel/casinos, deluxe condos and vacation homes. Enjoy beautiful beaches,
two 18 hole golf courses, tennis, hiking, mountain biking and water sports.
Diamond Peak Ski Resort offers great skiing and panoramic views in winter.
Call the Visitors & Convention Bureau for information and lodging
reservations.
Casino Hotels
HYATT REGENCY LAKE Tahoe Resort &
Casino (North Shore)
Country Club at Lakeshore. 775-832-1234 (in CA 800-233-1234). This luxury
resort at the water's edgehas a lot to offer. Stay in four-star rooms, suites,
and LakesideCottages. Taste three-restaurant variety at the Lone Eagle Grille,
Ciao Mein Trattoria, and Sierra Cafe. Play in the casino, on the private
beach, at the health and fitness club...
HARRAH'S LAKE TAHOE Casino.
(South Shore)
On Highway 50 at the California state line. 775-588-6611. With year 'round
entertainment, seven great restaurants (from buffet to gourmet), the world's
most exciting casino games, and the100% Satisfaction Guarantee, it's no wonder
Harrah's is Lake Tahoe's most popular casino. For reservations at the fabulous
Mobil Four Star and AAA Four Diamond Harrah's Lake Tahoe Hotel please call
1-800-HARRAHS(427-7247).
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The MS Dixie II takes Tahoe visitors on excursion cruises from
Zephyr Cove.
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Lake Cruises
M. S. DIXIE II PADDLEWHEELER
Zephyr Cove Resort. 775-588-3508. Tahoe's newest and largest paddlewheeler
from Tahoe's original paddlewheeler company! Spectacular sightseeing, great
food and unbeatable hospitality on a variety of daily cruises. Champagne
Brunch Emerald Bay Sightseeing, Emerald Bay Dinner and Sunset Dinner Dance
are offered. Cruisin' daily year round from historic Zephyr Cove Resort,
Highway 50, South Shore.
Touring Lake Tahoe
A
visit to Lake Tahoe can be anything you want it to be. You can ski, hike,
fish, swim or sunbathe, depending on the season. You can spend hundreds of
dollars a night for a penthouse suite at Harrah's or you can roll up in a
sleeping bag and gaze at the stars for nothing. You can snack on goose liver
pate or dine out on a Big Mac and fries, sip champagne or gulp a slurpee.
You can rent anything to get around on from a helicopter to roller skates,
and there are boats of every description, fast ones to pull you around on
waterskis, slower ones for trolling. You can even dance on a boat, a
paddlewheeler cruise boat with a jazz band aboard, on a warm summer's night
in the moonlight. Or draw a "full boat" at the poker table at one of the
gambling houses.
The South Shore
The
present community of Stateline sprawls across the area occupied in Tahoe's
quiet past by a pair of settlements called Lakeside and Edgewood. Lakeside
was centered on Carney's (formerly Lapham's) Stateline House, an inn built
in the early 1860s to serve the flood of Comstock traffic and bisected by
the California-Nevada boundary survey of 1873
The
inn burned in 1876 and was not rebuilt until 1892, by which time a small
settlement had grown up on the site. By 1901 Lakeside had flourished to the
extent of having a post office and a boat landing with regular steamer service.
A new survey in 1899 placed the heart of the community a half mile deeper
into California, and as the years passed in tranquility, Lakeside became
an attractive little enclave of summer cottages.
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This was Stateline in the 1930s, where Harrah's, Harvey's,
Caesar's and the Horizon outshine one another today.
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With
the scrambling dash toward exploitation which began in the early 1950s, Lakeside
property values soared enormously because of the proximity of the Nevada
casino developments. It became a clutter of motels, gift stores, cafes, and
other enterprises auxiliary to the gambling trade next door in Nevada. Some
of that clutter was swept away recently when a number of aging motels were
taken by right of eminent domain, paid for, demolished, swept away and replaced
by the modern new hotel you see next door to Harrah's.
Edgewood
originated in yet another of the strategically located stations on the Johnson
Pass Road, the renowned Friday's Station established by Friday Burke and
Big Jim Small in 1860. As soon as a log barn and a shed could be thrown together
to accommodate, respectively, horses and men, Friday's served as Nevada's
westernmost relay station for the Pony Express. Friday's was home station
for Pony Bob Haslem, the messenger whose famous ride - 380 miles on horseback
through "hostile Indian territory" - ranks as the outstanding feat of that
spectacular organization.
Burke
and Small also controlled the toll road franchise past their expanded station,
and collected as much as $1,500 a day in the peak months of the Comstock
traffic before the railroad. The Pioneer Stage Line used the station as a
horse change and dinner station as well.
When
the railroad destroyed the lake's roadside prosperity, the partners split
their holdings. Small kept the old station and Burke the lakefront land to
the east as far as Round Hill. By the 1880s Small was publicizing his "Buttermilk
Bonanza Ranch" by reporting tongue-in-cheek sightings of a mermaid "with
a fine chest development, beautiful white mustache one and one-half inches
long, and a most amenable nature" frolicking just offshore.
Remarkably
enough considering the rush to build everywhere along the lakefront, the
old Friday's Station still stands opposite the golf course, a small white
building in the trees. Its original hand-hewn interior walls and floors are
intact. It goes unnoticed by the iron tide of traffic that floods past it
each day, bound for the blaze of lights just down the road.
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The South
Shore was already a considerable center of action in the pre-Harrah era.
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Stateline
today is politically part of Nevada, but economically a part of California.
Most of the millions who visit the Tahoe basin have driven up from northern
and central California, and most of the thousands who serve them drinks,
deal them cards and carry their luggage on the Nevada side of the Lake go
home across the California line after work.
The
Casinos attract their crowds not only with their Tahoe surroundings, but
with fine food in great variety, entertainment, service and luxury.
Harrah's and Caesar's in particular have created the highest level
of excellence and rank with the finest hotels in the world. Add the pioneering
and ever-popular Harvey's and the new Horizon (originally built as Del Webb's
Sahara Tahoe) rising hugely up across the boulevard, and an astonishing stage
is set -- every imaginable enjoyment within easy reach and served in a setting
of incomparable natural majesty.
The
18-hole Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course, a beautiful par 74 championship course,
is open May through November. A little farther on, Nevada 207, the Kingsbury
Grade, intersects on the east, leading over the summit to the breathtaking
descent into the Carson Valley.
East Shore
Round
Hill Village is an enclosed shopping center housing a variety of shops, cafes,
bars and restaurants. A paved road leading to the lakeshore provides access
to Nevada Beach for swimming, boating and picnicking. Thenetwork of roads
serving the residential developments on the mountainside above provides any
number of magnificent views.
Zephyr
Cove is a couple of miles farther north, the lodge a familiar Tahoe favorite,
and the Marina serving as home port for the stern wheeler MS Dixie II,
the graceful trimaran Woodwind and a fleet of lesser vessels for rent. The
Dixie departs four times a day for lake cruises at 11, 2, 5 (dinner or drinks)
and 7:30 (dining and dancing). The itinerary varies according to the weather
but usually includes Emerald Bay and the scenic north and west shores. The
Woodwind makes scheduled departures daily and is also available for charter.
The High Water Princess also takes cruise passengers at Zephyr Cove. Take
a morning ride before your lake cruise if you like: the Zephyr Cove Riding
Stable rents horses for a scenic ride that affords a view of all four shores
of the Lake.
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Tahoe's natural beauty has been attracting vacation visitors
for more than a century. These passengers have been cruising on the steamer
Tahoe.
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The
State Park system provides some parking for shore fishermen with restrooms
and boat launching ramp. Beyond Glenbrook, US 50 turns west and climbs toward
Spooner's Summit and Carson City.
At
the junction with Highway 28, Lake Tahoe traffic takes a left turn and continues
north. A short distance beyond the junction is Spooner Lake, a developed
recreation area in the Lake Tahoe State Park. The trail around the lake is
slightly longer than a mile and a half and represents an easy and pleasant
hour's stroll, with herons, squirrels and dragonflies for companionship.
A tougher challenge is the five miles of uphill trail to Marlette Lake. Overnight
camping is permitted, but campers must register at Sand Harbor park headquarters
beforehand. In winter the Spooner Lake trails are used for crosscountry
skiing.
The
two lane highway continues to meander north along the Lake's eastern shore,
most of it undeveloped and much of it included in Nevada's Lake Tahoe State
Park. Park headquarters is at Sand Harbor, about eight miles beyond Spooner
Lake. Sand Harbor was created as a swimming beach and boat launching facility
at one of the loveliest sites on the lake. There is car and boat parking
available. Bathrooms and water are available, but no overnight camping is
permitted.
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Shakespeare is a big attraction on summer nights at Sand Harbor
in Nevada's Tahoe State Park.
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A
mile and a half walk to Hidden Beach provides a secluded spot for swimming
and sunbathing. Hidden Beach is also the trailhead for routes to Hobart Creek
and Marlette Lake. Sand Harbor park personnel can provide all information
about recreation opportunities at Lake Tahoe State Park, including the
Shakespeare performances at Sand Harbor, special events for kids, guided
nature hikes and other activities through the year. Fees are charged for
use of the facilities and the park is open year round.
North Shore
A
short distance north of Sand Harbor stands the Ponderosa Ranch. Activities
from pancake breakfasts to trail rides and hay rides combine with exhibits
of western memorabilia to create the attraction.
The
community of Incline Village spreads north and east away from the Ponderosa
Ranch, along the Tahoe shore and the pine-forested slopes above it. Here
begins the urbanized section of the north end of the Lake, a more relaxed
and less crowded form of city life than the L.A.-in-the Pines at the south
shore. There are no traffic jams here, anyhow. Yet.
There
are excellent restaurants here, among them the American eclectic Bobby's
Uptown (barbecued ribs, Louisiana gumbo, roast turkey), the ChinaChef (lemon
chicken, wor bar), and Marie France (filet mignon of pork with pears and
red wine sauce, roasted duck with rhubarb sauce).
The
Hyatt Regency is a capsule of cosmopolitan luxury in the forest, and
its Lone Eagle Grille on the lake shore is a magnificent setting for food
and drink.
Crystal Bay
Crystal
Bay begins where Incline Village leaves off and extends to the California
state line where a concentration of small gambling houses has been doing
a seasonal business since before World War II. During Prohibition the bar
at the Cal-Neva Lodge was an uproarious rendezvous, one of the most famous
and fashionable speakeasies in the American West, with gambling games presided
over by genial Jim McKay, whose career came to an end with a term in Leavenworth.
More recently it was owned in part by Frank Sinatra until the state gaming
authorities yanked his license (later restored) for having unsuitable
playmates.
The
Cal-Neva today is as respectable as any gambling house in the state, and
the largest at Crystal Bay with 200 rooms in a ten-story tower overlooking
the Lake. The state line slices through the swimming pool and the lobby,
but the gambling rooms are firmly on the Nevada side.
The
Tahoe Biltmore and the Crystal Bay Club add to the interest at the border.
"The season" is finally becoming a 12-month affair here, but some businesses
still close for the winter.
California
begins to the west of Crystal Bay, and California 267, an all-weather highway
north from King's Beach, puts Truckee and Interstate 80 only a dozen miles
away. Beware.
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