Lake Tahoe Today

I headed up to Lake Tahoe to dive today. Here is a video:

[youtubehq]HxckUQtRF4U[/youtubehq]

Fantastic score!

great video. thanks for the post.

interesting contrast with the driving through the snow to start. Guess the water temps weren't intolerable though. Quality vid as I've been curious to see more of Tahoe, but did you see any live critters at all? Thanks for sharing this.

marcus8:

interesting contrast with the driving through the snow to start. Guess the water temps weren't intolerable though. Quality vid as I've been curious to see more of Tahoe, but did you see any live critters at all? Thanks for sharing this.

Click to expand...

That looked pretty much like most dives in Tahoe - sterile. If you love looking at sand, granite rocks and logs, Tahoe is your dream dive destination! The most likely critters you'll see are crawdads. Fish are rare, although I did see a small school once. But I rarely dive there, as the ocean's much richer, closer and (most of the year) warmer. I did a dive about this time last year in Tahoe, and it was 40 degrees. Late summer, especially the week or two after Labor Day, the surface temp may be in the low 60s, and it will be in the mid 50s if you're not too deep, before it drops to the abyss. The temp drops off again quickly after that.

Mike, how deep were you? Except towards the end, that didn't look much like the bottom at Sand Harbor as I remember it (I only did a couple of dives there 3+ years back, so my memory may be faulty). You look like you were well outside the cove on the steep slope (with all the small rocks). AFAIR, inside the cove the slope is very shallow, max. depth being maybe 25 feet, and the rocks are mostly scattered.

Guy

The coolest thing I have seen in Tahoe was a Kokanee working a school of bait fish 2 feet in front of me Otherwise diving there is pretty boring. Did recover an anchor for a guy and got a free beer for the scooter trip back to the beach.

That thing by that rock was totally cool!

Diving in Lake Tahoe is very convenient for me. It is a 2 hour drive to Lake Tahoe as opposed to a 4 hour drive to the Ocean. That and the fact that mean gear comes home already cleaned in fresh water is very nice.

As to the temperature, this time of year is is 39 degrees, so this limits our bottom times. After 60 minutes in the cold water, I will start to get an ice headache.

Life. Well the life is smaller and I usually do see fish and crawdad on my dives, but I did not see any this last dive. Anyway, marine life is not usually the reason people dive in Lake Tahoe much as marine life is not the reason most people dive in caves. It is the structures and history that Lake Tahoe offers (there are a lot of objects in the lake ... some are old but well preserved). Some of the geologic structures in the lake are stunning.

Sterile? Yes. Boring? I don't think so. Oh, and my Nevada dive buddies are a joy to dive with!

But don't get me wrong, I like me some Ocean diving, it is just a bit of a drive for me.

Don't take my comment the wrong way. I hope to get to dive tahoe some day myself. Preferably with a scooter to get the most bang for my buck since I won't get to dive there much. I enjoyed the video and I hope you know I was just joking.

Brandon,

Its all Good. I know I might sound defensive, but am not reacting to anything... I am just trying answer the question other had on what's to see in the lake.

Guy,

We definitely got a little ways out from where most people kick to from Sand Harbor Beach. It is one of the benefits of using the scooter. We got 3/4 of a mile out pretty quick.

We are head out from the beach at heading of 200 - 220 until we get to about 45 feet. Then we follow the contour of the slope at about 70 feet. If you head out to the right, it can get pretty deep there and there are some walls out there as well.

I am new to this part of the lake and it is the first time I have scooter-ed at Sand Harbor. I am lucky to have a buddy that knows this area of the lake. I hope to have a few more trips out and really get to learn the ways-points and the features.