Welcome and Enjoy

It’s a season for celebration and respect

Welcome to mountain paradise. What are your plans? If you know what you’re after, turn to page 30 for a Glossary of Activities and find your sweet spot(s). Or skim it to discover vacation twists you may not have considered. Are you a newcomer to Tahoe? Take a national park brochure-style glimpse into the area’s “Top Attractions,” starting on page 15.

First-time visitors sometimes wonder why Tahoe isn’t a national park. The quality of the scenery and its singular ecology placed it in the same league as America’s early national parks. But despite a battle fought on its behalf by naturalist, John Muir, the history and politics of the Old West put a stake in the idea. Instead, Tahoe became a favorite playground of the well-heeled and worldfamous. The “Gilded Age” of the late 1800s saw the building of huge resort hotels around the lake. By 1960 and the Squaw Valley Winter Olympics, Tahoe had become “America’s Playground,” with new reasonable-priced hotels and vacation cabins popping up around its 72-mile lakeshore.

Through all those years, many shared Muir’s reverence for the natural Tahoe. Eventually, they came together on what is now a 70-year quest to find a balance between preserving Tahoe the natural wonder, Tahoe the vacation wonderland, and Tahoe the full-time community. As detailed in “Environmental Treasure” (next page), that journey has yielded great successes and yet today remains a work in progress, as important as ever. Please during your stay, share the stewardship locals feel for Lake Tahoe by: • Take public transit. Rides are usually FREE and never more convenient; North Tahoe’s TART system now includes door-to-door shuttles and park-n-ride lots in Truckee. • Get there by bike. Fun, paved trails are everywhere; most transit buses have bike racks. • Help “Keep Tahoe Blue” by cleaning up your trash and pet waste. • Respect the timeless beauty of granite cliffs and boulders by not defacing them with graffiti. • Protect Tahoe’s wild creatures. Give them space and don’t feed them human food. • Be fire safe! Wildfires are disastrous to communities and to Lake Tahoe’s water quality. • Skip single-use plastic bottles and fill your reusable bottle with delicious Tahoe tap water.

We hope you enjoy your Tahoe stay and that the pages of this guide help to enrich your time here.

CHACO MOHLER, Publisher

A new day dawns. PHOTO BY MIKE EADINGTON