Myth vs. Fact

KINGS BEACH KINGS BEACH INCLINE VILLAGE

Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe is an alpine lake that sits 1/3 within Nevada’s boundary. At 1,655 feet deep, it is TAHOE CITY the second deepest in the U.S. (after Crater Lake) and the 16th in the whole world. In fact, Lake Tahoe is so deep that the bottom of the lake is at the same elevation as Carson City, which sits on the valley floor below the Sierra Nevada. CALIFORNIA NEVADA

Sand Harbor State Park

A COUSIN TO THE LOCH NESS MONSTER LURKS BELOW THE WAVES.

Spooner Lake State Park State Park

There are many myths related to the lake’s legendary depths, including one that says the bottom has never been discovered. Let’s look at a few more of these stories, and hopefully set the record straight on a few!

TUNNELS ON THE LAKE’S BOTTOM CONNECT TO VIRGINIA CITY.

Cave Lake State Park

ZEPHYR

COVE

Van Sickle Bi-State Park

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE

People have long reported TO CARSON spotting a large, scaly serpent CITY surfacing above the water, though any proof of the creature is only in eye-witness accounts and out-offocus photographs. In the 1980s, the legends were turned into a children’s book, and the green cartoon monster named Tahoe Tessie has Tales of tunnels beneath the lake have been since become an unofficial around since the late 1800s. Reports of greedy lake mascot. miners digging all the way to Tahoe’s bottom or an underground river connecting to a vast boiling lake were originally published in newspapers as entertainment. TO MEYERS

JACQUES COUSTEAU MADE A SECRET DIVE.

In the 1980s, the famed oceanographer apparently made an unannounced submarine voyage at Lake Tahoe. When he surfaced, he allegedly said that the world is not ready for what he had discovered. There’s no evidence this voyage happened, but the lake has been explored by a submersible. In 2016, the Undersea Voyager Project located more than a dozen shipwrecks.

THE MOB SANK HUNDREDS OF BODIES TO THE BOTTOM.

It’s no secret the Mob had a presence in Tahoe during the mid-20th century, and it’s said that people who ran afoul of the bosses would find themselves in concrete shoes plummeting toward a watery tomb. There isn’t any proof that the Mob used the lake as a place to disappear bodies, and— to date—no mass graves have been discovered.