I like people but I don’t like crowds. I don’t actually mind crowds either if they don’t cause congestion. Some crowding in a subway station is fine as long as it doesn’t result in me not getting on a train. I don’t mind busy city streets as long as I don’t have to stand in line for anything. There is no restaurant that’s good enough to make it worthwhile standing in line to get a table.
If you visit Lake Tahoe on a summer weekend, you will encounter crowds, and you will encounter congestion. The lake’s circumference is 72 miles, and all of them are crowded. In particular, anywhere that has beach access or coffee for sale will have no parking and crying children.
This is puzzling, because there are plenty of smaller lakes with less crowded beaches nearby. Donner Memorial State Park, 20 minutes north from Tahoe City on Route 89, has a great swim area. Continue north on Route 89 for another 20 minutes through a decidedly uncrowded pine forest, and you’ll arrive at the junction to Jackson Meadows Road. Be careful as you turn not to get hit by one of the logging trucks leaving the forest every few minutes with their cargo of heavy-looking tree trunks.
If your car has all-wheel drive, continue on the dirt road to Independence Lake, named by Lola Montez. It’s so remote that you may have the lake to yourself. You can’t bring your own boat, but they are providing free kayaks most days in summer. Bring a fishing rod, there are plenty of trout.
Webber Lake is further down Jackson Meadows Road and is reachable without all-wheel drive. It’s not close to anything else, except a waterfall that looks like it was created for the final scene of a Wild West movie where the bad guy falls to his death after being shot. Even so, someone built a hotel on its shore in 1860. The building is still there but it’s boarded up and I wonder what it’d take to renovate and re-open it. For now, I’m happy with it being closed and the crowds remaining down in Tahoe.
Nehaveigur 