I’ve oftentimes entertained the opinion – unfashionable in the current climate, it hardly needs stating – that America could well be the greatest country on Earth. I accept there’s a lot about it that drives me spare, not least the way Americans sprinkle sentences with archaic phrases like “oftentimes”, and preface each step in any series of instructions with, “go right ahead and…” And yes, there’s the small matter of you-know-who.
But even allowing for these foibles, the case for greatness is compelling. It has every type of landscape you care to name: from deserts to mountains, tropical beaches to frozen waterfalls; grand canyons, mighty rivers, forests and everglades, geysers and glaciers. It builds impossible things, makes some damn good wine and has the friendliest people you’ll ever meet.
And it has Lake Tahoe.
I’m not quite prepared for the exquisite beauty of the world’s second-largest alpine lake, partly because I’m busy driving on what feels unnervingly like the wrong side of an icy road, guiding an excessively large SUV through a narrow pass in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The lake comes into view gradually – flashes of sapphire flickering between the trees. The strobing intensifies until a blob of blue fills the entire windscreen, and I have no choice but to pull over, get out and gawk.
Straddling California and Nevada, Lake Tahoe is known as “the jewel of the Sierra Nevada”. Snowy mountains wrap round its shores on all sides, and dark forests fringe golden beaches sprinkled with granite boulders. But what gets most people is the almost surreal transparency of the water (you can almost walk into the lake without noticing it’s there) and how it continually spins the colour wheel, landing on cobalt blue, turquoise, aqua, emerald green or steel grey, depending on the light and the time of day. You can’t look away.
It doesn’t surprise me to learn the lake attracts 15 million visitors a year, more than the combined number of visitors to Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks. The area has the highest concentration of ski resorts in North America (more than 15 are dotted around the lake) while in summer you could just about cross the lake using the various watercraft as stepping stones.
