[Illustration: VIRGINIA CITY, NEVADA, AS IN THE DAYS OF THE COMSTOCK LODE. STILL FURNISHES RICH YIELDS OF PRECIOUS MINERALS]
Lake Tahoe, largest of the world’s mountain lakes, is 23 miles long by 13 miles broad, 6,220 feet above sea-level, and over 2,000 feet deep. It is a body of the purest, clearest, and most wonderfully tinted water imaginable, held in a mountain rimmed cup with its edge crested with ever present snow, sparkling as a jewel. Between snow line and the lake are beautiful pine forests, in which, half hidden, are such famous resorts as Tahoe Tavern, McKinney’s, Tallac, Glenbrook, Brockway, and Tahoe City. The summer climate with great abundance of sunshiny days, the invigorating pine-scented atmosphere, and the cool nights and delightful days, alone make of Tahoe and its neighboring Sierra lakes—Fallen Leaf, Cascade, and others—an unsurpassed summer place. But when are added the forests, the scenery of the Snowy Range, the fishing and hunting, and the out of door sports, the first place among mountain lake resorts must be given to this region. A swift and well fitted steamer circles the lake every summer day from Tahoe Tavern.
The trout of Tahoe, the Truckee river, and neighboring lakes and streams, make good the claim that no place excels this region for the fisherman. Usually they run from three to six pounds in weight, but specimens weighing over thirty pounds have been taken.
Such out of door joys as boating, horseback riding, mountain climbing, and hunting, can be enjoyed under the most favorable conditions. Excursions up Freel’s Peak, and Mt. Tallac, and to Glen Alpine, are very much worth while. Of the hotel accommodations, it is, perhaps, enough to say, that one may be comfortable in a tent or a cabin, or enjoy hotel service unexcelled at any summer resort in America.
[Illustration: THE OVERLAND LIMITED AT FLORISTON CLOSE TO THE CALIFORNIA LINE, THE PORTAL TO A RIDE THROUGH SCENES OF GREAT BEAUTY]
West of Truckee on the Overland Route, we pass Webber, Donner, and Independence Lakes. The unfortunate Donner party camped by the lake of that name, snowed in, in the winter of 1846-47, losing 43 of its 83 members before relief came in February. Of these mountain glacial lakes, cups of clear water, there are some six thousand in the region between Truckee and the Tule river to the south.