Sand Harbor and the Nevada State Park
Near Incline Village, Nevada
The white sand beach and the rounded granite boulders here at Sand Harbor make this one of the most photographed spots on all of Lake Tahoe, and it is the crown jewel of Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park. But this postcard scene has a working past. By the eighteen seventies Sand Harbor was a busy timber landing, a place where logs cut from the surrounding slopes were gathered and shipped out to feed the mills and mines of the Comstock era.
Much of the Nevada shoreline you see was once part of the enormous private holdings of the millionaire George Whittell Junior. In the nineteen sixties and seventies the state of Nevada acquired these lands, and they became Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park, protecting miles of shoreline, forest, and mountain backcountry for the public. Today Sand Harbor draws visitors who come to swim in the astonishingly clear, cold water, to paddle among the boulders, and to scramble across the warm granite.
The shallow coves let you see straight to the bottom, a vivid reminder of why Tahoe is famous for its clarity. The park is so popular that on busy summer days the parking lot fills early and its gates close. What was once a place for hauling timber out of the basin is now a place devoted to protecting its beauty.
