Sand Harbor Beach, Lake Tahoe

Published by

Caitlyn

on

November 10, 2024

Sand Harbor Beach is one of those beautiful places you always see floating around Instagram.

Whenever I see photos of crystal clear turquoise water in any form, I always get it into my head that I have to see if it really looks like that for myself. (See also: Mexican cenotes, Lake Helen, Delta Lake…) Anyway: it *really* is that blue and beautiful.

We ended up here a day early because we were mudded out of our reserved campsite a few hours away. Instead of trying to force it, we chose to suck it up, stay flexible, and keep going for a few more hours – what was the harm? We were on road trip full of driving anyway.

On the way to Lake Tahoe, we looked up a place to stay, found the last room for a reasonable price at a small (but awesome) motel which we booked over the phone, and saw the most beautiful rainbow. It was all gonna work out.

We settled in to our room, and it was the first real bed we’d slept in for days. It was so much better than the air mattress in our mini van haha. The motel was Stevenson’s Holliday Inn.

It was steps away from Char Pit BBQ which was a super well known Tahoe spot and had such great food. Unfortunately, it just recently closed down and I believe the land has been bought by a chain 😦

We ate our food, look the longest hottest showers in the world, and cozied up for the evening – with plans to wake up super early and be first in line for a parking spot at Sand Harbor Beach. This was Saturday of Labor Day weekend, 2023.

The parking lot opens at 7am and I’d heard it fills super quickly. We paid $15 for parking (non-Nevada), but in state pays $10.

It was rainy, chilly, and breezy but that didn’t stop people from swimming, chilling in hammocks, setting up for bbq, and otherwise doing Labor Day things.

We spent an hour or so walking the boardwalk along the perimeter of the lake and ooh-ing and ahh-ing about how pretty it is.

The boulders around the lake edge remind me of the boulders in Joshua Tree, and we had so much fun climbing around them and inside if the tiny caves they made everywhere.

We kept getting so lucky with these beautiful rainbows. :’)

We could have spent so much more time there. It was so crowded, don’t get me wrong, but everyone was doing their own thing and with the way the boulders and curves are situated, it’s still easy to lose sight of other people. The water drowns out the sound of them too.

It’s most definitely on my list to go back in blistering hot weather so we can take full advantage of swimming in those perfectly clear pools, doing the aesthetic clear paddle board thing, and just doing other mermaid things.