1,645 feet deep — second only to Crater Lake.
Lake Tahoe is a tectonic lake straddling the California-Nevada border in the Sierra Nevada, formed by faulting that began roughly three million years ago and later carved further by ice-age glaciers — 1,645 feet at its deepest, the second-deepest lake in the United States.
Lake Tahoe sits in a graben basin in the Sierra Nevada, its central block having subsided as the mountains on either side rose — a tectonic origin later reshaped by ice-age glaciers that scoured its bottom and deposited the moraines still visible around its edges. At 1,645 feet deep, it's the second-deepest lake in the country after Crater Lake. The commercial base spreads across three distinct hubs rather than one town: South Lake Tahoe on the California south shore, home to Tahoe Keys Marina (the lake's largest, and only inland marina) and the Heavenly Gondola's 2.4-mile ride to a 9,123-foot observation deck; Tahoe City on the west shore, anchored by Tahoe City Marina and lakefront restaurants Sunnyside and Chambers Landing; and Zephyr Cove on the Nevada side, with its own marina and a mile-long sandy beach. Emerald Bay State Park, a National Natural Landmark, holds Vikingsholm, a 1929 Scandinavian-castle replica mansion, at the water's edge. South Lake Tahoe covers the grocery run and the main hospital; Incline Village has its own hospital on the Nevada shore.
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