Talk:Lake Tahoe

So, we have a bit of a problem with Lake Tahoe and the geographical hierarchy. The shores of Lake Tahoe are a really cohesive travel destination, but the region straddles the border between two American states -- California and Nevada. We normally don't have regions with two or more "parent" regions -- the chances of overlap are too high. When there's overlap, there's no "definitive" guide to a place... and contributors and readers get confused.

So, there's two things we can do here: one is to divide Lake Tahoe into its California and Nevada sides, like Lake Tahoe (California) and Lake Tahoe (Nevada). Then we could have a hierarchical structure like this:

United States <country>
- California <region> (state)
  - Southern California <region>
  - Sacramento Valley <region>
  - ...
  - Lake Tahoe (California) <region>
- Nevada <region> (state)
  - Eastern Nevada <region>
  - Greater Las Vegas <region>
  - ...
  - Lake Tahoe (Nevada) <region>

Lake Tahoe is thought of by it's residents as North, or South Tahoe. The West Shore is another region of note, with access to wilderness areas such as "Desolation Wilderness", or "The Rubicon Trail", an off road vehicle route. During winter months snowfall may cause road closures at Emerald Bay, isolating the West Shore from the South Shore communities for weeks at a time. North Lake Tahoe is often now called "No. Tahoe/Truckee" as the town of Truckee is the gateway for vehicle traffic entering North Tahoe from California. Two roadways from California provide access to Lake Tahoe, U.S. 50 to South Tahoe, and interstate 80 via Truckee to North Tahoe. From Nevada, rte. 207 meets 50 near the border in the town "Stateline", NV. U.S. 50 from California is the main drag through the town of South Lake Tahoe, and continues to Carson City NV, and eastward where it is known as "America's Loneliest Road". It can be many miles between filling stations out there! From Reno NV rte 431 known as the "Mt. Rose Highway" connects to the town of Incline Village, on the North Shore, in Nevada. Rte 431 climbs to a summit of 8889 ft, with year round snow removal. Commuting times can vary with the tourist season and road/snow conditions, or road construction, and a drive from North to South is about an hour on average without any traffic considerations.

As a point of interest, or maybe frustration to many, construction and development in Lake Tahoe is governed in many ways by the "Tahoe Regional Planning Agency" (TRPA) for environmental reasons. The TRPA includes representatives from both states, including their four counties, the League to Save Lake Tahoe, the Sierra Club, and also a Congressional appointee. Various other water quality management agencies are also involved.

Summer recreation includes boating, camping, cycling, rock climbing, golf. Daytime temperatures from late June to mid September range from 80*-95* with overnight lows around 55*.

Winter ski seasons start when snow conditions arrive, hopefully before the Thanksgiving holiday, and last through the Memorial Day weekend for ski areas Alpine Meadows or Squaw Valley (No. Shore). Sugar Bowl, Boreal Ridge, Northstar, Homewoood, Mt. Rose, and Diamond Peak are on the North Shore. Royal Gorge is near Truckee and is America's premier cross country ski resort. So. Shore ski areas include Heavenly Valley, Kirkwood, and Sierra at Tahoe. For powder skiing Kirkwood, Alpine Meadows, Homewood, and Sugar Bowl are recommended. On windy days Northstar can operate chair lifts while many other resorts shut down. Squaw Valley is considered by many locals and experts as the most challenging terrain. with cliffs, moguls, and steep slopes.

Dining options on the North Shore include a large selection of restaurants, catering to visitors from the S.F. Bay area with creative food and extensive wine menus. The So. Shore dining scene focuses more on mid priced cuisine, with a few notable exceptions. The casinos on the So Shore attract most of the tourist business away from local operators with buffets and entertainer attractions. This is a factor separating North Lake from South Shore, as many tourists have different ideas about their Tahoe Vacation.

This wouldn't be all that bad -- I think it's pretty common in the area to refer to the "California side" and the "Nevada side". There's only a few inhabited areas that straddle both -- where the Cal-Neva casino is... I think it might actually be called Cal-Neva.

The other is just to say that Lake Tahoe is a region of both California and Nevada. I'm kind of inclined to stretch our idea of a hierarchy for this, and other instances like it. I think it makes a good exception to the hierarchy rules, if applied carefully. I think Tahoe is a good application of the exception.

Comments, ideas, suggestions? --(WT-en) Evan 19:12, 19 Jan 2004 (EST)

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I like the idea of making Lake Tahoe an exception to the hierarchy. It would be rather cumbersome to separate it into two, especially since the people who visit Tahoe don't think of it as "Tahoe, California" and "Tahoe, Nevada". Can we link it from both states' pages? --(WT-en) Anca

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I agree with Anca, and it kinda fits the destination-rule-of-thumb (ie "where do you sleep?") as people _do_ eat in California and sleep in Nevada or vis-versa. I figuer if the Grand Canyon is one place despite about 100 miles between the north and south rim, then Tahoe sure as heck is. The other thought is to keep the Tahoe page very general and then just deal with the city-level so you'd have:

Nevada--Tahoe--Incline Village California--Tahoe--South Shore

and Tahoe would be the same for both...(WT-en) Majnoona 22:53, 19 Jan 2004 (EST)

I think you mean:

Nevada <region> (state)
- Lake Tahoe <region>
  - Incline Village <city>
  - South Lake Tahoe <city>
  - ...
California <region> (state)
- Lake Tahoe <region>
  - Truckee <city>
  - Tahoe City <city>

I think that's the right way to do it. The Lake Tahoe page should be formatted like the region article template -- and have the same depth of information. Restaurant, bar, other information should probably be on the individual city pages, with maybe some highlights on the region page. --(WT-en) Evan 23:44, 19 Jan 2004 (EST)

Ski resorts

I also unlinked the ski resorts. Resorts kind of lie on the border between an attraction and a destination. We don't usually write articles about attractions -- just destinations.

Most resorts do have hotels, restaurants, etc., but I'm not sure we'd write individual guides about each one. I made the links on this page into attraction listings -- we might want to make destination pages about some, on a case-by-case basis. --(WT-en) Evan 19:14, 19 Jan 2004 (EST)

Yaouch! Those are trickey... I think this will have to be a case-by-case one, which mean lots of arguing. In the case of Tahoe, my instinct is that they are attraction-- big ones with lots of stuff, but attraction all the same. Maybe list there stuff as attractions and hotels and restaurants as needed? Cause some people go for the day, some for the evening, and some spend the night... unlike, say Verbier in France, which is a ski resort _and_ a town (there's nothing else around for miles). I guess just start is as attraction and see where it goes.(WT-en) Majnoona

Hmm, what should we do about the fact that at Northstar, you can do things in the summer (like mountain biking) as well as in winter (skiing)? I guess I'll show Northstar twice, once for summer stuff and once for winter stuff. Comments? -- (WT-en) Anca

TODO's

Link to all the ski resorts, add price info for each
Recommended hotels/motels?
Ski Lease info in more detail
Rank the resorts from a snowboarding perspective (?) is this a good idea?
Travel by Bus to Lake Tahoe
Index of good capmsites
Restaurants, coffeeshops, and wifi hotspots

-- (WT-en) Anca

Removed some extlinks

I took out some external links, but these might be useful for research.

--(WT-en) Evan 14:42, 11 Jun 2004 (EDT)

Okay, I evicted these two because I see no evidence that they actually link to what they claim to link to:

http://www.tahoe.com/ - Lake Tahoe online newspaper. (points to some newspapers, but I see no news on it now)
Official Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce (whois provides a contact address 500 miles away in La Jolla. Does provide a nice set of links to real chambers of commerce though. Whoever owns this site has been pagerank scumming)

Also, there is a list of Chamber of Commerces and suchlike on the California Gov't website, but it looks to me like Tahoe has fragmented Chambers (one for each subregion) rather than any overriding single Chamber.

-- (WT-en) Colin 19:39, 11 Jun 2004 (EDT)