An essay by Caroline Hickson
Although I visited Lake Tahoe as a baby, and again in Jr. High, my first significant appreciation is from my high school years. Throughout my life I have heard all about Tahoe because of its special place in the family of my mother. Its magic spell continues to this day for me, in spite of the degradation that has occurred since my teen years.
My grandfather and grandmother met at Tallac in 1910, when he worked as a fisherman there. They went on to have a family, buy a lot and build a house on Brockway Hill, and spend many weeks there in my mother early years. She continued the tradition by spending many spare weekends there in her young adulthood. She has shared many stories of the fun she had there, but interestingly they aren't colored with the overwhelming appreciation of Tahoe's size and beauty that my narrative would have included. Is this a trade-mark of her generation and its "take with a grain of salt" attitudes toward damaging the earth's resources? My generation is consciousness of degradation that was not considered a threat in my parent's generation (even though in those days sewer went into the lake, and logging took place in the lake basin.)
The most startling thing about the lake to me when I was in high school, aside from its size, was its clean rocks. In annual treks to Trading Post Resort in Carnelian Bay, I was continually thrilled, and appreciative of the complete absence of lake slime of any kind upon entering the lake to take a swim. In those days (1965, 1966) there was no algae, at least in the north end. I guess I'd been to enough lakes by then that I could rejoice at the cleanliness of Tahoe. I remember always remarking about this when I went swimming.
So, now my base at the lake is in Incline Village where my parents retired. How sad it has been to watch the algae get a firm grip on Crystal Bay, with no reversal in sight. When we walk out to swim, we slip and slide on the thick algae covering the rocks, stir it up into the water, and wonder if it is destined to remain this way forever. In addition there is now the evil weed growing in the marinas of Crystal Bay, milfoil, an invader from another continent, I think. Will our efforts to reduce pollution into the lake from the air and land cause these plants to recede in my lifetime? I am not optimistic.
Now, the next generation, my children who spent weeks every summer playing at the Tahoe beach, value Tahoe as a gem, and a place to revere and protect. But the Tahoe they know always had algae. In spite of the many reforms in practices that have been instituted since my teens, the opposing pressure of development has not been able to reverse damage that has occurred, or even stop the degradation where it stands. So the current young adults are fighting to protect a Tahoe that they have known -- which is a lesser place than the one I knew a short time ago.
What of the rest of the Sierra Nevada ecosystem? Where are there other changes which are significant to the health of the range? What will change in the next ten to twenty years before, as a society, we chose to protect the range with changes in behavior throughout California. Or are we destined to accept, one generation at a time, something less that what was? Is that the inevitable cost of the progression of civilization?
