A file photo of a father and son swimming in Lake Tahoe. A new website helps people discover real-time conditions in Lake Tahoe. 

The way I see it, there are two ways to jump into Lake Tahoe: slowly wade in or cannonball.

With few exceptions, I’m a wade-in kind of person. I take my time. Step up to the edge of the shoreline, dip my toes in, then shuffle a bit so the water laps at my ankles. I’ll take some deep breaths, enjoy the view, feel my toes go numb, and then keep shuffling forward. 

Summer starts the day I jump into Lake Tahoe. My summer started on a recent morning, after I hiked a steep slope to a lookout point. Considering I hadn't worn shorts in months, within minutes, the sun was already doing its work to burn my legs. When I reached the top of the lookout, I drank in the view and all that blue. A few boats crisscrossed the water. It was mid-week, and while I didn’t have the lookout to myself, the crowd was thin enough to spread out. I found a rock and sat awhile, letting the heat bake in. 

By the time I got back to my car, I was more than ready to cool off.

Beaches in South Lake Tahoe see an influx of visitors on July 4, 2021.

I drove down the hill, past the old-timey ice cream shop, burger joint and mini golf course in Kings Beach, and kept driving to Tahoe Vista, where I parked my car on the side of Highway 28. Jumping into Lake Tahoe takes some gusto, and I needed to fuel up. So before I walked down to the beach, I stopped into a little cafe called Pep’s Place that serves up breakfast burritos and sandwiches. I ordered turkey on a French roll, which the sandwich maker heated up and wrapped in foil. Then I walked across the street and headed down a little dirt path lined by aspens and tall pines to Sandy Beach. I found a shaded picnic table, sat down, ate my sandwich and worked up the courage to go for a swim.

With a depth measuring up to 1,644 feet, Lake Tahoe is among the deepest lakes in the world, and it’s the second deepest lake in the United States, next to Crater Lake. But here at Sandy Beach, the water is shallow, thanks to multiple sandbars that stack up off the shore. In the height of summer, after weeks of warm weather have heated the surface temperature of the lake, the North Shore can be one of the most pleasant places to swim in Lake Tahoe. On some hot August days, I’d swear the water is downright warm. 

But at the beginning of June, we’re still weeks away from that kind of mellow, warm shallows.

Beaches in South Lake Tahoe see an influx of visitors on July 4, 2021.

The average surface temperature in Lake Tahoe ranges from 42 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter to 70 degrees in the summer, according to the Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC). The surface water temperature varies across the lake, with drops up to 20 degrees when winds are strong and air temperatures are cold. Yet, despite how cold the water gets, Lake Tahoe never freezes. It’s too deep. There’s too much water.

Cold water shock kills an average of seven people in Lake Tahoe every year. Many of those tragedies occur when people jump off boats or watercraft in the middle of the lake, where the water is deep and the shoreline is far away. The shock cuts off the flow of oxygen, cramping muscles. One of the best things swimmers can do to stay safe from drowning is wear a life vest and be aware of conditions.

Swimmers, boaters and recreationists can stay up-to-date on Lake Tahoe’s water temperatures, wave heights, winds and current patterns thanks to a new website, hosted by TERC, that publishes real-time conditions. On Monday, surface water temperatures in Homewood, on the West Shore and where the lake is deeper, were 10 degrees colder than on the North Shore.

This summer, the lake is low once again, and the receded shoreline unveiled long beaches, rocks and algae — a grim sight for a lake so famous for its clarity. Filamentous algae washes up to shore and decomposes. It’s ugly. It smells. It’s yet another sign of climate change here in Lake Tahoe — warming waters create higher nutrient loads, which promote algae, according to TERC’s 2021 State of the Lake report.

In 1968, Tahoe’s average surface temperature was 50.4 degrees. In 2020, the average surface temperature was 52.8 degrees, a jump from even the year prior. The warming temperatures hold a large influence on many of the fundamental functions and inner workings of the lake, including the very systems that keep Tahoe’s water so fresh and clean.

The sand bars rise and recede off the shore of Sandy Beach, so at one point I was wading through ankle-deep water and the next step I was in water up to my knees. 

I kept walking like that for a way out, when finally the water reached a depth as high as my waist. I stood there for a while, mustering up some courage, letting my body adjust to the cold. And then I counted: One … two …

No matter how much I prepare, the cold always hits me straight on. I’ve gotten better at accepting it, mentally. My body wants to jump back up, but I try to stay under for a moment longer so my body calms down and takes in the soothing benefits of the cold water. 

I still don’t last long in such cold water though, and I’m certainly sticking close to shore, dunking in water that’s shallow enough for me to touch the bottom. After I came back up, I turned around and headed back to shore at a fast clip, breathing quickly. The lake’s surface temperature was in the low 50s. That air temperature, however, was a perfect 70-something.

When I got back to shore, I let the sun do its work to warm me back up and I waited for every last drop of water to evaporate off my skin. It wasn’t long before I was hot again, ready to dive in for a second time.

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Julie Brown is a contributing editor at SFGATE. She covers Lake Tahoe and writes about mountain communities throughout the West. Brown grew up on Tahoe's West Shore.