Mark Twain (when he was still known as Samuel Clemens) rhapsodized about Lake Tahoe, describing it as, "a noble sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the seas . . . As it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface, I thought it surely must be the fairest picture the whole world affords." That statement remains true nearly 150 years later. Everything about Lake Tahoe is larger than life: Nestled among the Sierra Nevada's 10,000-foot peaks, North America's highest and largest alpine lake (at 22 miles long, 12 wide, with 72 miles of shoreline), straddles two states (California and Nevada), and, with a depth of 1000 feet (on average), ranks as the country's second-deepest swimming hole. Indeed, with this kind of setting, Tahoe certainly merits its indigenous Washoe name – the tribe's word for "Lake of the Sky" was, you guessed it, Tahoe.