Emerald Bay State Park

Part ofGold Country & the Northern Passes

A glacial fjord on Tahoe's west shore with the lake's only island and a Scandinavian house at the water.

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Duration

Two to four hours with the walk down to Vikingsholm.

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Admission

Day-use parking fee; Vikingsholm tours are separately ticketed and seasonal.

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Best Season

Late spring through October; CA-89 above the bay can close in winter storms.

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Fun Fact

Fannette Island is the only island in all of Lake Tahoe, and the ruin on its summit is a sixteen-foot-square stone tea house reached by motorboat for afternoon tea.

The Story

A glacier cut this bay and left it hanging off the west shore of Lake Tahoe, a near-enclosed basin of shallow granite that turns the water the color the name promises. Interior named it a National Natural Landmark in 1969 for exactly that: mountain building and glacial carving, legible from the road at Inspiration Point.

Fannette Island is the only island in Lake Tahoe, a granite dome rising about 150 feet out of the bay with the stone shell of a tea house on top. That, and the house below, belong to the same story: in 1928 Lora Josephine Knight bought the head of the bay, and the next summer some two hundred workers built Vikingsholm, a thirty-eight-room house modeled on Norwegian and Swedish stave churches and farmsteads after Knight and her architect toured Scandinavia for ideas. It is considered the finest Scandinavian-style building in the hemisphere, and it is reached only on foot: a mile down from the highway, dropping five hundred feet, which you then climb back.

The bay floor is protected too. In 1994 the state made the water part of the park, and a maritime heritage trail marks sunken barges and boats for divers.

This is Wašišiw country, and the lake is the center of their world. Come early; the lots on CA-89 fill by mid-morning all summer.