A cold breeze chilled the crowd as it waited for the daring swimmers to arrive. An orange U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat was on safety duty near the pier. An officer aboard announced that the water temperature was 37.9 degrees, 2 degrees colder than last year. The information sent shivers through the festive gathering.



The women swam first, while the men waited their turn standing on the snowy beach, in a stiff wind, wearing nothing but bathing suits. They offered helping hands to the women as they returned to the beach; then the men hit the water amidst cheering. They returned to the beach minutes later to even more support from the people inside and outside of the restaurant.



Swimming Lake Tahoe
The first person to swim across Lake Tahoe, the largest Alpine lake in the United States, was Myrtle Huddleston, who accomplished the feat in August 1931. Her story will be covered in a TTNN story in a few months.

The current record for swimming the length of Lake Tahoe is held by Ken Harmon. He swam from Camp Richardson on the South Shore to Incline Village on the North Shore in a time of 11 hours, 23 minutes, 5 seconds. It was a 22-mile swim on the longest possible route across Lake Tahoe, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Harmon, a 45-year old from Danville, California, did the swim in August 2005 to help raise money for a new community pool in Danville.



The photos are (c) 2006 by Mark McLaughlin. He is a weather historian who lives on the North Shore.