Nevada's Little Tahoe

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Over the past few days, I've heard lots of radio advertisements for land at Walker Lake touting it as Nevada's little Tahoe. Now, as some of you may know or come to know, I happen to think that Nevada is a pretty place, but Walker Lake is certainly no Lake Tahoe.

Walker Lake sits in the middle of a salt flat, and as such there is little if any natural foliage near the lake. It's a terminal lake that oscillates greatly in total depth. Nearby Hawthorne Army Depot and the US Naval Submarine Base and the State Park take up a great deal of the shoreline to the south and the Paiute Reservation claims the shore to the north. If you get "shorefront" on Walker Lake, it's either at the town of Walker Lake (if you can call it a town), or in the salt marsh between that town and Hawthorne's bomb bunkers to the south. It's okay, but hardly scenic.

I've spent over a year researching land to buy in Wyoming for a ranch I want to build. The dean of my college comes from Lander, and my boss owns land southeast of Evanston and attended the university in Laramie, so I have good reconnaissance regarding where to get land depending on what proximity I want to amenities of life. Walker Lake is near amenities. With a military base nearby, there will always be shopping, but Walker Lake isn't near ANYTHING else, and it's smack dab in some of the worst land western Nevada has to offer. Why else would there be an Indian reservation nearby? Isn't that the cliché that the Indians got the worst land?

I encourage folks to do some research on this. Go see the property. I like Nevada, and I have some great pictures of the area, but I'm not sure I could be happy there for a long time. This represents a typical advertising ploy- painting in your mind's eye a picture that's not exactly the truth. If you want to live at Tahoe, you can live in South Lake or Incline Village, which are also in Nevada, pricey though it may be. Walker Lake has its own beauty and charm, and some interesting history which I encourage you to read. The sheriff is diligent and the speed limits are low. It's distant but with easy access to other places, but it's not where I'd choose to live if I were looking for land in Nevada.

You choose what you want and you get what you choose. If you opt to buy this land sight unseen, you deserve disappointment. Then again, maybe it's exactly what you're looking for, in which case, welcome to Little Tahoe Lake… Watch out for submarines…

Pictures pending once I have time to sort through and put up examples.