Tahoe Keys

Tahoe Keys is California's only Lake Tahoe marina built inside a year-round private canal system — 256 wet slips threaded through a 720-home residential lagoon grid carved in the early 1960s from what was once the Truckee Marsh delta on the south shore. The channel-depth honesty matters because it constrains every booking decision: the canal entrance shoals to 9 ft at the late-September seasonal low pool, and the Tahoe Keys Property Owners Association is permitted to dredge biennially under a Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Environmental Improvement Program permit. The 2022 TRPA Aquatic Weed Control Method Test FEIR documented the basin's recurring Eurasian watermilfoil and curlyleaf pondweed infestations, which have driven a $20 million multi-year herbicide-plus-UV-light treatment regime that closes portions of the West Lagoon to recreational craft on a rolling weekly schedule between May and October — slip-renters check the TRPA control-zone map before launching. Sailboats with a fixed mast above 40 ft cannot clear the US-50 highway bridge that gates the canal mouth, which caps the marina's bookable vessel-length to 40 ft LOA across all 256 slips (one of the strictest LOA caps among California's high-volume marinas). The fuel dock holds gasoline and ethanol-free premium year-round but ice-in typically forces a four-week January closure when the canal surface freezes solid enough to crush the floating fuel-hose hardware; pumpout stays open through the freeze under a heated-hose arrangement. The marina lot prohibits RV and oversize-trailer parking outright — no signage exception — and the closest legal oversize-vehicle staging is the City of South Lake Tahoe's Campground by the Lake on US-50 (1.2 mi east, 35-ft rig cap, 50-amp electric, May through October only). For longer rig cap or shoulder-season staging, USFS Tallac Historic Site staff direct visitors to William Kent Campground on the west shore (USFS, dry only, 35-ft cap) or to private RV resorts in Meyers 8 miles south on US-50.