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As a diver that dives Lake Tahoe at least six times a month I would like to remind you that Lake Tahoe is a high altitude lake and is VERY cold below the 60' mark. It's about 42 degrees at 60', and will drop to 39 degrees at the 100' mark, so you might want to think about a good dry suit. Above 60' the water temp is between 42 - 75 degrees depending on the bottom compsition and water depth. Now about the altitude conversions. I would STRONGLY recommend that you use the NOAA altitude conversion table to adjust your actual depths to theoratical depths and take into account also the cold water so add an additional 10'. So a dive to 90' would be calculated as a 120' dive once you take all the factor into account. (Note: For safety we assume Lake Tahoe to be at 7000') These table also adjust the deco stops to compensate for the lower atmospheric pressure. Also remember that if you plan to stay in Reno and drive to the lake you must take the drive to the lake into your dive profile planning. Example: If you stayed the night in Reno and then drove to Lake Tahoe you would arrive at the lake with a pressure group of and "L" on the PADI dive table, based on the rules for altitude diving. So you'll need to compensate for the residual NO2 in your body after arriving at the lake. I do not even want to comment on the part of your question about being able to dive deeper on a given gas mixture because of the reduced atmospheric pressure, not because I do not have an option on this subject, but because I don't concider myself an expert or experienced enough and I do not want you or anyone else to be Lake Tahoe's next victim, because of my option. Tahoe still has at least two divers from last year in her water depths that have not been recoved since they were diving the wall at Rubicon and the bottom is at 1100' at that point. We'll I'll get off my soap box for now, just wanted to let you know the truth about diving Lake Tahoe. I hope you do come up and dive are beautiful lake and enjoy the wonderful views of the hills. Keith Irvine
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