tional Register of Historic Places.
With funding from the Nevada Division of State Lands, New Millennium Dive Expeditions executed dives from 2009 through 2011 for the purpose of gaining additional footage and providing detail for a map that charts the wreckage site.
“During these dives, we were able to create a bathymetric image of the SS Tahoe and in that image, we located the point at which the SS Tahoe hit the bottom as we found a debris field directly above the wreck site in 335 feet of water,” McClellan said. “This is where the SS Tahoe violently hit the bottom, breaking off the bow structures, and then laid down and slid some 150 or so feet to her present resting place.”
While New Millennium Dive Expeditions has plenty of laurels to rest on after accomplishing the astounding feat of exploring the sunken SS Tahoe, McClellan and some of his partners continue to use SCUBA diving as a means of broadening knowledge about what lurks beneath the surface of Lake Tahoe.
The nonprofit entered a partnership with University of Nevada, Reno limnologists to provide scientists that study The Lake with personal observations of underwater conditions from the surface down to about 450 feet.
However, McClellan will always be closely tied to the first dive down to the SS Tahoe, thereby performing a feat of historical alchemy, transforming the fallen and lost glory of a bygone era into a surer, more durable glory by replacing the allure of affluence with the enticements of adventure.
Matthew Renda is a Santa Cruz–based writer.