The first person to swim across Lake Tahoe was a woman, naturally, Myrtle Huddleston. Yes, Myrtle accomplished this feat in 1931, the same year we legalized gambling in Nevada, and there were more than a few bets placed on Myrtle to not make it…

But Myrtle did make it. She swam from Glenbrook to Tahoe City, twelve miles, without a wetsuit. It took her 23 hours. And what was amazing about her marathon crossing was that during the night she got separated from her escort boat. So there she was, in the middle of Lake Tahoe, in the middle of the night…alone. Not since Jonah found himself inside that big fish has anybody felt quite so alone, I can only imagine…

At dawn they spotted her, and on that escort boat was her son, her 12-year-old son, and when he saw his mother he shouted out to her, “Ma, you can make it!”

Well, those were the last words in the world Myrtle Huddleston wanted to hear right then, but she did it. She put her head down, swam on, and she made it. They carried her up to the Tahoe Tavern on a gurney. Myrtle lost 12 pounds in the crossing. So if ever you want to lose twelve pounds in one day, there it is, The Myrtle Huddleston Weight Loss Plan, guaranteed to work every time. But try not to get lost in the night, it’s such a worry to everybody…

Personally, I have great admiration for Myrtle’s accomplishment, for I swam two miles in a leaky wetsuit held together with Duct Tape before I was ordered out of Lake Tahoe by a lifeguard during The World’s Toughest Triathlon.

Just before I was instructed to, “Follow me!” I could see my grandmother’s face on the bottom of the lake, and she had been gone from this earthly realm for ten years. Next, I remember shaking like a Trembling Aspen in front of a humongous heater inside a First Aid Tent, trying to thaw out.

When I asked, “Can I go now?” I was told by a medical practitioner, “You were white when you came in here, you’re purple now, we’ll let you go when you’re red.”

For a year after that embarrassing falling-out, I was greeted in various Tahoe taverns with this question, “Does anybody know the difference between McAvoy and the Titanic?”

“Yeah, the Titanic had a band!”

More recently, this summer, August of 2025, a hearty 55-year-old man, Alex Kostich, became the fastest person to swim the width of Tahoe when he swam from Homewood, California to Glenbrook, Nevada in four hours, 28 minutes and 55 seconds. Should I happen to run into Alex here at the North Shore of Lake Tahoe, I shall buy him an adult beverage of his choice and carry him around Incline Center twice on my shoulders. Then the two of us can hoist one on high to the greatest long-distance swimmer of all time, Myrtle Huddleston