Tens of thousands headed to South Lake Tahoe

With the three-day weekend starting for many on Friday, visitors started arriving in South Lake Tahoe early Thursday. If the amount of congestion on local roads and the crowds in the grocery stores are any indication, this is going to be a very busy holiday!

An estimated 50,000 to 55,000 people will be using South Lake Tahoe hotels, motels, campgrounds, timeshares and vacation home rentals. Another 50,000-70,000 will be enjoying the fireworks from the South Shore. This includes full time residents, part time residents and drive in day visitors.

While it is hard to truly gather the accurate numbers,

There are currently 1,535 licensed vacation home rentals in the city limits and another 700 in the county, 2,246 casino hotel rooms, 5,174 motel/hotel rooms, 1,350 camping spots, and 4,324 fractional units.

There is no way to know how how many people use each unit. According to Mike Frye of the Lake Tahoe Visitor's Authority, no jurisdiction has real, hard numbers for visits and no valid means for verification. "It’s impossible to know true numbers so one ends up with guestimates," Frye said.

Some hotels and motels still have rooms for the fourth, but many places have filled up. Kathy Liebhardt, owner of Tahoe Destination Vacation Rentals, said all of the 18 homes she manages are booked through the weekend. Same story with Lake Tahoe Lodging, Tallac Realty and Rentals and Tahoe Keys Resort. Beach Retreat at Tahoe, Hard Rock Lake Tahoe and MontBleu Resort are a few of the lodging locations with rooms available as of Thursday evening. VRBO and HomeAway.com showed a few.

With the extra beach available for fireworks viewing due to lower lake levels, there may be record numbers watching the "Lights on the Lake."