This is an REI co-op production.

When you go to Lake Tahoe, chances are you'll see Tahoe Tessie.

She's a sea monster. She varies in color and size.

Everything from 40 feet down to 3 inches long depending on whether she's printed on the side

of a bus or a restaurant menu or something in between.

She's a sort of minor mascot for the whole region, or a staple of the newspapers April

Fool's Day headlines. A gift shop monster, playful, friendly, always smiling, and no one

has ever, ever seen her in the lake. Except maybe on the side of a tour boat, of course.

People have seen something else, though.

Lake Tahoe is one of the clearest lakes in the world. If you look carefully over the side

of your kayak, you may realize that little rocks, a few feet under you, are actually

boulders much, much deeper down. And even deeper than the boulders, down where things get

a little dim. What moves like that? Fish? A big fish, an eel or... well, something that

looks nothing like the Tahoe Tessie from the gift shops.

Carefully, though. You're looking over the side of a kayak, remember? Any sudden movement

in a kayak can send you right into that icy water. Right in with whatever it is it's down

there. Welcome to the Camp Monsters podcast.

Every part of the country has its own legends to explain those things you hear, past to close

to your tent in the middle of the night. Whether it's around across the trail, just beyond

the beam of your flashlight. And every week we'll be traveling the country, sitting around

the campfire and trying to scare each other with stories about the things that live, just

beyond the fire light. While you're listening, remember that these are just stories. Sure,

...