In the latter part of September 1861, Samuel L. Clemens, known as Mark Twain, and a friend camped for three nights on this sandy beach after hiking more than 11 miles from Carson City and rowing about three miles across a deep bend of the lake now known as Crystal Bay. Hoping to sell trees for mining and development, they searched for a place to stake a timber claim and found one about three miles west of here. Twain called this spot Upper Camp because of the towering ridge above it, and the two used a flat granite rock as a table to play cards by firelight before falling asleep in the warm sand between boulders. Twain later recalled that, despite ants exploring their persons, they slept soundly, woke at early dawn in their original positions, and rose thoroughly refreshed. During a rowboat outing, the two drifted while looking down at submerged offshore boulders that Twain estimated were as large as a village church, and he marveled at water so transparent that in depths of twenty or thirty feet the bottom was perfectly distinct, making the boat seem to float in the air, so that they called these excursions balloon-voyages. The two spent their days working on their timber claim, but nearly lost everything when Twain let his campfire escape and set the forest ablaze.