It has no way out. Water collecting at the head of Talbot Canyon sinks into the ground and comes back up as a spring a few hundred yards down-canyon, the source that feeds Talbot Creek toward Lamoille Creek and the Humboldt beyond. Verdi Lake sits under ten acres at 10,184 feet, the highest basin in the Ruby Mountains and the last to lose its ice each spring, eighty-six feet down at the deepest sounding. The one stocking record on file is a single drop: 748 cutthroat, 1.6 inches long, from a hovering helicopter on August 9, 2022. Reaching it otherwise means roughly nine miles of non-motorized trail, climbing out of Lamoille Canyon along Talbot Creek. The nearest weather station sits about 4,400 feet below it, down in the valley.
curator · lake-level · as of Sep 3, 2026
The facts
- Surface area 0 km² usgs-3dhp · lake-level · as of Jun 2, 2026
- Nearest town Lamoille · 13.7 km osm-overpass · lake-level · as of Jun 2, 2026
- Bird species (within 25 mi) 160 ebird-api-v2 · lake-level · as of Jun 2, 2026
- Bird diversity index 0.83 ebird-api-v2 · lake-level · as of Jun 2, 2026
- Median home value $273,800 census-acs-2024-b25077 · block-group-level · as of Jun 2, 2026
- Water clarity Clear curator · lake-level · as of Sep 3, 2026
- Night sky Darkest skies viirs-black-marble-vnp46a4 · lake-level · as of Sep 3, 2026
- Surroundings Rural — open country, few close neighbors curator · lake-level · as of Sep 3, 2026
- Water origin Natural lake curator · lake-level · as of Sep 3, 2026
In more detail
- Climate
- strongly four-season; cold winters (~26°F mean), mild summers (~63°F); ~31 in precip/yr noaa-normals-1991-2020-descriptor · lake-level · as of Jun 2, 2026
- Public access
- Feature verification: this Verdi Lake is a remote 10,184-ft glacial tarn at the head of Talbot Canyon in the Ruby Mountains, Elko County (near Lamoille) - NOT the town of Verdi, NV (Washoe County, near Reno), which shares only the name. Input centroid (40.6484514, -115.3537607) matches the USFS/Wikipedia-reported location almost exactly. There is no road, boat ramp, or developed shoreline; the lake sits inside designated Wilderness, so access is hike/backpack/horseback-only via the Talbot Creek Trail (~5.2 mi), reached from the Lamoille-to-Talbot Trail (~4 mi) off the Lamoille Canyon Scenic Byway. No fees or permits are required. Fees/permits: None found. USFS trail pages and wilderness page list no fee or permit requirement for this trail/lake.. Sources: fs.usda.gov (fetched 2026-07-12); nvtrailfinder.com (search-extraction 2026-07-12). curated-web-harvest · lake-level · as of Jul 12, 2026
- Dogs and pets
- medium — 0 dog parks within 25 mi (OSM); state rule: Nevada State Parks require pets to be caged, contained in a vehicle, or kept on a leash no longer than 6 feet. Pets are barred from designated swimming beaches, buildings, and any area a park supervisor designates as closed to pets, unless written approval is granted. A few individual parks (e.g., Echo Canyon, Washoe Lake) carve out a 200-foot-radius exception around campsites/picnic areas where pets need not be leashed if under immediate owner control. (NAC 407.140 (Nevada Administrative Code, Chapter 407 - State Parks and Monuments), fetched 2026-07-12); Humboldt-Toiyabe NF wilderness-wide pet policy: dogs must be under control, on leash or responsive to voice command; pet waste treated like human waste, not left on trails/campsites or within 100 ft of water sources. No restriction unique to Ruby Mountains Wilderness beyond this forest-wide rule. (fs.usda.gov, fetched 2026-07-12) curated-web-harvest · lake-level · as of Jul 12, 2026
- Property tax
- 0.49% ACS effective-rate proxy (2024 ACS 5-year; Elko County anchor: $1,492 median real-estate taxes paid ÷ $301,400 median owner-occupied home value; Nevada proxy 0.47%, +0.03 percentage points). census-acs-2024-property-tax · county-level · as of Dec 31, 2024
Where it’s heading
Stable hand-rated for v0.1 · lake-level · as of Sep 3, 2026
Stable: a roadless alpine tarn with no shoreline structure, launch, campground or parcel — there is no place trajectory to rate. Elko and Spring Creek's growth sits on the far side of an 11,000-ft crest; the Ruby Mountains leasing fight (USFS "not suitable" 2019; DOI 20-year withdrawal proposed 2024-12-30; reported reversal April 2025, unverified) is a land-use condition around the range, unresolved, not a change at the water.