By Tony Bizjak, Sacramento Bee

Lake Tahoe’s Emerald Bay is perhaps the most spectacular nook in one of the world’s beautiful alpine basins. But it can be an elusive nook. This winter, avalanches closed the highway above the bay for weeks, severing the loop road around the lake.

What if the highway didn’t have to make that tight-rope walk across the steep mountainside behind the bay? What if it simply ran straight and low along the lake shore instead, like it does elsewhere in the basin? Of course, that would mean a bridge across the mouth of Emerald Bay.

The idea seems heresy, like putting braces on the Mona Lisa.

It almost happened.

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