We enjoy knowing more about a site or the people who helped make each place what it is today. And we love discovering new places. Several of our favorite outings combine the fresh outdoors with historic remnants that reveal a little bit about the history of the place.

The Central Sierra Nevada has a remarkable story to tell. Much of its saga is the stuff of history books – even legends. Native Americans lived and traded with tribes living on both sides of the Sierra Nevada. During the Gold Rush, the Central Sierra Nevada teemed with Argonauts who sought gold in every river and stream. Many stayed to settle in California and make it the rich state it has become today. Each person, each place had their own story.

The Donner party made history; the Stevens-Murphy party crossed the trail before them. Both stories are remarkable. The Henness Pass Road helped Nevada’s Virginia City and the Comstock prosper; the Central Pacific Railroad helped a nation prosper. California’s Gold Rush included events the world had never seen before and has never experienced at the same level since. The Rush is a sweeping epic that is nothing more than the numerous stories – some grand, some mundane, some tragic – of those pioneers and communities who made it historic. The Central Sierra was the richest of all the gold discoveries and provided the greatest success.

The first crossing of the Sierra Nevada by pioneer wagons was successful across Donner Pass; the greatest tragedy of a wagon party that did not successfully cross the mountains was also trying to cross that same pass. The Central Pacific Railway, the first Transcontinental Railroad, was constructed through the mountains over the pass also; the Lincoln Highway, the first Transcontinental Highway in the U.S., found its way through here too.

Sugar Bowl, the first commercial ski area in California is within our area. At that time, the 1960 Winter Olympics Games at nearby Squaw Valley were the largest ever held as well as the first ever to be nationally televised.

We will introduce you to several of the stories of our favorite places. We’ve described how to visit and discover these places for yourself – some by trail, some by road. We’ve shared a little of the history of each location.

Like history, this section will never be complete. As SierraOutdoorRecreation.com continues to learn, we will share what we’ve discovered for ourselves.

We’ve relied on numerous sources, but Carmel Schweyer-Meisenbach, Forest Historian for the Tahoe National Forest in the 1990s, documented many of the sites and provided narratives that we’ve liberally borrowed and amplified. Thanks, Carmel.

Trails with Historic Sites opportunities

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