Climbers, skippers, and pilots internally want to hug the earth in difficult circumstances, but this is usually, exactly the wrong thing to do. Climbers need to push back from the rock face so their boot soles have the maximum traction. Skippers need to head offshore, away from the rocks, reefs, and solid earth. Pilots need to gain altitude, to give them space to maneuver and time.

Overview
On May 19, 1846, the Donners and Reids joined a large wagon train headed for Oregon and California. For the next two months the mid-westerners followed the Oregon Trail. When they reached the Little Sandy River, in what is now Wyoming, they decided to take a new route to California, the "Hastings Cutoff,” named after its promoter, Lansford Hastings.

The Donners and others formed a small wagon train and they elected George Donner their captain.

The Truckee River is the lake’s only outlet. The river starts at the dam in Tahoe City and snakes its way down the famous Truckee Canyon that has been the pathway for pioneers, stagecoaches, trains, and, now cars. The river passes through the center of the Town of Truckee and then Reno before it winds across the desert and finishes it’s 60-mile journey to Pyramid Lake.

The lightning-caused fires across Northern California are slowly being fought into retreat. The sound you hear is the sigh of relief from visitors and locals alike as summer gets restarted at 6,000 feet near the Sierra Crest.



Over 20,000 people, local and federal, have been deployed to battle the fires in Northern California. This includes helicopter and water tanker crews, firefighters on the ground, and equipment operators--bulldozers, etc.

The tours are self directed and maps can be seen at www.northtahoearts.com. The phone # is 530-581-2787.


The hub of the tour is the North Tahoe Art Center in Tahoe City on Highway 28 next to the fire station and above Commons Beach. The center includes a gallery with an exhibit of the Art Tour artists through July 28.

The Donner Party of people and wagons missed getting over the summit and down to Sutter's Fort (Sacramento) by about a week in late October of 1846. This group of people were the caboose in a long (wagon) train of people who DID make it all the way. Details of their saga can be read by clicking on Tahoetopia's Donner Party.

Twenty years more (1869) and the Transcontinental Railroad connecting East and West was completed—through Truckee.

There is much to see and do in this vibrant, colorful part of the Old West that hugs the banks of the Truckee River. The river runs (only) from Lake Tahoe to Pyramid Lake in Nevada, northeast of Reno, where the river ends.

The giant, yet gentle, dog's immediate friendship is a hearty welcome in a wilderness setting. Opie creates an easy, relaxed tone for one of snow season's most unique getaways around Lake Tahoe.


"I named this place Lost Trail because people are always getting lost off the backside of Sugar Bowl or along the Pacific Crest Trail, and they somehow end up here," explains David Robertson, owner and operator of the winter wonderland
outpost.