The plan was to make the desert bloom by irrigating 350,000 acres of land in the Carson River watershed area using Truckee River water. Never mind that the Truckee River flowed north, emptying into Pyramid Lake. Send some water south — it will be fine.

In 1903, as its first project, the newly formed United States Reclamation Service (today's U.S. Bureau of Reclamation) began construction of a diversion dam on the Truckee River.  Completed in 1905, the Derby dam, sent 48% of Truckee River water 32 miles south to Lahonton Reservoir via the Truckee Canal.

The consequences of the water's diversion to Lahonton adversely affected two species of fish, the Northern Paiute people, Pyramid Lake, and eventually, turned neighboring Winnemucca Lake into a dry lake bed. Early on, the Paiute began to notice the damage, but no o...

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Lake Tahoe is so spectacular that it captures everyone's attention, leaving little thought about other lakes that are close by. In our Sierra Nevada mountains, a small, charming lake is the rule, not the exception. A glance at a map of the Tahoe area reveals a surprising number of not quite hidden, easily visited lakes.

Fallen Leaf Lake

Fallen Leaf Lake was formed by glacial activity. Experts say that 2 glaciers moved down Glen Alpine Valley, finally stopping 1 mile short of Lake Tahoe. If a terminal moraine had not...

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Remarkable research by determined scientists and foresters has proven that trees are more than sticks of wood just waiting to be cut down to build houses. Smart people have been working hard to truly understand trees; how they grow, how they interact with each other, how a forest works, and how humans can help.

Dr. Suzanne Simard unearthed knowledge of the underground fungal network that allows trees to interact and communicate. She also discovered hub trees. She calls them the Mother Trees of a forest. These biggest, tallest trees are highly connected with other trees, and have an important role in the flow of information and resources in a forest. They even recognize their kin; seedlings that are related to them. Dr. Simard's fascinating new book Finding The Mother Tree details her methods and her discoveries. The book is supported by the website The Mother Tree P...

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Skiing has been a popular pastime for millennia, as proven by the discovery in Russia of eight-thousand year old wooden skis, along with rock carvings, and paintings of hunters on skis. Skis and skiing have changed a bit, evolving from a necessity into a leisure time activity

The word ski comes from the old Norse word 'skiõ' which meant split piece of wood or firewood, and there have been almost as many different kinds of skis and techniques as there have been years of use.

Asymmetrical skis, first described over 500 years ago, were used in northern Finland and Sweden, even up until the 1930s. On one foot, skiers wore a long straight non-arching ski for sliding, while the other foot was outfitted with a shorter ski for kicking. The bottom of the short ski was, sometimes, covered with an animal skin to aid in the kicking, while the bottom of the longer ski was treated with slippery animal fat to help with gliding.

B...

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In 1872, the side-wheeler Governor Stanford, ushered in Lake Tahoe's golden age of steamships. Based in Tahoe city, the ship carried about 125 passengers on its eight hour trip around the Lake.

Three years later, the Governor Stanford was joined by the steamship Niagara, 83 feet of faster reliability.

Not long afterwards, the timber baron, D. L. Bliss, doubled Tahoe's fleet of steamships by adding the Meteor, capable of speeds up to 30 mph, and her sister ship the Emerald II. However, his best was yet to come.

Mr. Bliss ordered a ship to be designed and built by Union Iron Works in San Francisco. The hull was made in sections, then disassembled, packed for transport, and shipped by rail to Carson City. All 154 tons of boat pieces were then loaded onto wagons, and laboriously pulled by mule and horse teams up and over Spooner Summit to Glenbrook. There, the S.S. Tahoe was rea...

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