THE TAHOE NATIONAL FOREST
The Tahoe National Forest was first set apart by proclamation,
September 17, 1906. Previous to this there had been the Tahoe and Yuba
Forest Reserves which were established by proclamation under the acts
of March 3, 1891, and June 4, 1897. The original Tahoe Forest Reserve
consisted of six townships along the west side of Lake Tahoe. Part of
this territory is now in the Tahoe and part in the El Dorado National
Forest. Changes and additions were later made by proclamations of
March 2, 1909, and July 28, 1910.
Although Lake Tahoe does not lie within any National Forest it is
almost surrounded by the Tahoe and El Dorado Forests. There are a few
miles of shore-line on the Nevada side in the vicinity of Glenbrook
which are not within the National Forest Boundary.
The gross area of the Tahoe National Forest is 1,272,470 acres. Of
this amount, however, 692,677 acres are privately owned. The El Dorado
National Forest has a gross area of 836,200 acres with 284,798 of them
in private hands. These privately owned lands are technically spoken
of as "alienated lands."
The towns of Truckee, Emigrant Gap, Cisco, Donner, Fulda, Downieville,
Sierra City, Alleghany, Forest, Graniteville, Goodyear's Bar, and
Last Chance, as well as Tahoe City, are all within the Tahoe National
Forest.
It is estimated that there are probably 350 people living on the
Forest outside of the towns. These are principally miners or small
ranch-owners living along the rivers in the lower altitudes.
Slowly but surely the people are awakening to the great value of the
natural resources that are being conserved in the National Forests. In
the Tahoe Reserve the preservation of the forest cover is essential to
the holding of snow and rain-fall, preventing rapid run-off,
thereby conserving much of what would be waste and destructive
_flood-water_, until it can be used for irrigation and other
beneficial purposes.
Many streams of great power possibilities rise and flow through the
Tahoe Forest Reserve, such as the Truckee, Little Truckee, Yuba and
American rivers. Working in conjunction with the U.S. Reclamation
Service the Truckee General Electric Company uses the water that flows
out of Lake Tahoe down the Truckee River for the development of power.
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company, of San Francisco, controls the
waters of the South Yuba river, and its Colgate plant is on the main
Yuba, though it obtains some of its water supply from the North Yuba.
Lake Spaulding, one of the largest artificial lakes in the world, is a
creation of this same company. It is situated near Emigrant Gap and is
used for the development of power.
The Northern Water and Power Company controls the Bowman reservoir and
a string of lakes on the headwaters of Canyon Creek, a branch of the
South Yuba river. As yet its power possibilities are not developed.
Through the activities of these companies electricity and water for
irrigation are supplied to towns and country regions contiguous to
their lines, and they have materially aided in the development of the
Sacramento Valley.
Only about five per cent. of the Reserve is barren land, and this is
mostly situated at a high elevation above timber line. The tree growth
is excellent, and under proper direction reproduction _could_ be
made all that any one could desire. Fully twenty per cent., however,
of the present Reserve is covered with chaparral. Practically all
of this originally was timbered. The chaparral has grown up because
nothing was done at the proper time to foster reproduction over acres
that had been cut. Systematic and scientific efforts are now being
made to remedy this condition, the rangers being encouraged to
study the trees, gather seeds from the best of their type, plant and
cultivate them. Tree cutting is now so regular as to obtain by natural
reproduction a second crop on the logged-over areas. Where natural
reproduction fails planting is resorted to. Thus it is hoped, in time,
to replant all the logged-over areas now owned by the government,
serving the double purpose of conserving the water-supply and
providing timber for the needs of the future. Much of the timber-land,
however, of the Tahoe region, is patented to private owners. Little,
if anything, is being done towards reforestation on these private
tracts. Legal enactments, ultimately, may produce effective action
along this needed line.
As has elsewhere been shown the world owes a debt of gratitude to the
Tahoe region. Had it not been for the timber secured so readily from
the Tahoe slopes the mining operations of Virginia City, Gold Hill and
Dayton would have been seriously retarded and crippled. As it was the
Tahoe trees were transferred as mining-timbers for propping up
the immense and continuous excavations of that vast series of
honey-combings underground, the products of which revivified the gold
supply of the world.
Tahoe timber also has contributed much to the upbuilding of the
towns and country farms on the whole upper Pacific Coast and interior
regions of Northern California, and today much of its timber finds its
way to San Francisco and other Pacific Coast markets.
At Floriston, on the Truckee River, a mill is in successful operation,
using Tahoe fir for the making of paper. Red and white fir, which are
practically useless for lumber, are found to make excellent wrapping
and tissue papers, and thus, from being unremunerative products of
our forests, become sources of income. After planing off the bark, the
wood is made into small chips, about a half inch square, and an eighth
of an inch thick. These chips are then "digested" by a process of
mixing with acids and cooking, through which it becomes "wood pulp."
Different processes produce different pulps, two of which are mixed
together, allowed to flow out on a very fine wire screen nine feet
wide, revolving at a rate of 300 feet a minute, with a "jigging"
movement from side to side. This makes all the fibers lie flat. They
are then sent through steel rollers, the water squeezed out, and
finally carried over and around twenty-five revolving steam-heated
cylinders which completely dry the paper and put the needed gloss or
finish on it.
The rainfall on the Tahoe Reserve averages about fifty inches
annually, the most frequent rains occurring between October and May.
Necessarily there is much snow-fall on the higher regions. Further
down the snow disappears in the early spring, say March, but in the
upper altitudes it remains until late June, with perpetual snow in the
sheltered portions of the topmost peaks.
Agriculture, owing to the average high altitude, is a negligible
industry in the Reserve, little more being done than to raise a little
fruit, grain and vegetables, mainly for home consumption. Naturally
there is a fair amount of grazing, almost the whole area of the
Reserve being used for this purpose during the summer months. Many
portions of meadow-land are used for dairy-herds, most of the hotels
and resorts on and near Lake Tahoe having their own herds and meadows.
Bands of beef-cattle are also pastured, together with large bands
of sheep, the two kinds of stock often grazing in common, the cattle
using the meadows and the sheep the ridges and timber-lands. In taking
the trail-rides described in other chapters I invariably came across
both cattle and sheep, and all the near-by meadows are occupied by
the dairy-herds belonging to the hotels. Patented lands of private
ownership within the bounds of the Forest are often also leased to
cattle- and sheep-men. Last year it was estimated that there were
47,000 head of sheep, and about 6000 head of cattle on the Reserve.
Under the protection of the rangers grazing conditions are rapidly
improving, the cattle- and sheep-men being held strictly to certain
rules laid down by the Supervisor. Systematic efforts are made to rid
the Forest, as far as possible, of predatory animals that kill the
sheep, also of poisonous plants which render grazing dangerous.
There are far less cattle on the Sierra ranges in the Tahoe region
than there are sheep. During the summer most of the mountain valleys
have their great sheep-bands. Many are brought over from Nevada,
and far more from the Sacramento Valley and other regions near the
Pacific. The feed, as a rule, is good and abundant from the time the
snow leaves until the end of September or even later. Though the year
1913 was the third dry season (comparatively speaking) the region
had suffered, I found a score or more of meadows in my rambles around
Tahoe, where thousands of sheep might have had rich and abundant
pasture.
But well may John Muir dislike sheep in his beloved Sierras, and term
them in his near-to-hatred "the locusts of the mountains." When the
most fertile valley has been "fed off" by sheep, or they have "bedded
down" night after night upon it, it takes some time before the young
growth comes up again.
It is the custom when the lambing season is over, and the lambs
are strong enough to travel and old enough to ship, to move to some
convenient point on the railway, where there is an abundance of
feed and water on the way, and there ship either to Reno, Carson and
Virginia City, or to some market on the Pacific Coast. Hence overland
travelers on the Southern Pacific trains are often surprised to see
vast flocks of sheep and hear the bleating of the lambs at unlooked
for stations at the highest points of the Sierra Nevada, as at Soda
Springs, Cisco, Emigrant Gap, Blue Canyon, or sidings on the way.
There is a large mining industry within the Reserve. Since 1849 the
western part of the Forest has been most active, one county, Sierra,
having produced since then upwards of $200,000,000. The present output
is much smaller than formerly, still it is large enough to render
mining an important factor in the productive wealth of the state.
In 1853 hydraulic mining was inaugurated near Nevada City. This gave
renewed interest to placer-mining.
Four of the old emigrant roads cross the Tahoe and El Dorado Reserves.
The most famous of these is the one across Donner Pass and through
Emigrant Gap. This was the general course taken by the unfortunate
Donner Party, as recorded in another chapter.
Another road was the Heuness Pass road, on a branch of which was
Nigger Tent, a rendezvous of robbers and cutthroats in the early days.
Prospectors and miners were often robbed and murdered at this place.
The Heuness Pass Road and the Donner Road branch in Sardine Valley,
the former going through by Webber Lake, and the latter through the
present site of Truckee. On the latter road, in the vicinity of You
Bet, is a large tree which bears the name "Frémont's Flagpole," though
it is doubtful whether it was ever used by Frémont for this purpose.
The third important road is the present Placerville Road,--a portion
of the State Highway and the great trans-continental Lincoln Highway,
elsewhere described.
The fourth is the Amador Grade Road, on which stood the tree whereupon
Kit Carson carved his name.
The Georgetown Road is an important and historic feature of the Tahoe
Region, for it connects Georgetown with Virginia City, and it was from
the former place so many Tahoe pioneers came. I have already referred
to the trail built in the early 60's. Then when the Georgetown miners
constructed a ditch to convey water for mining purposes from Loon
Lake, they soon thereafter, about '72 or '73, built a road about forty
miles long, to enable them to reach the Lake, which was their main
reservoir. Loon, Pleasant and Bixby's Lakes were all dammed and
located upon for the water company.
When the Hunsakers built the road from McKinney's to their Springs in
1883 there was a stretch of only about seven miles from Loon Lake to
the Springs to complete a road between Lake Tahoe and Georgetown.
The matter was laid before the Supervisors of Placer and El Dorado
Counties, and they jointly built the road in 1884, following as
nearly as possible the old Georgetown trail, which was practically the
boundary between the two counties.
While automobiles have gone over it, it is scarcely good enough for
that form of travel, but cattle, sheep and horses are driven over it
constantly, campers make good use of it in the summer, and though it
has not the activity of the days when it was first built, it has fully
justified its existence by the comfort and convenience it gives to the
sparsely settled population of the region for which the waters of
the Reserve were flumed in every direction. When legal enactment
practically abolished placer mining, owing to its ruining the
agricultural lands lower down by the carrying of the mud and silt
upon them, the water systems were utilized for domestic and irrigation
purposes, thus laying the foundation of the great systems now being
used for power purposes.
One of the greatest excitements known in the Tahoe region occurred
when the first notice of the discovery of the Comstock lode in
Virginia City appeared in the _Nevada City Journal_, July 1,
1859. Immediately the whole country was aroused, fully one-third of
all the male population setting forth for the mines. This was also one
of the great urgents in the building of a railway which soon ultimated
in the Central Pacific.
There are several mineral springs of note on the Forest, chief of
which are Deer Park Springs, Glen Alpine Springs and Brockway's.
The most northern grove of Big Trees, _Sequoia Gigantea_, in
existence, is found in the Tahoe Forest, on the Forest Hill Divide,
near the southern boundary of Placer County, on a tributary of the
Middle Fork of the American River. There are six of these trees as
well as several which have fallen.
Dotted over the Reserve are cabins of the rangers. These men live a
most interesting, and sometimes adventurous and daring life. Primarily
their days and nights are largely those of solitude, and it is
interesting to throw a little light upon the way they spend their
time.
Necessarily their chief thought and care is that of protecting the
Forest from fire. To accomplish this end fire-brakes--wide passages,
trails, or roads--are cut through the trees and brush, so that it is
possible to halt a fire when it reaches one of the constant patrols
and watches that are maintained. Lookout stations are placed on
elevated points. In the fall of 1911 a Lookout Tower was erected
on Banner Mountain, four miles southeast of Nevada City, in which a
watchman with a revolving telescope is on duty day and night. This
mountain is at 3900 feet elevation and affords an unobstructed view
of about one-third of the whole area of the Tahoe Forest.
[Illustration: Outlet of Lake Tahoe, Truckee River]
[Illustration: Flock of Sheep Being Driven from the Tahoe National
Forest]
[Illustration: Island Park, Lake Tahoe]
By a system of maps, sights and signals the location of fires can
be determined with reasonable accuracy, and the telephone enables
warnings to be sent to all concerned.
Telephone lines bisect the Reserve in several directions, and
fire-fighting appliances are _cached_ in accessible places
ready for immediate use. When a Forest officer is notified of the
approximate location of a fire he goes immediately with what help
he thinks he needs. If he finds that the fire is larger than he
can handle with the available force at his command, he notifies
the Supervisor, who secures men from the most practical point and
dispatches them to the fire as soon as possible, by automobile or
train.
To give further fire protection a gasoline launch--the
_Ranger_--twenty-six feet long and with a carrying capacity of
fifteen men, and a speed of about nine miles an hour, was placed on
Lake Tahoe in 1910, at the Kent Ranger Station, located a mile below
the Tavern. The guard who is in charge of this boat is on the Lake
about eight hours each day, going up the Lake in the morning towards
Tallac and taking the northern end of the Lake in the afternoon. The
launch is put in service each year about the 15th of June and kept
there until the fire-danger is over in the fall. Normal years this is
about the 15th of September, but in 1913 the launch remained and the
patrolman was on duty much later.
If the guard sights a fire anywhere within the watershed of Lake
Tahoe, he immediately obtains men at the nearest point and proceeds
to the fire. Since the launch has been on the Lake there have been no
serious fires. Every fire has been caught in its infancy and put out
before any damage has been done. There has been only one fire of any
size on the Lake since the launch was installed. This burned about 20
acres just east of Brockway. Numerous small fires of an acre or less
have been put out each year.
The Forest Guard in charge of the launch for the years 1912-13 was
Mark W. Edmonds. Mr. Edmonds is the son of Dr. H.W. Edmonds, who is
now in the Arctic doing scientific work for the Carnegie Institute.
The force of men at work on the Reserve varies in number according to
the season of the year. When the fire-season is on many more men are
on duty than in the winter-season. The year-long force consists of the
Supervisor, Deputy Supervisor, Forest Clerk, Stenographer, thirteen
Rangers and two Forest Examiners who are Forest School men engaged
chiefly on timber sale and investigative work. The force in 1913
during the season of greatest danger was fifty-six. Some of the
temporary employees are engaged for six months, some for three months
and others for shorter periods. The longer termed men are generally
Assistant Rangers who cannot be employed the year around, but who are
considered first for permanent jobs that occur on the statutory roll
on account of their Civil Service standing.
Forest fires are caused in a variety of ways, but chiefly through
inexcusable carelessness. Now and then lightning produces fire, but
the throwing down of lighted matches by smokers, the butt ends of
cigars and cigarettes that are still alight, leaving camp-fires
unextinguished, or building them too large, allowing fires for burning
waste land or brush to get from under control--these are the chief
sources of forest fires. Accordingly the local and federal authorities
constantly keep posted on Forest Reserves notices calling attention
to the dangers and urging care upon all who use the forests for any
purpose whatever.
In addition to fire-fighting the rangers are required to give constant
oversight to the sheep- and cattle-ranges, and to the animals that
are brought there, so that the feed is not eaten out, or too many head
pastured upon a given area. Seeds of forest trees must be gathered at
the proper season and experiments in reforestation conducted, besides
a certain amount of actual planting-out performed. The habits of
seed-eating birds and animals are studied, especially in relation to
reforestation. A very small number of squirrels or mice can get away
with a vast number of seeds in a season. Methods of protecting the
seeds without destroying too many of the wild animals must be devised.
Available areas of timber are sought for and offered for sale. Certain
men are detailed to measure the trees and determine the value of the
timber; they must mark the trees included in the sale, leaving out
enough seed-trees for satisfactory reproduction. If it be a second
sale over a cut-over area the problems are somewhat altered. Will the
trees that are left suffer from wind-fall? If partially suppressed
trees are left can they be depended upon to recover and make a good
growth?
Then, too, the questions of natural _versus_ artificial
reforestation have to be scientifically studied and exhaustive tests
made. Shall seeds be sown, or shall young trees be planted? Which
trees are best suited for certain localities, and which are the more
profitable when grown?
To many people it is not known that dwellers in or near National
Forests can obtain free of charge timber for their domestic needs.
The rangers determine where this "free area" shall be located, exactly
what trees, whether dead or alive, shall be taken, and endeavor to lay
down rules that shall give equal chances for all comers.
As one of the mottos of the Forest Service is "the greatest good to
the greatest number," small sales are encouraged to those who wish
to make their own lumber or shakes. Settlers in remote localities are
often helped in this manner.
Cases of trespass have to be guarded against, and now and again
suits have had to be brought against loggers for encroaching upon
the territory of the Reserve, and removing timber which they had not
purchased.
In 1911 every District Ranger was appointed a Deputy Fish and Game
Commissioner and thus was duly authorized to enforce the law in regard
to fish and game.
Another subject of interest and importance to the ranger is the study
of insect infestation. Many trees are killed annually by certain
insects, and these must be discovered and their devastation prevented.
Then, too, there are diseases and parasites that affect the trees, and
this branch of study demands constant attention.
Hence it will be seen that the office of the Forest Ranger is by no
means a sinecure. He works hard and he works long and alone and our
kindly thoughts should go out to him in his solitary patrols and
vigils.
The present Supervisor of the Tahoe Forest is Richard L.P. Bigelow, to
whose kindness I am indebted for much of the information contained in
this chapter.