Last week, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto introduced new bipartisan legislation to extend the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act, an essential source of federal funding to improve Lake Tahoe’s environment. She is joined by California and Nevada congressional leaders Sens. Feinstein, Padilla and Rosen, along with Reps. Amodei, Garamendi, Titus, Lee and Horsford. 

The current Lake Tahoe Restoration Act is set to expire in 2024, spelling the end of hundreds of millions of federal dollars for Tahoe’s Environmental Improvement Program. Originally passed in 2000 and then again in 2016, this legislation has helped to fund projects that improve forest health, lake clarity, fight invasive species and protect habitat. 

“The Lake Tahoe Restoration Act is an absolutely critical source of funding for Tahoe’s environmental improvement projects,” said Caitlin Meyer, Tahoe Fund Chief Program Officer. “We are so grateful to our congressional leaders for championing this important legislation to continue a decades-long legacy of caring for our national treasure together.”

Photo by Hannah Pence

Buried beneath an ever-growing blanket of snow lies 585 miles of official trails in the Lake Tahoe Basin. For the first time ever, a coalition of Tahoe partners have developed a Tahoe Regional Trails Strategy to take a basin-wide perspective to trail planning and building. The strategy serves as a blueprint for a connected and accessible dirt trail network for Tahoe. 

“Nearly 90% of the land in the Tahoe Basin is owned and managed by public agencies like the USDA Forest Service, State Parks, and state land conservancies,” said Kira Smith, Senior Planner with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA). “This leads to a complex planning environment with differing priorities. The Regional Trails Strategy aligns all of these partners and incorporates extensive public feedback to help guide the future of Tahoe’s trails.”

TRPA has been leading the strategy in conjunction with the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, the U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, Tahoe Area Mountain Bike Association, Tahoe Fund, Tahoe Rim Trail Association, California State Parks, Nevada State Parks, California Tahoe Conservancy, and Achieve Tahoe. They’ve also incorporated input from 30 partners and received nearly 1000 responses to a survey in English and Spanish about the needs of trail users.

“For years the Tahoe Fund has received independent funding requests for different trail building and maintenance projects throughout the Basin,” explained Amy Berry, Tahoe Fund CEO. “With this new trails strategy in place, we now have a regional perspective that allows us to prioritize our projects, helping to build a more sustainable and accessible trail network in Tahoe.”

The Tahoe Regional Trails Strategy outlines a vision, preliminary priorities over the next 15 years, and strategies for implementation, but leaves details of implementation of any singular project to the land manager and trail steward. As such, the trail alignments shown in the strategy are conceptual.

The team crafted the strategy with the goals of having trails be environmentally sustainable, equitable, connected, enjoyable, and feasible. The strategy is a living document and acknowledges that priority projects could change over time and will require regular evaluation.

“The increased demand for a variety of uses on these trails, including hiking, mountain biking, dirt biking, and horseback riding, means that it’s a critical time for everyone to be working together to ensure that all users can enjoy their public lands,” said Drew Bray, Executive Director of the Tahoe Area Mountain Biking Association. 

Until now, there has not been a collaborative priority list of dirt trail projects for the region. With the completion of this strategy, the five-year priority list of projects will be adopted into the Environmental Improvement Program (EIP), which has invested $2.7 billion into regional water quality, forest health, transportation and stewardship projects since 1997. 

“Folding this strategy into the EIP, which has a proven track record of success, will allow the partners to set annual priorities and leverage funding for these trails,” said Mike Gabor, Forest Engineering Staff Officer. “This plan assists the Forest Service in long range planning with other agencies and partners by capturing new trail interest and resource needs informing decisions for future opportunities.”

The partners encourage the public to provide feedback on the draft strategy through March 31. There will also be a virtual public webinar on March 21 from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. PST on Zoom. The webinar will include an overview of the strategy’s planning process and a look at the biggest trail priorities for the next five years. Public feedback and questions will be available through the chat function during the webinar. 

To register for the webinar, view the draft strategy, or share feedback about the Tahoe Regional Trails Strategy, visit the project website at tahoetrailsplan.org.

This winter, we recognized some of the best photos and photographers in the Tahoe region through our Winter Photo Contest.

We are happy to announce the winner of the contest is Jeff Bender for the incredible photo below!

This photo was taken in the Upper Eagle Point Campground near Emerald Bay in November after an early snow storm. Jeff, who often snowshoes in this area, said, “I have been to this spot recently and the bench is totally covered in snow now. You would never know it’s there!” Jeff grew up in Southern California and spent every summer in Tahoe vacationing with his family. After a lifelong love of this special place, he now calls Tahoe home.

You can see all the photo entries in this video. Thank you to all participants! Special shout out to our other three finalists below.