By Kathryn Reed

Although the dollars to put the final touches on the Van Sickle Bi-state Park have been allocated, the actual opening of the park still teeters on securing funds to operate it.

Lisa O’Daly with the California Tahoe Conservancy told her board, “Currently, the Nevada budget doesn’t have the money to open the park. Behind the scenes we are working on private money for the park.”

What the board approved last week was to spend $165,000 to establish the day-use facilities for the park that straddles California and Nevada on the South Shore of Lake Tahoe. Improvements will begin this spring as conditions allow.

Day-use facilities for bi-state park users will go in this spring near the old Van Sickle barn. Photo/Kathryn Reed

CTC staff and private contractors will install the prefabricated restroom, fencing, signs, interpretive material, create a decomposed granite trail around the parking lot, and put in picnic tables.

The goal is for the park to open this year.

All along the Conservancy anticipated California State Parks would take over as the main partner with Nevada State Parks. Funding has prevented that from occurring. Nonetheless, CTC Executive Director Patrick Wright told the board Jan. 20, “It makes more sense to be part of State Parks.”

Explore Tahoe, dubbed an urban trailhead in the Heavenly Village, wants to run interpretive programs that would take people to Van Sickle. The bi-state park, the only in the country, is walking distance from the major bed base on the South Shore.

On the site is the old barn belonging to the Van Sickles. It is said to be oldest standing barn in the Lake Tahoe Basin. It has been secured with the hope of one day being on the National Registrar of historic places.

Besides the day-use facilities, a short ways up the paved road are numerous trails, some of which are part of the Tahoe Rim Trail routes.