Explaining the truth about Tahoe’s early pioneers
By Guy Rocha
“Today, one can stand where Carson and Fremont stood thanks to a trail running from the top of the Heavenly Ski Resort tram,” according to an article in the Nevada Day 2000 Official Program published in Carson City’s Nevada Appeal. “The view was ‘awesome’ then, history records Fremont as saying, and it remains one of the definitive vistas around Lake Tahoe today.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The location where John Charles Fremont and cartographer Charles Preuss viewed Lake Tahoe on Feb. 14, 1844, was about 20 miles to the south of where Heavenly Mountain Resort is today. The area is near Highway 88 and Carson Pass.
More importantly, Kit Carson was not with Fremont and Preuss at the time Lake Tahoe was sighted on their journey to Northern California.
Fremont wrote in his journals that, “With Mr. Preuss, I ascended to-day the highest peak to the right [Red Lake Peak]; from which we had a beautiful view of a mountain lake at our feet, about fifteen miles in length, and so entirely surrounded by mountains that we could not discover an outlet.”
Guy Rocha is the former state archivist with the Nevada State Library and Archives, a Division of the Department of Cultural Affairs. For more information, visit http://nsla.nevadaculture.org.
