11/25/2022 0 Comments Webber falls ok fly fishingIn those days, teamsters mixed with vacationers like renowned landscape painter Thomas Hill in the halls of the two-story hotel. At its peak in popularity, the road was so packed with traffic that slower haul wagons traveled by day and stagecoaches traveled by night to ease congestion. He laid claim to the land and by 1860 had built a two-story hotel on the lakeshore.ĭuring that time, Henness Pass was quickly becoming one of the main thoroughfares over the Sierra Nevada, a route favored by wagon trains for its gentle grades. Webber Lake got its name from a fascinating Gold Rush character who rescued orphans, developed early pharmaceuticals and first stocked the lake with trophy trout.ĭavid Gould Webber, a New York doctor who’d come West by way of the Panama Canal, first laid eyes on Webber Lake while reportedly searching for a grove of red fir trees. Webber Lake on a windless Sierra Nevada day, photo by John Peltier We intend to do our very best to keep it that way.” “Starting as a kid, I’ve camped my entire life and never felt what I feel when I camp at Webber Lake,” says Norris. That history, those fish-filled waters and the beautiful landscape that surrounds it are now open for exploration, beckoning a new generation of the general public to create their own stories or fabricate their own fireside tales along its shores. And the wild calls of sandhill cranes still ring out over the lake. The historic Webber Lake Hotel still stands at its shores, showing the ravages of 158 Sierra Nevada winters in its timbers and roofline. Its waters still teem with trophy trout-now supplemented by recently planted Lahontan cutthroats. Not just because of its rich biodiversity, but because of its history,” says Perry Norris, executive director of the Truckee Donner Land Trust.Ĭampers and anglers can experience Webber Lake much like it was 150 years ago, when it was a popular stopover on the supply road between the Sacramento Valley and the booming Nevada silver mines. “It is without a doubt one of the most precious landscapes we’ve been fortunate to protect. But, uniquely, it has seen few visitors since the days when mules and oxen, straining against the yokes of Virginia City–bound haul wagons, clattered by its shores. It holds world-class history, wildlife habitat and recreation potential in almost equal measures. Today, the property is a rarity in the Sierra Nevada. Over the next five years, the Land Trust readied the property to open to the public, revamping the 45-site campground for public use, and adding an ample day-use area for anglers and hikers. The Truckee Donner Land Trust purchased the property in 2012 from Clif and Barbara Johnson, members of a sheep-ranching family who owned the 3,000 acres surrounding the lake since 1870. Webber Lake is now open for camping and day use, photo by John Peltier After more than a century of private ownership, the mystery and majesty of a serene and historic Sierra Nevada landscape was unveiled to the public. Then, last year, the gates to Webber Lake swung open. In the checkerboard of alternating public and private land that dots the wild landscape north of Truckee, the lake was a private parcel close enough to Henness Pass Road to breed stories, but tantalizingly off-limits to the general public. Virtually frozen in time, this former stagecoach stop and fabled fishing lake is both a reminder of the Sierra Nevada’s past and a harbinger of its environmental futureįor decades the only things that escaped the gates of Webber Lake were stories and legends-whispers of rainbow trout as large as footballs, a stage stop hotel where Gold Rush miners once mingled with artists and a spectacular meadow that lit up like Fourth of July fireworks each summer.
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