Sugar Pine Point State Park

The largest of the state parks at Lake Tahoe, Ed Z’berg Sugar Pine Point is 2,000 acres of mixed conifer, aspen and cedar forests set behind nearly two miles of lake frontage. 150 of this 2,000 acres is old-growth forest. The approximate age of the oldest trees here is 400-500 years old.

The park lies within the traditional territory and ancestral homeland of the Waší·šiw (Wa she shu), recognized today as the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California. The Washoe people have been the original stewards of this land since time immemorial. Lake Tahoe’s name is a mispronunciation of the Wá∙šiw name for lake, Dáʔaw’ (dah ow).

The California Gold Rush and Nevada Silver Rush of the mid-1800s brought a flood of Euro-American settlers, drastically disrupting the Wá∙šiw People’s way of life and devastating the environment. Logging, mining, overfishing, unchecked development, and grazing stripped the land of its old-growth forests, native plants and animals, and vital habitats.

The logging era gave rise to elegant hotels and family resorts around the lake, including the Bellevue Hotel and Sunshine Post Office, here at Sugar Pine Point State Park. In 1901 the Hellman-Ehrman family purchased the property and began building their summer home, Pine Lodge. Construction was completed in 1903 and for the next 62 years the family spent their summers recreating on the west shore of Lake Tahoe.