Five months from now, Squaw Valley will celebrate the 65th anniversary of the opening of the ski area in November 1949, but you don’t have to wait until the snow flies to experience the magic of Olympic Valley.
The aerial tram at Squaw Valley will lift you effortlessly up into the Sierra high country, where ice-carved cirques, extruded thrusts of volcanic rock and stellar views of Big Blue will take your breath away. Rides are free for active duty military and anyone with an active 2014-15 season Squaw/Alpine ski pass.
The tram whisks passengers to High Camp at elevation 8,200 feet, where summer is no longer off season on this legendary skiers’ mountain. Visitors in July and August can look forward to swimming, roller skating, and poolside eating and drinking, along with free activities like hiking, geocaching and disk golf. A trip to Squaw Valley also is a historic gateway to days gone by when pioneer emigrants traveled through its lush valley and over its craggy peaks on their way to California.
For 9,000 years, American Indians from the ancient Washoe tribe summered at Squaw Valley, which they considered a sacred place. Men hunted big game while women wove intricate baskets, fished, dug out the roots of medicinal plants and watched their children play. After the long winter in the high desert of today’s western Nevada, the Indians looked forward to foraging in Squaw Valley’s verdant marshes for wild onions, berries and other tasty edibles. Tribal women also used the large granite boulders nearby to grind their harvest of seeds. The first Euro-Americans to pass through the valley observed that there were only women and children in the meadow (braves were away hunting), so they named it Squaw Valley.
The valley itself was scoured by glaciers that advanced and retreated in successive waves. The terminal moraine deposited at the eastern end of the valley by advancing ice acted as a dam and created a lake filled by melting ice. Over time, the lakebed was filled with eroded sediments, the moraine breached and a valley-meadow was created. At one point, the Squaw Valley glacier dammed the Truckee River draining Lake Tahoe, forcing the lake’s water level hundreds of feet higher than today. These powerful geologic and climatic forces left behind, “The most beautiful valley the eye of man has ever beheld,” as Placer County surveyor Thomas A. Young described it in 1856.
During the California Gold Rush, westbound 49ers used Squaw Valley as a shortcut to the Mother Lode in the Sierra foothills. First known as Scott’s Route, the trail climbed from the meadow up the mountain and followed the ridgeline toward Auburn.
In 1852, $13,000 was appropriated to improve the trail, renamed the Placer County Emigrant Route, but it never gained the hoped-for traffic. In 1931, Robert Montgomery Watson, Tahoe City’s first constable and a pioneer horseman, marked the trail from Lake Tahoe to Auburn. Today, it is known as the Western States Trail, where each summer a world-class, 100-mile endurance footrace is held, along with the Tevis Cup, the toughest horse race in the West.
In 1862, prospectors John Keiser and Shannon Knox left California’s depleted gold diggings and headed east for the bustling Comstock mines at Virginia City, Nevada Territory. They coaxed their well-packed mules along the Placer County Emigrant Route to Squaw Valley. When the two men reached a flat near the Truckee River, just northwest of the mouth of Squaw Creek, they noticed some outcroppings of rich-looking reddish ore. Squaw Valley had never been known for gold, but prospectors are nothing if not optimists. The news of potential gold started a stampede of Placer County merchants, miners and saloon owners. Early assays from supposedly gold-bearing quartz veins reported up to $440 worth of gold per ton with “strong potential for great profit.”
By 1863, there were four mining districts established, with at least 1,000 claims staked along the Truckee River and in Martis Valley. But there was trouble in paradise. Late that fall, word came back on ore specimens sent to Sacramento that the rock was worthless, with no gold content at all. The strike was a bust. The bonanza was over and within a few days the region deserted — all except for Tahoe City that is.
A few frustrated miners gave up the search for gold and settled near Lake Tahoe. Each lent their name to the geography of the region — Ward Creek is named for Ward Rush; Blackwood Creek for Hampton Craig Blackwood; McKinney Creek for John McKinney; and Burton Creek for Homer D. Burton. Last year, Tahoe City celebrated the 150th anniversary of its founding.
The fledgling settlement eventually became the gateway to the Tahoe Basin, first by stage, then narrow-gauge railroad and steamer. In 1931, teenagers Wayne Poulsen and Marti Arrougé took an extended camping and fishing trip into the mountains above Squaw Valley. Marti had often camped in the valley with his father, a Basque sheepherder who grazed flocks in the lush meadow there. It was then that Poulsen, an avid skier still in high school, fell in love with the place and began to dream that he could develop it into an outstanding winter resort. After further exploration, Wayne decided his life goal would be to acquire and develop Squaw Valley as “a mountain community dedicated to skiing as a way of life.” During World War II, Poulsen bought a large portion of the valley from Southern Pacific Railroad. A few years later, he and his wife Sandy built their home there and began raising a family.
In 1948, Poulsen went into a partnership with investor Alex Cushing. Due to sharp business and philosophical differences between them, the partnership broke up and Cushing took control of the company. By 1955, the ski resort was financially broke, but Cushing pulled off a miracle and coaxed the International Olympic Committee to award the 1960 Winter Games to Squaw Valley. The event was a spectacular success that changed Squaw Valley forever and catapulted the Lake Tahoe region into an internationally recognized sports destination. At High Camp, be sure to visit the free Olympic Museum where you can see a unique collection of memorabilia, news articles and video presentations that recreate the magic and excitement of the 1960 Winter Games.
Tahoe historian Mark McLaughlin is a nationally published author and professional speaker. His award-winning books are available at local stores or at thestormking.com. You may reach him at mark@thestormking.com. Check out Mark’s blog at tahoenuggets.com.
