It was only years later, as an adult living on the East Coast returning to Tahoe with my husband in tow, that I got to experience Fallen Leaf Lake in a whole new way: in winter. Growing up in Sacramento, my family and I were frequent visitors to Lake Tahoe and spent many a summer weekend camping at the Fallen Leaf Lake campground, my brothers and I riding our bikes around the loops and swimming in the cool, crystal-blue lake. And the jewel of the Lake Tahoe area has to be the amazing Fallen Leaf Lake. However, the spirit of growing up at the lake will always remain the same.After Thailand, my favorite place in the world is the incomparable Lake Tahoe. Memories of Fallen Leaf, which have changed between my grandfather’s childhood and mine, may differ even more for future generations. He and his wife still live at Fallen Leaf year-round, giving historical lectures and entertaining grandchildren for months at a time during the summer.
“We made the most wonderful forts on rainy days, using blankets and clothespins,” Bill said. “Ice from Witch’s Pool was cut into blocks using handsaws, separated with sawdust and stored within the thick, wooden walls.”Īnother favorite children’s spot at the lodge was the blanket and pillow room. “It was great on a hot summer day,” he said.
My grandfather fondly remembers playing in Fallen Leaf Lodge’s ice house located near what is now Stanford Sierra Camp. “I had my first cavity filled with a foot-powered drill in a makeshift dentist’s office near the (Glen Alpine) falls.” Medical care for my grandfather was also a challenge. We got all our supplies at Celio’s in Meyers.” The Celios are one of Lake Tahoe’s original founding families, owning Meyers, which included a general store, hotel, post office and many other necessities. “There was nothing at the ‘Y’ in those days. “As you rode by on Tahoe Mountain Road, you could look into the end of the mill building and see the carriage traveling back and forth, cutting logs into boards, Bill said. The suckers are now gone and the lake is no longer clean.”Ĭelio’s Blacksmith shop and sawmill were also fascinating to a small boy. He said we shouldn’t catch them because they kept the lake clean. “We were walking along the road with the fish, when a Washoe man stopped us and asked how we caught it. Another little boy and I caught one by rolling a hook into a ball of cheese and floating it down (Glen Alpine) creek,” Bill said. “There used to be large schools of Tahoe suckers in Fallen Leaf. Animals such as skunk, pine martin, wolverine, fox, bobcat and sucker fish are no longer present in the ecosystem. However, the lake visibility has been reduced from 100 to 90 feet. “The clarity of Fallen Leaf water and the variety of small animals stand out in my memory,” Bill said. However, the Washoe camp was later destroyed by floods due to failure of dams built by the Montana flattail beavers, a species not native, but introduced, to the Lake Tahoe environment. “(The Washoe) were always having wonderful campfires,” he said. The women worked as domestic employees at the lodge, while many of the men returned to the valley to work on ranches. Francis of the Mountains chapel at Fallen Leaf. The Washoe weaved baskets and prepared pine nuts for sale during the summer months when they journeyed from the Carson Valley to their summer camp, located near St. Tahoe to Camp Richardson.”Īs a toddler, his playpen wasn’t ordered from a catalog or purchased in a department store, it was a large basket – 3 feet in diameter – woven by a Washoe woman. We got on the train … and woke up at the Tahoe Tavern the next morning. He began with a tent camp, but by 1909 the Fallen Leaf Lodge was up and running.”īorn in 1928, Bill Craven, spent his childhood summers at the lodge.Īlthough the family often drove to Fallen Leaf, he recalls a particularly historical trip: “I remember coming up on the train once (from San Francisco) when I was about 5 or 6. “The parents were so enamored, they encouraged him to start a resort. “My grandfather Price started Camp Agassiz for boys around 1895 or ’96 as an appendix to the Agassiz Preparatory School,” Bill Craven said. Visiting them required bundling up beyond mobility, packing everything into waterproof garbage bags and waiting in the snow for our reward – a chilly snowmobile or snowcat ride on Fallen Leaf Road.įallen Leaf Lake has been a special place to grow up for generations. When Fallen Leaf Lake is closed off from the rest of the world, my grandparents, Bill and Barbara Craven, still live there.
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