Go Explore: Sugar Pine Point State Park
Where To Go
Located along the quiet, western shores of Lake Tahoe in California, Sugar Pine Point State Park offers nearly two miles of beautiful lake frontage and dense forests of pine, fir, aspen and juniper. The park is located about ten miles south of Tahoe City off Highway 89 in an area that has been a favorite spot for locals and visitors alike for the past two hundreds years.
Renamed to Ed Z’berg Sugar Pine Point State Park in 2003 in honor of the California assemblyman, the park offers you incredible views, historic estates, the tallest pine trees in the world, peaceful camping and even cross country skiing experiences.
Where To Stay
The Sugar Pine Point campground features 175 sites with proper bear-proof storage facilities. The campground is extremely popular in the warm summer months and reservations are highly recommended. You can reserve a campsite via www.reserveamerica.com.
What To Do & Explore
Sugar Pine Point State Park contains one of the finest remaining natural areas on Lake Tahoe and offers an array of seasonal outdoor activities along with some historical attractions.
Miles of hiking trails offers visitors stunning landscapes, while the park’s swimming beach provides visitors with a variety of relaxing summer options. Fishing is also very popular, as deep-line anglers will fish the lake’s 300-foot deep underwater ledges for trout and salmon. For those seeking to stay on the mainland, the waters of General Creek are among the clearest waters flowing into Lake Tahoe and the stream is open to fishing from mid July to mid September.
Another attraction is the museum in the Hellman-Ehrman Mansion (also known as Pine Lodge), a summer home built in 1903 in a grove of pine and cedar. From the turn of the century until 1965, Sugar Pine Point State Park’s lands were owned by financier Isaias W. Hellman and later by his daughter Florence Hellman Ehrman. The mansion provides an interesting view into the past lifestyles of the wealthy on Lake Tahoe.
If you’ve got kids, be sure to stop at the Nature Center, located in the day use area by the Ehrman Mansion. The center features a bird display where visitors can view several species of bird life that occur in the Tahoe Basin. In addition to birds, visitors can see most of the mammals and the four major game fish that occur at the park.
The fun doesn’t end in the winter, either. Winter visitors to the park will find over 20 kilometers of marked cross country ski trails and a heated restroom in the General Creek campground. Interpretive presentations on a variety of winter related subjects are presented most weekends, from January through March.