In the News

USDA Forest Service Offers “Ski With a Ranger” Program
date posted: December 5 2005

Lake Tahoe Report #106
Feb. 24, 2005
By John Cobourn and Heather Segale

The USDA Forest Service is the largest landowner in the Tahoe Basin, and they offer a variety of recreational and educational experiences to residents and visitors. One free program offered each winter is the Ski With a Ranger program at Heavenly Ski Resort.

Heavenly Ski Resort, like many ski areas, is located on public land. The Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit of the USDA Forest Service issues a special use permit for their operation. Heavenly also partners with the Forest Service to provide educational programs, such as Ski With a Ranger.

Ski rangers are volunteers or staff that are trained to lead guided tours on downhill skis. These on-trail tours include information on the natural, historic, and cultural features of the forest. They are free with the purchase of a lift ticket at Heavenly Ski Resort. All you have to do is to show up at the meeting place and learn while you ski. This is not a ski instruction program, but the trails used are for beginner and intermediate downhill skiers and snowboarders.

The tours last about one and a half hours. They are usually available at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., Friday through Monday, depending on weather and holiday weekends. They start at the top of the Tram/Gunbarrel lift, where there is a sign to the left of the lift.

While on the tours, rangers describe the natural history of the mountain and its forest. Participants can learn to identify the trees that grow at different elevations and the wildlife that inhabit the area by their tracks in the snow. Ranger Michael St. Michel says it is often possible to see tracks of coyotes, squirrels, rabbits, birds, bears and even American martens.

These tours use an outdoor setting to make environmental education fun and exciting. For thousands of Americans, being out on national forest land can be the introduction to a vast new world of study. Naturalists such as St. Michel are ideally suited to open people’s eyes to the unique and often amazing aspects of the natural environment.

For example, from the perspective of ski trails facing Lake Tahoe, it is easy for a naturalist to point out how the lake was formed. It was actually formed not by glaciers, which formed the Great Lakes, but by plate tectonics. Skiers can see how the earth’s crust actually rose up on the east and west shores to form the Sierra Nevada crest and the Carson Range. When this happened about 5 million years ago, the block of crust under the lake actually sank downward, creating the trough occupied by the lake today. Skiers can also readily observe Mount Watson and Mount Pluto, the volcanoes that dammed the trough at its north end, creating the basin now graced by Lake Tahoe.

In addition to the guided tours, the ski rangers also position themselves around the mountain before and after the tours to field questions from skiers who do not take the time for a tour.

The USDA Forest Service is the largest federal provider of recreation. The areas owned and managed by the Forest Service include wilderness, deserts, historic sites, research natural areas, forests, lakes and ski areas. Residents and visitors to the Sierra Nevada are particularly fortunate to have such an extensive system of national forests. These lands are owned by all U.S. citizens, and they are free for all to enjoy.

At Lake Tahoe, the Forest Service also offers the public an opportunity to participate in the revision of its Land Management Plan. Public involvement in planning is currently being encouraged at Lake Tahoe through the multiagency Pathway 2007 program. You can learn how to get involved by going to the Web site at pathway2007.org.