Lake Tahoe Basin

Located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Lake Tahoe's beautiful, sapphire-blue waters straddle the California-Nevada state line. The lake's elevation averages 6,225 feet, and surrounding peaks reach heights of up to 10,880 feet. The Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit lies within a unique Sierra Nevada geologic basin. It encompasses over 150,000 acres of National Forest lands.

The USDA Forest Service established the LTBMU in 1973. The name of the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit reflects a unique sort of National Forest, as unique as the resources of the Tahoe Basin. The purpose of the LTBMU is to protect Lake Tahoe and its famed water quality by specially managing a diverse range of resources, particularly the complex watershed systems that form the basin surrounding the lake.

Conservation, restoration, and protection programs include forest health and hazard fuels management, habitat, and wilderness management, to name a few. The LTBMU has become known for pioneering programs and techniques in watershed management, environmental education, and resource interpretation programs, fisheries, and stream restoration.

The watershed restoration program rehabilitates and restores disturbed areas in the forest. Stream channels, roads, and upland areas are treated to reduce or eliminate soil erosion. The wildlife program manages a diversity of habitats that will ensure the persistence of viable native and desirable non-native fish, wildlife, and plant populations in the basin.

State parks in the area are Sugar Pine Point, D. L. Bliss, and Emerald Bay in California and Lake Tahoe - Nevada in Nevada.

See map of the area.

We would like to thank staff members at Lake Tahoe - Nevada State Park for assistance in locating information and staff members at Lake Tahoe Basin for providing a book with taxonomic information for this page. Descriptive information was obtained from the Management Unit's website.

Flora

Fauna