Old Emigrant Road

Wagons that had already crossed Carson Pass were not finished climbing. The Carson Spur blocked the canyon below, so from 1848 the road turned south at the meadow now under Caples Lake and went over West Pass, a thousand feet higher than the pass behind it and the second summit of the day. Thousands of wagons took that detour for fifteen years. Blasting at the Spur in the early 1860s made the climb unnecessary, and the meadow went under a dam.

What the plaque says

Old Emigrant Road Here the Old Emigrant Road of 1848 swung down across the meadow now covered by Caples Lake (Twin Lakes) and climbed along the ridge at the right to the gap at the head of the valley. From this summit (9,460 feet) it descended to Placerville. This rough and circuitous section became obsolete in 1863 when a better route was blasted out of the face of the cliff at Carson Spur. California registered historical landmark no. 661 Plaque placed by the California State Park Commission in cooperation with the Silver Lake Camper's Association, July 11, 1959.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Emerald Bay State Park — 18 mi
  A glacial fjord on Tahoe's west shore with the lake's only island and a Scandinavian house at the water.
• Genoa — 23 mi
  Nevada's oldest town—a California Trail trading post and Carson Valley ranch country that came eight years before the silver and quietly outlasted it
• Cave Rock / De'ek Wadapush — 24 mi
  One of the most sacred places of the Wašiw—the Standing Gray Rock, a worn volcano the highway was blasted through and climbers bolted for sport, now closed and quiet again after the Washoe's long fight to protect it

More markers nearby

• Kirkwood's — 1.9 mi
• Kit Carson Marker — 2.7 mi
• Memorial to Pioneer Odd Fellows — 2.7 mi
• Old Emigrant Road — 7.3 mi