Historical Marker · No. 1048
Site of Echo Summit
South Lake Tahoe, El Dorado County · California
Erected by California State Parks in cooperation with the United States Forest Service, 2013
They built a running track in a ski-area parking lot at 7,377 feet because Mexico City sits about that high. The surface was pink Tartan, eight lanes on the straight and six on the curves, and hundreds of pines were left standing inside the oval. The men's final trials ran here September 6 to 16, 1968, after a training camp that had started in July, and four world records fell. When it was over the track was taken up and moved down Highway 50 to a middle school, where it lasted until 2007.
What the plaque says
Site of Echo Summit In 1968, Echo Summit served as a high-altitude training center and site of the U.S. Olympic Men's Track and Field Trials. Four world records were shattered here on the track carved out of the Eldorado National Forest. The U.S. team selected for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City was celebrated worldwide for its athletic dominance and deep commitment to racial equality. State Registered Historical Landmark No. 1048 Registered November 8, 2013 Plaque placed by California State Parks in cooperation with the United States Forest Service
Where it stands
38.81432, -120.03421 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Emerald Bay State Park — 10 miA glacial fjord on Tahoe's west shore with the lake's only island and a Scandinavian house at the water.
- Genoa — 17 miNevada'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 — 17 miOne 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
- Glenbrook & Spooner Summit — 19 miLake Tahoe's east shore, where the basin was logged nearly clean to timber the Comstock—the forest that paid for the silver, and the century it has spent growing back