Recent Acquisition Opens the Way to Complete the Pines to Mines Trail

The Trust for Public Land, working with the Truckee Donner Land Trust, Bear Yuba Land Trust, and the U.S. Forest Service, recently acquired 3,503 acres in the upper watershed of the South Yuba River and transferred it to the Tahoe National Forest. The acquisition, which included all or parts of six sections of land north of Highway 80 and west of Donner Summit, was essential to the completion of the 72-mile Pines to Mines Trail from Truckee to Nevada City.

The acquisition advances our Partnership’s goal to reduce the fragmentation of land ownership along the Sierra Crest which originated with the construction of the first Transcontinental Railroad over Donner Summit in the 1860s. Fragmented ownership patterns impede public access and often compromise the quality of wildlife habitat and migration corridors. They can also complicate the implementation of landscape-scale restoration projects.

The acquisition will help to safeguard water quality in the South Yuba River which flows into Lake Spaulding, a primary source of drinking water for western Placer County.  It will also help to protect habitat for species threatened with extinction like the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog, Pacific marten, and North American wolverine, among others.

Once built, the Pines to Mines Trail will link communities east and west of the Sierra Crest by filling gaps in the existing trail network.

Photo credit: Yuba River Tributary © Brady Moss, TPL | Trail Overlook © TPL | Spaulding Lake Slab © Jeff Barker | South Yuba © TPL