Dardanelles and Freel Roadless Areas - Dardanelles Roadless Area

Dardanelles Roadless Area

This 14,500-acre (59 km2) set aside is managed as a nonwilderness, nonmotorized roadless recreation area and is second only to nearby Desolation Wilderness in popularity in the Lake Tahoe region. Often called "Meiss Country" after the local ranching family whose historic Meiss cabin, built in 1878, still stands in the Upper Truckee Basin area.
Lake Tahoe and its primary inflow, the Upper Truckee River, occupy a basin that is between the split crest of the Sierra Nevada Range, with the eastern crest extending north to become the Carson Range and the main crest heading northwest. The Upper Truckee River headwaters begin in a 2,000-foot (610 m) thick assemblege of volcanic rock at Stevens Peak. The Dardanelles Roadless Area's highest features are Stevens (10,043 ft) and Red Lake peaks (10,060 ft). These peaks are the highest in northern California that are composed of mudflow breccia (conglomerate). Stevens Peak was named in 1889 for J. M. Stevens, a local county supervisor who operated a stage coach station in nearby Hope Valley in the 1860s. The area has subalpine meadows, lodgepole pine stands, krummholtz (German for "twisted wood") mats of whitebark pine and stratified volcanic peaks and ridges.

The Pacific Crest Trail traverses the area between Carson Pass and Echo Summit.