Echo Summit is a mountain pass (also known as Johnson Pass) located in eastern El Dorado County, California, USA. At an elevation of 7,382 ft (2,250 m), it is the highest point on U.S. Route 50 in California, which traverses it at postmile 66.48 between Twin Bridges and Meyers, south of Lake Tahoe.
The "Sierra Nevada Southern Route" (aka the "Pioneer Route") of the Lincoln Highway, the first road across the United States of America, was routed over Echo Summit in 1913. (The "Sierra Nevada Northern Route" of the Lincoln Highway goes over Donner Pass.)
Echo Summit is notable for being the location of the high altitude Olympic Trials, held September 6–16, 1968 and Training Camp, in anticipation of the high altitude Olympics in Mexico City later in 1968. Four world records were achieved during the trials. One of the first Tartan tracks was constructed in the middle of the forest for this event. After its use, the track was torn out and reinstalled at nearby South Tahoe Middle School, where it survived until 2006.
Famous quotes containing the words echo and/or summit:
“I cease my song for thee,
From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,
O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night.
Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night,
The song, the wondrous chant of the grey-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo aroused in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“The light that shined upon the summit now seems almost to shine at our feet.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)