Central Sierra Nevada:

The Central Sierra Nevada is the heart of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The area is bounded on the north by Lakes Basin and Sierra Valley and the south by the Mokelumne Wilderness. Bordered to west by California’s Central Valley the Central Sierra Nevada stretches east across the mountain range to the Great Basin in far western Nevada.

The Lakes Basin, Donner Pass, Granite Chief Wilderness and the Auburn State Recreation Area are the major landmarks of the area.

The Central Sierra spans a large geographic area; so we divided our backyard into the North-Central which is based around the Tahoe National Forest and the South-Central which overlies the Eldorado National Forest. We use the Middle Fork of the American River as the natural line between the two Central Sierra regions. The eastern slope of the Sierras dominated by Lake Tahoe, the Reno face, and Hope Valley are discussed in a specific Area of its own. As the range drops south, the granitic mountains become more prominent and high-mountain lakes occupy the larger basins. We use the North Fork of the Mokelumne River as the break between the Northern Sierra and the Southern Sierra.
This is as far south as www.SierraOutdoorRecreation.com currently goes.

Portions of Plumas, Sierra County, Yuba, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Amador and Alpine Counties in California plus the western edge of Douglas County in Nevada are included.

Directions: Sacramento, California, lying to the west and Reno, Nevada lying to the east provide the two major gateways to the Central Sierra Nevada. Interstate Highway 80 crosses west to east through the middle while Highway 49 lies along the west boundary and Highway 395 just to the east of the mountain range. Highway 70 provides access from the north and State Highway 4 from the south.