- Use Google Maps to get directions to “Sagehen Creek Field Station”. Other mapping apps (or random names for us) may send you to the wrong place.
- Or download a map and directions.
- More
The map below includes road directions to the station from Truckee, bicycle routes between Truckee and Sagehen, and local Truckee services regularly needed by station visitors.
Use this Strava route for mountain bikes: Sagehen to Truckee
Visitors must submit a station use application and make a visit reservation, then make arrangements with the Station Manager for the combination to open a locked gate about 200 yards off of California Hwy 89. The 1.8 mi. entrance road (from Hwy 89) is unpaved and snow is removed during the winter as far as the field station. High clearance vehicles are helpful, but not mandatory.
Over-snow vehicles, snowshoes and skis are used to access research facility in the upper Sagehen basin beyond the field station between roughly November to May. Visitors should carry tire chains and extra clothing while traveling anywhere in the Tahoe area during winter months.
More information about the Sagehen Creek Field Station.
- FAQs
- Getting to Sagehen
- Learn more about Station facilities
- View topographic maps of the basin & surrounding area
- View a Google map identifying many active data collection points within Sagehen Basin
- View a map of the Central Sierra Field Research Stations
About the Sagehen site…
The year-round station facilities are at an elevation of 6,380 feet in California on the east slope of the northern Sierra Nevada, approximately 20-miles north of Lake Tahoe.
The roughly 9,000-acre Sagehen Creek watershed includes yellow pine, mixed conifer, and red fir forests, brushfields, scattered mountain meadows and fens. Deep snow is typical of the winter season, and dry, warm weather is typical of the summer period. Sagehen Creek is about 8-miles long, extending eastward from near the crest of the Sierra to Stampede Reservoir on the Little Truckee River.
The watershed is managed by the Truckee Ranger District of the Tahoe National Forest & the Pacific Southwest Research Station primarily for research and education. Sagehen Creek is a candidate for inclusion in the Wild and Scenic River Inventory.