Upper Truckee River

At the very top of the Upper Truckee River watershed, Grass Lake and Grass Lake Creek were named by civil engineer and land surveyor, George H. Goddard, who in 1859 crossed Luther Pass from Hope Valley in the West Fork Carson River watershed over the pass and found "a swampy valley...with a pond filled with rank grass that (we) called Grass Lake...". ==Watershed==

This watershed is the largest in the Lake Tahoe Basin and occupies , which is 18 percent of the total land area tributary to Lake Tahoe (). ==Ecology and restoration==

Woody vegetation in the Upper Truckee River watershed is primarily coniferous forest with lodgepole pine, ponderosa pine, Jeffrey pine, white fir, red fir, western white pine, mountain hemlock, and sugar pine. Alders, aspen, and willows are common along the stream zone. The straight boulder-lined man-made channel by the airport was converted back to a more natural, meandering course as of November, 2011. California State Parks acquired two properties to protect wet meadows and floodplain habitat along the Upper Truckee River in the mid 1980s: Washoe Meadows State Park (WMSP) and Lake Valley State Recreation Area (LVSRA). ==See also==