Ward Creek, side creek Lodge entry, 6-22-14 Guzzi

Ward Creek is a eastward-flowing

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

Placer County, California Placer County ( ; Spanish for "sand deposit"), officially the County of Placer, is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 404,739. The county seat is Auburn. Placer County is included in the Grea ...

, United States.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed July 16, 2013 The creek flows into

Lake Tahoe Lake Tahoe (; was, Dáʔaw, meaning "the lake") is a Fresh water, freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada of the United States. Lying at , it straddles the state line between California and Nevada, west of Carson City, Nevad ...

south of

Tahoe City, California Tahoe City (formerly Tahoe) is an unincorporated town in Placer County, California. Tahoe City is located on the shore of Lake Tahoe, at the outlet of the Truckee River. The site was surveyed in 1863, and Tahoe House was built in 1864. The Taho ...

, and has undergone extensive restoration to reduce sediment and surface run-off to maintain the purity of Lake Tahoe.

History

Ward Creek and Ward Peak are named for homesteader Ward Rush, whose claim was made on April 1, 1874. In the early 1980s the McClatchy family donated lands on the south side of the creek to California State Parks.

Watershed

Ward Creek, the fourth largest stream (by area and discharge) of the 63 Tahoe Basin watersheds contributes 6% of the stream runoff flowing into Lake Tahoe. The creek was a major source of sediment related to erosion from subdivisions and logging roads in the watershed. The Ward Creek watershed drains an area of and has a North Fork beginning on the south slope of Ward Peak and a South Fork originating on the north side of Twin Peaks. The Ward Creek watershed is just north of the Blackwood Creek watershed, and just south of Alpine Meadows Ski Resort which is on the north side of Ward Peak and Scott Peak. The creek mainstem is paralleled by Ward Creek Boulevard/Road.

Ecology

From 2006 to 2013 Ward Creek Park was restored by California State Parks, the California Tahoe Conservancy and other partners to reduce erosion which deposites sediment in Lake Tahoe, removal of fire-prone crowded trees and removal of a diversion dam. Beaver dams on Ward Creek reduce sediment and nutrient (such as phosphorus) loads that would otherwise flow to Lake Tahoe. Recent evidence has shown that

beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...

(''Castor canadensis'') are native to the Sierra Nevada. Their dams do not appear to pose barriers to trout passage.

Recreation

Ward Creek Park is a California State Park whose is bordered by Ward Creek on the north and Highway 89 on the east. The area along the creek is protected by the

California State Parks The California Department of Parks and Recreation, more commonly known as California State Parks, manages the California state parks system. The system administers 279 separate park units on 1.4 million acres (570,000 hectares), with over 280 ...

system. The Park has an extensive trail system that ties in with the bike path along Highway 89 and connects with

USFS The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency in ...

trails to Stanford Rock (which lies midway between Twin Peaks and the mouth of Ward Creek) and the Tahoe Rim Trail.

References

External links