Carson City Facts and Figures, 2

The east side of Carson City is sliced up by numerous canyons. These canyons include Eldorado, Brunswick, Sand, Hackett and Sullivan. Eldorado Canyon is on the eastern border of the city, lying half in Carson city and half in Lyon County. There are other canyons in this area also.
The west side of the city is heavily forested and climbs up into the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The highest point in the city is Snow Valley Peak, which rises to 9,214 feet above sea level. The west side of the city is mostly part of Humboldt National Forest, which covers 2 1/2 million acres and Lake Tahoe-Nevada State Park, which covers over 14,000 acres on the Nevada side of that famous alpine lake. The east side, undeveloped area of Carson City has some dirt roads that leads to still active mines, abandoned mining roads that are being reclaimed by nature, primitive dirt tracks that penetrate the desert leading to nowhere in particular, dirt roads leading to private ranches and huge areas of roadless wilderness. The west side undeveloped area of the city is much the same in terms of roadless areas and primitive dirt tracks, but these are mountain roads instead of desert roads. The west side also has 2 busy highways, U.S. Highway 50, which runs along the southern edge of the city and State Highway 28, which runs along the shore of Lake Tahoe. Highway 50 is a very busy, 4-lane highway that provides the most direct access to Sacramento and the California Coast. however, it is also a steep and twisting mountain road that crosses and recrosses the boundary between Carson city and Douglas County several times in its torturous path through the mountains.
State Highway 28, on the far west side of Carson City, runs along the shore of Lake Tahoe for part of its run and then a few miles away from the lake farther south. Along this busy highway, there are a few tourist related businesses, but the development is small.
The far western edge of Carson City is in Lake Tahoe, all the way out to the California border in the middle of the lake. This makes Carson City one of only three state capital cities in the United States that border another state or country. Trenton, New Jersey borders Pennsylvania and Juneau, Alaska borders British Columbia, Canada.
The only road access from the handful of businesses along the lakeshore are along Highway 28 to its junction with Highway 50 four miles south of the city in Douglas County, then along Highway 50 as it winds its way through unpopulated mountain and forest. There is also a primitive dirt road, called Kings Canyon Road, that provides access to the main part of the city, but it is only negotiable by 4-wheel drive vehicles. I will have more to say on this historic road in an upcoming edition of this blog.