If you fly across the country to California, the first sign that you’re nearing the Golden State is when you look out the window to see a giant mountain rampart stretching north and south as far as the eye can see. This is the east side of the Sierra Nevada, the largest single mountain range in the continental U.S. and its highest, too, in terms of the distance from its base to its summits.
(For example, Lone Pine, 3,733 feet above sea level, sits at the eastern base of Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the Lower 48 States at 14,494 feet. The 10,761-foot difference in elevation between town and peak, if you could somehow transfer it to Colorado, would result in 16,000-foot mountains.)
With an area about twice that of Switzerland, the Sierra Nevada is blessed with some of the planet’s most spectacular land and plant forms: The great sequoia trees on the range’s western slopes are the largest living things on earth, with weights of up to 6,000 tons; many travelers consider glacier-carved Yosemite Valley, with its spectacular waterfalls and granite monoliths, to be the most sublimely beautiful mountain valley on earth; 193-square-mile Lake Tahoe, nestled at 6,200 feet among a ring of high mountain peaks, is one of earth’s loveliest alpine bodies of water.
So this tilted 400-mile-long block of granite and volcanic rock, which gently slopes to the west and precipitously falls on its east, has long been an object of human affection and exploitation. Here and there among its many canyons and forests are small, mostly happy, settlements where people have made livings from timber, fish, minerals, grazing, waterpower and, more lately, vacationing, hiking and gambling. They include names that evoke knowing nods from travelers who’ve learned the Sierra's intricacies: Truckee, South Lake Tahoe, Markleeville, Stateline, Loyalton, Sierraville and a score more.
In the Sierra’s north, as it nears its jumbled merge with the Cascade Range, the ranching and lumbering town of Quincy (population 2,900, elevation 3,432 feet), the seat of Plumas County, has been putting on an early-summer music festival since 1991. This year, the 15th edition of the High Sierra Music Festival will take place June 30-July 3 at the Plumas-Sierra County Fairgrounds.
The four-stage music fest is one of the most eclectic in the U.S. Genres range from bluegrass and folk to rock and blues. Complimenting the music is a crafts fair, children’s program, onsite parking and camping (great for tailgating), a food court, a beer court featuring regional microbreweries, and performance tents showcasing rising comedians and actors.
As if this weren’t already a heck of a lot to be going on in the far reaches of the Sierra, Quincy offers other enticements: nearby Feather River Canyon, one of the West’s most beautiful defiles; 52-square-mile Lake Almanor, a favorite with canoeists and fishermen; and Lassen Volcanic National Park, a surprisingly uncrowded mountain preserve featuring active steam vents and mud pots amid beautiful virgin conifer forests.
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