By Hannah Truby
My first visit to Frog Lake was on skins with my dad. It was the spring of ‘21, but there was still a good enough winter left up high. The snowpack had a solid, bomber base, and the day felt perfect—a bluebird—so I ditched my shell and opted for a short sleeve about half a mile in. I remember being surprised when we reached the hut (now known as the Eschenbach Backcountry House, named after benefactor Ralph Eschenbach, a pioneer in early GPS technology). It looked pristine, as far as backcountry huts go. The wood trim looked new, and the sun glinted off solar panels that covered much of its roof. Its granite base, though, was clearly original—though I had no idea from when or what.
Fast forward to today, and I now know that, for a long time, Frog Lake remained largely unknown. Nestled in the high country about 11 miles outside of Truckee, the alpine refuge was closed to the public for nearly the entirety of the 20th century, visited mostly by the landowners and their friends.
In the early 1900s, the land that would become Frog Lake was part of the “Sierra Checkerboard,” a patchwork of alternating square-mile parcels granted to the Southern Pacific Railroad by President Abraham Lincoln to help facilitate construction of the Transcontinental Railroad.
A postcard from 1906 shows the lake, then called “Nona Lake,” named by Truckee resident Charles McGlashan after his wife, Leonara, aka Nona. Apparently, McGlashan had a unique plan for Nona Lake. According to Give Me a Mountain Meadow, a book about McGlashan written by his granddaughter (also named Nona), he hoped to try his luck in the frog-selling business.
"In recent years frog legs had been in demand at gourmet restaurants in San Francisco. Virginia City and Truckee residents too would pay good prices for such delicacies," she wrote in the book. "It occurred to him that production of frog legs might be profitable if frogs could survive the sub-zero winters."
Two dozen frogs–ordered by McGlashan from San Fransisco–were carried via horseback in two milk cans to the 7,600-foot alpine lake. (Spoiler: none survived the first winter). You might think this is where I tell you Frog Lake got its name—but that would be too easy.
Courtesy of The Truckee Donner Land Trust
In the 1930s, Felix Smith purchased the lake and surrounding property from the Southern Pacific Railroad, establishing a family retreat that he and his descendants would quietly care for over generations—along with, as old newspaper clippings and court records suggest, a handful of memorable incidents. It was the Smith family who gave the lake its current name, not as an ode to frostbitten frogs, but rather for a frog-shaped boulder along the shoreline.
The Smiths held the property privately for more than eight decades, limiting public access and preserving its quiet, unspoiled character. In June 2020, they sold Frog Lake to the Truckee Donner Land Trust (TDLT)—a decision that ensured both long-term conservation and public access.
Newspaper scans courtesy of the Nevada County Historical Archive
“There were likely higher bidders, but they chose the Land Trust because they wanted to see it conserved, to be used like they enjoyed it,” says TDLT Communications Director Greyson Howard.
Frog Lake is just one example of the Land Trust’s work. Across the region, the organization has tackled some of the Sierra Nevada’s tricky conservation puzzles, like “closing” the Sierra Nevada Checkerboard as part of a border push to protect corridors of open space, including the Martis Valley. Donner Summit, too, with its granite cliffs and verdant meadows, has benefited from careful stewardship, ensuring these landscapes remain intact for hikers, riders, and climbers alike.
The Land Trust uses a mix of strategies to protect land, and their conservation strategy centers on negotiating land acquisitions, easements, and land exchanges. Of course, each acquisition is different, Howard says, but by working with landowners, the public, federal, state, and local governments, they aim to “create win‑win situations for private and public interests.”
With so many factors to balance—and sometimes competing buyers—how easy is it to create these “win-win” situations? Actually, sometimes, pretty easy. Howard says landowners often turn down more lucrative private offers, as they did with Frog Lake.
“You know, we're a nonprofit. We don't have the ability to make anybody do anything,” he says. “But in that case, we are kind of in competition with private buyers who could go over appraised. But what we often find is, sellers will actually pass over more lucrative offers because they care about the land. They have an attachment and a vision for their property and want to see it preserved and stewarded, rather than developed or closed off to the public.”
By choosing stewardship over development, landowners who sell to organizations like TDLT are not only protecting the land itself, they’re also ensuring the public can enjoy it—an opportunity that has become even more meaningful as support for accessible open space and outdoor recreation has grown, especially in the years following COVID, when people more than ever are seeking time outdoors. TDLT’s backcountry huts at Frog Lake, for example, open seasonally for winter and summer blocks—and reservations fill almost immediately, often reaching 90 to 95 percent booked within days. And while trail usage can be harder to measure, anecdotal evidence tells more people are on the trails than ever before.
“It’s amazing when working on an acquisition—you realize this is in your backyard, and yet you never knew it existed. And then to see the community out there, enjoying and caring for it, —that’s rewarding.”
Howard says the Land Trust’s community—from the Bay Area to Nevada—has also stepped up financially in recent years, helping fund acquisitions like 110 acres atop Jackass Ridge, a favorite spot for local mountain bikers.
“We had a very short escrow window. I think it was like maybe six months or something like that,” he said. “We were nervous about our time frame. But people came together and donated the money with months to spare. Totally ahead of schedule. So it's really heartening to see the community continue to show up for open space and trails and for caring for the properties that we have year after year.”
Dustin Weatherford is part of the team of hutmasters maintaining Frog Lake’s huts, which in the winter months means a lot of digging: digging out doors, digging out the windows, and digging out the huts’ power system—only to find them buried again the next morning. But of course, that’s all part of caring for a special place like Frog Lake.
“Places like this are so rare – I don’t know of any other places around here where you can get a backcountry experience like this,’ Weatherford says. “We as backcountry visitors should care about conservation because of just this. Without strong conservation efforts we will lose more and more backcountry and natural habitats.”
Frog Lake’s backcountry huts are in constant demand, with back-to-back bookings. But when we arrived, ours was clean, charming, and rustic—well-loved, yet showing no trace that anyone had been there before us. The lake, too, looked just as it did a hundred years ago.
I, for one, am fond of stories like Frog Lake because they remind me that—even when the folks in charge elsewhere are busy with other things and aren’t exactly environmental superheroes—places like this exist because people have seen, and will always see, the value in them, and will work to protect them.
