Kyburz Flat

What became the Henness Pass route over the Sierra Nevada followed ancient Native American trails. About halfway between Donner Pass (on the south) and Yuba Pass (on the north), it had become a popular route into California by the 1850s. Although a bit longer to the goldfields, it was lower, and it avoided Donner Pass, which had acquired a sinister reputation due to the fate of the Donner party in the 1840s. By the 1860s, with the discovery of silver in the Comstock Lode, much traffic was now traveling back eastward, carrying supplies into Nevada. This reflected the rise of San Francisco as a manufacturing center, especially for mining equipment, as well as the burgeoning agricultural development in California.

Kyburz Flat is on the Henness Pass road about a mile east of where the Little Truckee River bends south on its way to join the Truckee. It contains a petroglyph, consisting of enigmatic pits on a now fractured boulder. Its meaning is uncertain, although it is still sacred to local Native American tribes.

Just beyond the petroglyph is the site of More's Station, which consisted of a hotel and associated structures such as stables and corrals beginning in the 1850s. Little is left today, but interpretive signs identify the locations of the buildings. They are on a boardwalk that is passable to wheelchairs.

Traffic tailed off with the opening of the Transcontinental Railroad over Donner Pass in 1869. As late as the early 1920s, however, a section of the Henness Pass road was designated as part of the Lincoln Highway, one of the early coast-to-coast automotive routes.

The most recent historic activity consists of an early 20th-century sheep camp, Wheeler Sheep Camp, where the most prominent structure remaining is a large brick oven. This oven was refurbished in the early 00s and can be reserved for group activities such as picnics. Wheeler Sheep Camp is just under a mile north of the More's Station site on a primitive dirt road that will likely require high clearance. It's an easy hike, however.

The Henness Pass Road, although first bypassed by the railroad and later by the 20th century automotive routes, still largely exists today, consisting of rough graded roads. As you travel these roads, far from the modern traffic, imagine the bustle that took place here over a century and a half ago, with the neighing of horses, the rumble and creak of wagons, the shouts and curses of the teamsters, and the clouds of dust.