Serene Lakes

Royal Gorge Cross Country Ski Resort is claimed to be the largest cross-country ski resort in North America. Located in Soda Springs, California, the resort offers 65 trails and about 195 kilometres (121 mi) of skiable terrain.Royal Gorge Resort offers accommodations and dining locations. Rainbow Lodge is a beautiful historic lodge that dates back to the 19th century, remotely located right by the Yuba River.

Soda Springs (formerly, Summit Valley, Soda Springs Station, Hopkins, Hopkins Springs, and Tinkers Station) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Nevada County, California, United States. Soda Springs is located 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Donner Pass. The population was 81 at the 2010 census. The Soda Springs Ski Resort is located just off Highway 80 near the Donner Summit.

Norden is a small unincorporated community in Nevada County, California, United States, about 9 miles (14 km) west of Truckee. The community is located on a former portion of U.S. Route 40 near Interstate 80 and lies along the historical First transcontinental railroad, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of Donner Pass.Near Norden is the Sugar Bowl Ski Resort and Donner Ski Ranch, located in nearby Placer County. The Norden post office, named after the lake, opened in 1926, closed in 1943, and reopened in 1947, and is now closed. The nearby Donner post office operated from 1882 to 1926.The place is named for Charles Van Norden, an official of the South Yuba Water Company. The dam was built in 1900 and the resulting lake was named after Van Norden.The community has a population of 27 as of 2016.

Boreal Mountain California is a ski area in Soda Springs, near the Lake Tahoe area of California. It has six chairlifts and two surface lifts, and offers the only night skiing in Tahoe, until 8 pm. It is owned by Powdr Corporation. Located on Highway 80, West of Truckee, California, Boreal is typically the first area to open for skiing and snowboarding in Northern California. For the 2017-2018 season, Boreal was the first resort to open in all of California, opening on November 8, 2017. Although it is relatively small compared to other Tahoe area resorts, Boreal hosted the US Snowboarding Grand Prix in 2009. Boreal added a new Magic Carpet for the 2007 season and a fix gripped mid-mountain quad chairlift for the 2008 season. For the 2018–19 season, Boreal opened a new fix gripped beginner quad chairlift, named California Cruiser. The Terrain park is the main feature for many "park" skiers and snowboarders. Features include handrails, boxes, a half-pipe, a jump line, snow-sculpted transition and flow lines, and the Woodward Peace Park. The family snow play area, called Tahoe Tubing features snow tubing lanes and snow play for the entire family. Tahoe Tubing is accessible from a Magic Carpet surface lift to transport guest back up the tubing lanes. Boreal Mountain is also home to Woodward Tahoe, a 33,000 square foot action sports hub open year-round. In the summer months Boreal / Woodward offers lift-served downhill mountain biking trails and an 11-acre network of outdoor skateparks, parkour zones, and dirt jump lines.

Sugar Bowl is a ski and snowboard area in northern Placer County near Norden, California along the Donner Pass of the Sierra Nevada, approximately 46 mi (74 km) west of Reno, Nevada on Interstate 80, that opened on December 15, 1939. Sugar Bowl is a medium-sized ski area in the Lake Tahoe region, and is well known for its long history, significant advanced terrain, high annual snowfall and being one of the closest ski areas to the San Francisco Bay Area. Sugar Bowl's terrain is 17% Beginner, 45% Intermediate and 38% Advanced.Sugar Bowl was founded by Hannes Schroll and a group of individual investors and is one of the few remaining privately owned resorts in the Lake Tahoe area. Sugar Bowl was the first ski area in California to install a chairlift and the first on the west coast to install a gondola lift.

Kingvale is a census-designated place (CDP) in Placer County and Nevada County, California, United States. The CDP straddles the border of the two counties, with Nevada County to the north and Placer County to the south. It is located near Soda Springs, 5.5 mi (8.9 km) west of Donner Pass. Kingvale was listed on an official map as of 1955. The population was 143 at the 2010 census.

Mount Lincoln is an 8,383-foot-elevation (2,555 meter) mountain summit in Placer County, California, United States.

Donner Ski Ranch is a budget-oriented, family owned ski area located on Donner Summit in the Tahoe National Forest of Nevada County, California. It is owned by Janet and Marshall Tuttle, who purchased it after it went into bankruptcy. The area it is on has been used for skiing since 1937. It has ski lifts on both sides of Donner Summit, and is located close to Sugar Bowl Ski Resort. 25% of its terrain is beginner, 50% intermediate, and 25% advanced, but of the 52 runs 16 are of beginning difficulty, 20 are intermediate, and 16 are advanced. The rustic lodge, built-in 1947, is mostly made of wood, and has open pipes. Norm Sayler began working for Donner Ski Ranch in 1958, helping to build the ski area’s first chairlift in 1955. Sayler took over the management of the resort in 1958, and ran it for the next 46 years, while slowly acquiring most of the ownership. The rustic lodge was renovated after its acquisition by its current owners. At the time of the acquisition, all of the ski lifts were painted as well.

Donner Pass is a 7,056-foot-high (2,151 m) mountain pass in the northern Sierra Nevada, above Donner Lake and Donner Memorial State Park about 9 miles (14 km) west of Truckee, California. Like the Sierra Nevada themselves, the pass has a steep approach from the east and a gradual approach from the west. The pass has been used by the California Trail, First transcontinental railroad, Overland Route, Lincoln Highway and Victory Highway (both later U.S. Route 40 and still later Donner Pass Road), as well as indirectly by Interstate 80. The pass gets its name from the ill-fated Donner Party who overwintered there in 1846. Today the area is home to a thriving recreational community with several alpine lakes and ski resorts (Donner Ski Ranch, Boreal, and Sugar Bowl). The permanent communities in the area include Kingvale and Soda Springs, as well as the larger community below the pass surrounding Donner Lake.

Tunnel Number 41, or the Big Hole, is a single-track railway tunnel underneath Mount Judah in the Sierra Nevada, near Norden, California. It is owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, in service as a part of the Roseville Subdivision of the Overland Route. Daily freight trains as well as Amtrak's California Zephyr utilize the line. Built by Southern Pacific to bypass the curves over Donner Pass along the First transcontinental railroad, it opened to traffic in 1925 as the third-longest rail tunnel in the United States at 10,325 feet (2 mi; 3,147 m) in length. The new tunnel and cutoff shortened the route by 1.29 miles (2.08 km) and was 132 feet (40 m) lower in elevation than the previous bore through the summit, Tunnel No. 6. The new and old single track routes were used in tandem as a double-tracked route until the old route was mothballed in 1993. The line is capable of transporting double-stacked containers.

Mount Judah is an 8,243-foot-elevation (2,512 meter) mountain summit in Placer County, California, United States.

George R. Stewart Peak is a 7,389-foot-elevation (2,252 meter) summit in Nevada County, California, United States.