In the little bitty gold-rush town of Iowa Hill…..

there’s a little bitty lodge called SUGAR PINE LODGE.  The most unique thing about this out of the way place is its authenticity.  Think what it would be like to step back in time:

The little town of Iowa Hill was a gold-rush town that’s been hanging on since the 1800s and, thankfully, has never quite become a true ghost town.  Its remote location in the Northern Sierras is probably the reason it was able to preserve its history so well and, along with the unpretentiousness of the old west, a charming amount of self-deprecating silliness and fun.  Nowadays, Iowa Hill is a throwback, a place guaranteed to confuse your sense of time and place.

There are no power lines in Iowa Hill because it’s still off the grid.  The Iowa Hill School is the only one in California dependent exclusively on solar power.  That’s right — no public utilities of any kind serve this one-room mountain school.

Gold mining is not only a big part of Iowa Hill’s past but, with most of the world’s gold supply already in circulation, it’s also an integral and enormously interesting part of this little town’s future — and personality.  There are still gold miners in Iowa Hill, coming and going just like the old days.  These are not hard-hatted miners digging into the mountains with heavy equipment provided by corporate big shots, but ruggedly independent men (and sometimes women) digging into the north fork of the American River with picks and shovels, gold pans and rockers.  If you have an opportunity to talk to and visit with these modern-day 49ers, you’ll probably feel like you’ve been transported through time.  And you may indeed encounter them here at SUGAR PINE LODGE, especially on a Saturday night or at one of our monthly events (sort of like a hoedown).  These are wonderfully entertaining people …. Billy, Shirttail, Woody, Richard and Miss B….you just never know who’s going to be here.

The lodge itself is about five miles out of town, about 2 miles from the boat dock at Sugar Pine Lake.  The elevation is about 4,000 ft. so be sure to call for a weather update.  Miners from around the country converge on SUGAR PINE LODGE in March for the annual Miner’s Rendezvous.  In April, it’s the Spring Roundup.  In May, locals and visitors gather at the Iowa Hill Park for the Chili Cook-off which benefits the volunteer fire department.  There’s something going on in Iowa Hill every month of the year, rain or shine.

SUGAR PINE LODGE offers overflow camping when the Tahoe National Forest campgrounds are full and has two guest rooms in the lodge and two primitive cabins on the wooded grounds.  Miss B, the proprietor, cooks up what she calls “chuckwagon gourmet” on a big old Wolf stove.  Even in the dead of winter, there will be a cozy fire going in the stove and probably a fiddler and a couple of guitarists sitting around in the lamplight playing some old songs you might remember, especially if you know what a radio is.  Winter or summer, this is a warm and welcoming place that only lacks one thing…you.