- This time on "Wild Nevada," I'm exploring Truckee.

It's a place with some fascinating history, lots of ways to get your outdoor fix, and a bunch of places to enjoy yourself anytime of year.

All that comin' up right now.

- On "Wild Nevada."

- [Announcer] Support for PBS Reno and "Wild Nevada" comes in part from the William N. Pennington Foundation.

Bill Pennington was an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and gaming pioneer, who built a legacy of community service in Nevada.

- [Promoter] Travel Nevada helps provide travel inspiration and experiences for those interested in creating their own wild Nevada adventures.

For more information, visit TravelNnevada.com.

And by, Millie Hopper and Millard Reed, Charles and Margaret Burback, Sande Family Foundation, Kristine Perry, Thelma B. and Thomas P. Hart Foundation, June S. Wisham Trust, the Hall Family, Dillard and Meg Myers, Sarah and Leonard Lafrance, in memory of Sue McDowell, and by individual members.

(upbeat music) - Well, we're starting today in the middle of downtown Truckee, which I admit is not in Nevada, but it's only 18 miles west of the state line.

It's one of the gateways to Lake Tahoe, and it's a really popular spot for a lot of Nevadans to visit.

Myself, I have visited here many times, but I have to confess, I don't know anything about Truckee's history.

So we're gonna rectify that situation today over at the train depot, as we begin our Truckee experience.

At the old train depot is the Museum of Truckee History, where I meet Greg Zirbel, who helped create this museum.

- This is a combination project between the Truckee Donner Historical Society and the Truckee Donner Railroad Society.

And we got together to create this new museum, that since I'm the only docent volunteer that's able to get down on my knees and back up again, I got to be the curator.

Truckee started because of the railroad.

If the railroad never came through here, Truckee may not be here today.

We're in the middle of the forest here.

So it was the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy party in 1844, lookin' for the first wagon route over the pass, and that's where they met Chief Truckee out there by pyramid, right, the Peyote who was guiding 'em.

- [Dave] The chief wasn't called Truckee yet, not until after the explorers mistook a certain word to be his name.

- And he's out there pointing 'em up the river here, trokay, trokay.

- What does that word mean?

- So that's like all okay, right, everything's okay.

Just follow the river.

- Oh, so he was telling them that this is the path that's gonna work, that it's okay to go this way.

- Yeah, right, it'll take you right to the path where you need to cross.

So they're like, we'll name this valley after him.

We'll name this river after him and the lake.

- [Dave] A few years later, the gold rush began, and the mines needed lumber, so Truckee became a logging center.

- We have, right, horses and wagons and oxen and stuff that were haulin' these huge logs over to the mines.

Imagine how long.

- Sounds exhausting.

- Right, for sure.

They had to build the railroad.

They had to support the mines, right, Virginia City and the Gold Rush.

And this was the hub to build the railroad back up to the top and out through Nevada.

- Okay, so this became a town because it was supporting growth of a railroad in both directions?

- Right.

So these guys, this is their summer job, but now what do all of these loggers do in the winter time, right?

The mines are hot.

We need to put ice down in the mines, so they said, "We need to make ice."

Like 1868, the first ice was bein' produced.

- [Dave] How did they make the ice?

- [Greg] So they dammed up every tributary into the Truckee River all the way through here.

- [Dave] And then it just freezes over the top?

- [Greg] Yeah, right, so they just freeze it to about a foot thick, and then they come through with the horses and score it.

- [Dave] Oh my goodness.

- And then they break it apart with these big heavy forks, and then they used these picaroons to float it around, and it made it really easy because the train parallels the river all the way through here.

And so they were creatin' ice, puttin' it on the train, using sawdust from their summer job as insulation, take it down to the Central Valley of California, who's now growin' so much food we can't eat it all, come back up here, top it off with ice, and send it all the way to Chicago.

So this is a 1921 refrigerator powered by ice.

Put the ice in there and food over here.

And you put the ice in there, and it comes through this hole up here in the top over into the refrigerator part to cool off your food.

Here we built this little town along with the railroad, but all winter long, since we get more snow than anywhere else in the country, it's not real easy for wagons and horses to come through town.

- [Dave] Right.

- And the only people goin' through town are on the train.

We need to get these people off the train.

How we gonna do that?

- Create a little tourism.

So they started a winter carnival complete with an ice palace.

- [Greg] So the frame is just basically two by fours and chicken wire, and then they would spray it with water from, it looks like the fire train, to freeze it up.

- [Dave] Wow.

- [Greg] You could skate like 300 people inside.

- [Dave] That's wild.

- They would give you sleigh rides out to Donner Lake.

They had a souvenir coin, and it was the first organized excursion trains from San Francisco to Truckee to attend the winter carnival.

And this was about the size of a football field.

- [Dave] That's incredible.

- This is a 250' toboggan runs, two of 'em down here, and this is a little 3D printed model of the ice palace.

Imagine pullin' in on the train and seein' this party going on, libations, 26 saloons across the street here for you.

- Now, you're talkin', I'm in, I'm in on this.

Soon, Truckee became known for winter sports.

- [Greg] First mechanical ski tow in the country right here, 1910.

- Oh really, so are those people going up?

- Yeah, so they're bein' hauled up, and these are little cogs to help 'em so they don't slide back down.

But then after that, the beginning of the kind of the California ski clubs.

They built the big jump, and it was 65 years later that we had the Olympics.

- The US hockey team won the gold, and that was a huge story.

- Right.

- That was the big thing that I remember from 1960.

- [Greg] Yes, that was big, and we have a couple of the hockey sticks from that game right up there on the wall.

- [Dave] Oh, that's really cool.

As a railroad town in the mountains, Truckee has seen a number of innovations over the years, like this rotary snowplow for one, and another, that seems simple, but makes a big difference to the conductor.

- We have 35 miles of snow sheds and tunnels goin' over Donner path here.

These guys are comin' out of the tunnel, half dead, right.

- So they were going through tunnels, and this is pumping smoke into their faces the whole time.

- Yeah.

- [Dave] God, it just made me.

- Imagine that.

- It just made me cough a little bit just thinkin' about it.

How awful that must have been.

- [Greg] Finally, they introduced the cab forward, so now all the smoke's behind us.

- [Dave] I didn't think of Truckee as being an old enough place to have so much depth of history, but it's got a lot.

- Yes, and you can still touch it.

- [Dave] One way to touch that history is on a walking tour.

Greg takes me outside to do just that.

- [Greg] Now, this here, this is our first structure built in Truckee, 1863, Gray's Cabin.

- [Dave] Oh, cool.

- [Greg] Yeah, really cool.

- [Dave So, is this exactly where it was?

- [Greg] No, it wasn't.

It was about 50 yards away.

- [Dave] Oh funny, why would they move it 50 yards?

- So, that's like the main corner right there.

And they built a wagon repair shop and stuff right on the corner for the traffic, 'cause that's the main road comin' into town.

So they hauled this over here in 1901.

- That makes sense.

What was Gray's Cabin?

What was it about?

- Mr. Gray, the very first settler here in town, he connected with Coburn and they created Coburn Station.

Created a little bridge across the Truckee River Bridge, and it was a little toll road.

- Funny how many of these guys take these spots by the river, make a bridge, and then it becomes a toll bridge, and you're just like.

- Yeah.

- That's rude man, you're the only way across, that's cruel.

- Yeah, yeah, exactly right.

Yeah, if you don't wanna get wet, you gotta cross our bridge.

- [Dave] I love that the very first structure in this town is still here.

Still used, so still viable and not just an artifact.

- [Greg] So what's behind us right here, that door, that was my kindergarten classroom.

- [Dave] No way.

- [Greg] This is where I learned to play Duck, Duck, Goose and musical chairs.

- [Dave] Nice.

- [Greg] I remember those.

Now, we're at the Old Stone Garage.

- [Dave] This is where the cabin used to be?

- This is where the cabin used to sit.

- This was a wagon repair?

- Yeah, exactly.

So first it was a wagon shop, then it turned into a auto repair business.

1962, when my family moved up here, my father was a beer distributor for Lucky Lager beer, and this was full of Lucky Lager beer when I was a kid.

- [Dave] Oh really?

- [Greg] Uh huh.

- [Dave] I see a lot of scoring and marks on this.

Does that have to do with the way they built this place?

- Early 1900, the MacGyvers from Ireland move here.

They were masters in the splitting of rocks and used the plug and feather method, where every 6" apart, you would put this little hole there about the size of your finger, put in two pieces of steel, and then a spike, and then you tap 'em all the way down.

And that's how you split the rocks into nice flat pieces.

- Do we see any evidence of that here?

I mean, I see a lot of marks.

- See that one there?

- This one right here.

- That you can stick your finger in.

- [Dave] It's like finger size.

- [Greg] Yeah, exactly.

This is Jibboom Street, the first main corner in town.

- [Dave] So what was goin' on here back in those days?

- [Greg] A lotta entertainment back here.

- What sort of entertainment?

- Right, oh, dance halls.

- [Dave] Oh, okay.

- Saloons.

And even a few female boarding houses that were fun to visit.

- Okay, I think I follow along with that.

- Imagine you're a miner comin' from the mines and you stop in Truckee, and you get off and you have 26 saloons out here.

Well, you go out the back door of these saloons to Jibboom Street and then back in the back door.

Nobody even know you left, really, right.

(Dave laughs) And all these saloons in Red light District here, we needed a jail, right.

- [Dave] Of course.

- This was old miners comin' to town, gettin'.

- [Dave] How perfect.

At the end of the Red Light District, you go to jail.

Today, this is a museum full of artifacts from Truckee's past, but it sure still feels like a jail.

- Now we're in the main holding cell, right.

You have the constable's room, the drunk tank, and the two high security cells right here.

- This is amazing.

It is cold in here.

Like, maybe 20 degrees cooler.

- Yeah, oh yeah.

- So, you get thrown in jail.

It's bad enough you're goin' to jail, and then you're freezing in here, it's so cold.

These doors are intimidating, and these metal walls, I mean, you get thrown in jail, you're feelin' it.

- They upgraded to all this steel here.

Before this, had a couple guys dug out underneath the wall.

- [Dave] Oh really?

- But immediately let themselves back in because it was colder outside than it was inside.

- That is the the worst kind of jailbreak when you turn right around around and say, "You know what, I take it back, please let me back in."

Can I step into the jail cell?

- You can, oh boy, can you.

- I'm a little nervous, but I wanna see what it's like.

- Don't be nervous.

- [Dave] Oh, woo.

God, that is loud.

- So this is a slammer.

- [Dave] Oh, that is a slammer.

- Might be where the word came from.

- [Dave] Look at that key.

That thing is massive.

- So imagine you're in here for I don't know how long, but by the time you come out, you're a different feller, and you're gonna start behavin' yourself.

(Dave laughs) - [Dave] The Old Jail Museum has so much more than we have time to show, including a second floor that was added on as a hospital.

And it's full of all kinds of donated items, like this chair, which traveled with the Donner party wagon train.

I never thought I'd say these words, but I look forward to going back to this jail.

- [Greg] Now, when you go to lunch, you can just happen to mention that this is the first good meal you've had since you got out of the slammer.

- Our last stop on the walking tour is uphill along Spring Street and a stairway that brings us to what is known as the rocking stone.

Why rocking stone?

- Because it rocks.

- I mean, like, as in it's awesome, or as in it physically rocks?

- It's a four ton stone that they said used to be blown by the wind to keep the birds away.

It scared 'em.

- Really?

- Today, right, it does still rock.

- [Dave] It does rock a little bit, but in earlier days, it would be moved by wind or even the slightest touch.

The native people used to dry meat up here in days gone by.

The tower surrounding the rock came in 1895, and it has been rebuilt since then.

So, how did this happen?

- You can see Donner Summit right there.

Glacier came down through Donner Lake to Truckee, and Truckee's built on a pile of rubble.

And this is just a piece of the rubble that landed on top of this huge 18' boulder here.

- What are the odds that this lands right in the middle of this?

Big rock, little rock on top of big rock.

Or big rock on top of bigger rock, that's what it feels like.

Incredible.

After today, I have a new perspective about Truckee.

From this vantage point, we can see across the tracks toward the snow, and that's where Greg has more in store for us tomorrow.

The next morning, we're on the snowy side of that view, getting ready for a little outdoor adventure.

Greg brings some head and and footwear that I could only describe as vintage.

Those shoes.

- Yeah, these are the earliest.

- Those look like the first snowshoes of all time.

How well do those work?

- [Greg] They work pretty well.

- I think the straps I would fail, but this I can do.

I can turn a knob.

I'm a good knob turner.

I've got the little backpack with some snacks and some water just to be safe.

Also, sunscreen, and when you're out in the snow, sunscreen underneath too, 'cause I have burned the underside of my face because of reflection off of the snow.

And you can get sunburn under the arms as well because of the reflection.

So long sleeves, sunscreen all around your face and neck underneath, protect your chin from that awful burn.

And one other little tip, last time we went snowshoeing, I came back without a wedding ring, that was frustrating.

So for these trips, I've replaced it with silicone, so silicone is your friend.

If you need the jewelry, buy a replacement before you go out and then leave the good stuff at home, so it doesn't fall off when you're takin' a picture of one of your camera guys up on Mount Rose.

I'm just sayin'.

Our starting point is the site of the old winter carnival, which is now a mountain meadow with this pond, which has a backstory.

- [Greg] This is the second ice palace, built in 1913, 140' diameter ring here.

- [Dave] So we'd be skating in a big circle?

This is essentially like a roller rink/ice rink.

- [Greg] Yeah, exactly right, and it's not that deep.

Maybe 2' deep.

- [Dave] Was there a roof?

Was there a big roof up there?

- [Greg] There was a big roof up here with one big pole in the middle that held up the roof, 40' high walls with a dome on top to resemble the hippodrome in Denver, Colorado.

- [Dave] Along our path, Greg points out the site of a 1909 ski jump that used to be here.

A lot went wrong here.

The jump was too big, the landing zone was too flat, and the jumpers were too injured to continue, so they built this safer one nearby.

River is roiling.

- Oh boy, it is.

- I never get to say that word, but it is, that's a roiling river, yeah.

It's a sound that is so pleasant, you could just hang out all day and just in a nice comfortable rock, or maybe even a lawn chair, if you bring your own, and just read a book, hang out, and have some, have a picnic.

That will be a lot easier to do in the future, as Truckee has big plans for this area of the river.

- This is gonna be a whole redevelopment of this side of the river, including West River Street is gonna get all new sidewalks and upgraded.

They're gonna put a park in right here and beach access down here along the Truckee River.

- Oh, I love it.

- And so now, this is gonna be open space, and the trail's gonna take you all the way here, all the way over to Donner Memorial State Park.

- [Dave] Greg takes us uphill, but the trail we're following is hidden by snow, so we have to bushwhack it a little.

Gimme somethin' to hold on to.

There we go.

- [Greg] There you go.

- [Dave] All right (sighs) piece of cake.

- [Greg] Yeah.

- Piece of cake.

What are you doin' to me, Greg?

(Greg laughs) Good to get a little exercise, a little workout.

Reminds me of how much there is around here for outdoor recreational enthusiasts.

We just barely touched it, but you get skiing, snowboarding, and then summer, the lake's right over there.

You got millions of trails, right.

- And mountain bikers and hikers and horses.

- Pretty much anything anybody wants.

We got running outta snow here.

- Here we are.

Yeah, so right here, we're on the new Legacy Trail.

So this was created by the town of Truckee and goes all the way through town.

It's gonna end up at Donner Memorial State Park.

- So we can look forward to coming back and walking the complete Legacy Trail.

- This is where they built the jump, the 140' jump.

- This is the alternative to what we saw earlier, where you would land on a flat surface and break your ankles.

This is the steep landing spot.

I'm still not excited about landing on this steep hill.

I'm goin' back to the tow rope.

I'm gonna do the tow, the tow and then ski slow.

Tow and slow, that's my new mantra.

As we prepare to say goodbye to the Legacy Trail for now, Greg has one more piece of living history to share.

This tree was lit up for the winter carnival and the holidays every year.

If you look closely, you can still see the light bulb sockets.

Now that, is history you can touch.

After tromping around on snowshoes, I'm ready to relax, and one of the many good places to do that in Truckee is Fifty Fifty, a brewery and restaurant that has become a staple in town.

I meet owner Alicia Barr, who along with her husband Andy, followed an unlikely path to get here.

I read a little bit about you guys, not what you would imagine your standard brew pub entrepreneur to come from.

- So yeah, I have a Master's in mechanical engineering.

My husband has a Master's in electrical engineering.

We were in the tech world for about 10 years and then just decided that that was not the lifestyle we wanted.

And so, yeah, quit our jobs, sold our house, came up here, learned a lot on the fly.

And it's been quite the journey of two engineers coming up here and saying, "All right, let's make beer and run a restaurant."

And the two of us have a combined zero years of experience working in restaurants prior to starting one.

- Well, it's worked.

It seems that you've succeeded.

- Here we are 16 years later, it's kinda crazy.

If you would have asked me 15 years ago where we thought our name would be, I don't know that we really had even thought that far, right.

And now, we distribute to, I wanna say, 13 countries and 20 states around the US.

- [Dave] They've definitely come a long way, but it began here in this room where Alicia explains how they brew.

- It all starts up there in our grain room, and this is a big staircase that comes up and down.

That's our grain mill, so we put a bunch of grain in there.

It comes in through, that's called a grist, and it goes through the mill into the grist, and basically, the mill breaks up the husks, so you can get all the fermentable sugars and flavors outta that.

And that then dumps into here.

Fun story on this.

That couldn't fit right above where we needed it to, and this couldn't move over because of the boiler and the cleaning tank requirements.

So we have like a custom little chute that we connect and slide in, so when it's time to dunk the grain into the kettle, it's a very manual operation.

So once the grain's in here, it steeps in hot water, in the most simplistic of terms, it's like a tea, right.

You're getting all of the fermentable sugars and flavors out of the grain that comes down through there.

From there, a whole contraption of hoses and pumps sends it over there, which is our whirlpool, where we spin it, filter out, add hops, cool it through the heat exchanger, which is behind the platform, and then add food grade oxygen as it goes into the fermenting vessels.

So, these are our vessels.

We shoehorned this last one in, which doesn't technically fit into the ceiling.

We learned as we were tilting it up, it wasn't gonna fit, and so somebody quick, I think it was my husband's like, "Wait, I got an answer."

And he went and grabbed a saw awl, cut a hole in the ceiling, and lo and behold, now it fits.

So that's actually our favorite story of like innovation on the fly, right, behind the scenes.

That's how we got that last tank to fit.

- [Dave] Fifty Fifty has outgrown this single room and opened a production facility a few miles away, which can handle the increased demand brought on by distribution.

They've also opened a distillery, so it's apparent that this community has been good to them.

- It's been great.

I mean, it's such an active outdoors, pioneering community, right.

Like, if you're gonna live up here, you have to be just willing to figure it out and make it work.

It's not like the perfect job is there for anybody, right.

You get creative with how you find housing, what you do for a living.

You find your passion because your passion is being here, and I think that goes a lot into the way we brew beer.

Like yeah, let's throw some stuff in barrels and see what happens, this is fun, right.

It might be a total bust, and if it does, we've had to dump barrels of beer down the drain because it's not good.

But we have our standards, and I think that's the reputation we've developed is that everything we serve is gonna be high quality, something we can stand behind.

- Why the name Fifty Fifty?

What is the significance of that?

- It's a broad term for balance, and we were in the corporate rat race for a long time.

Our company preached work-life balance, but we never saw it.

Every spare moment we had, we were coming up here, and all of a sudden it dawned on us, like that's the balance of like, if you love what you do for work and you live in a place.

So it's the balance of work and play plays into, it's the balance of hops and barley.

It's the balance of food and beer.

It's like it's find your balance, whatever that is, and it also made for a really cool logo, so.

Truckee has such a strong sense of community.

When we decided it was time to have a family, we were very adamant we wanted to do that up here because of that sense of community.

And we joke that within six months of living here, we knew more people around town than we knew in 10 years of living in Roseville.

I go to the grocery store, and I know all the checkout clerks, and you go to any business in town and you know all the people.

I can name most of the people sitting at our bar any given day, and I love that.

- You're a tremendous spokesperson for Truckee.

You should be the mayor.

- I was the mayor (laughs).

- [Dave] It's true.

Alicia really was the mayor back in 2015, and her love for this town is contagious.

- Cheers.

- Cheers.

A beer tasting with the former mayor and lunch with the crew makes for a very pleasant ending to this visit.

Well, the past couple of days have flown by, but it's left me with a greater sense of Truckee's past, it's present, and some good ideas about why to be excited about Truckee's future.

And I hope you've enjoyed traveling along with me.

For more on this trip or any "Wild Nevada" adventure, go to PBSreno.org, or you can watch streaming on the PBS app.

Until our next "Wild Nevada" adventure, here's hoping that you can find some adventure of your own.

We'll see you next time.

Well, this is why it's nice to have snowshoes.

Wait a second, cameraman down.

What happened to you?

- I lost my footing just a little bit.

- [Dave] Alex, taking the fast way down.

- [Alex] I win.

- [Dave] Greg, where does one find a hat like that?

- I don't know, but if you were to make a bunch of 'em, you could make some money because a lot of people like this hat.

- [Announcer] Support for PBS Reno and "Wild Nevada" comes in part from the William N. Pennington Foundation.

Bill Pennington was an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and gaming pioneer, who built a legacy of community service in Nevada.

- [Promoter] Travel Nevada helps provide travel inspiration and experiences for those interested in creating their own wild Nevada adventures.

For more information, visit travelnevada.com.

And by Millie Hopper and Millard Reed, Charles and Margaret Burback, Sande Family Foundation, Kristine Perry, Thelma B. and Thomas P. Hart Foundation, June S. Wisham Trust, the Hall Family, Dillard and Meg Myers, Sarah and Leonard Lafrance, in memory of Sue McDowell, and by individual members.

(upbeat music)