Welcome to the Site of Echo Summit
(elevation 7395')
California Historical Landmark Marker No. 1048
In 1968 the men's U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials were held at Echo Summit. For those familiar with the area, it's hard to imagine that Echo summit was once a track and field center. With athletes worried about competing at the high elevations in Mexico City that summer, Echo Summit was chosen as a training spot. Space for a track was cut out of the forest, an artificial surface spread, and for two months althletes lived and practiced at the high elevation.
The effort paid off well when U.S. athletes earn numerous medals and set a number of world records in track and field. Dick Fosbury introduced the "Fosbury Flop", Bob Beamon astonished the world by setting a record in the long jump, sprinters Lee Hines, Tommie Smith, and Lee Evans set world records, and discus thrower Al Oerter picked up his fourth gold medal in as many Olympics.
Marker Text:
In 1968, Echo Summit served as a high-altitude training center and site of the U.S. Olympic Men's Track and Field Trials. Four world records were shattered here on the track carved out of the El Dorado National Forest. The U.S. team selected for the 1968 Olympic games in Mexico City was celebrated worldwide for its athletic dominance and deep commitment to racial equality.
California Registered Historical Landmark No. 1048
Registered November 8, 2013
Plaque placed by the California State Parks in cooperation with the United States Forest Service
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You'd never know it now, if not for this historical marker at the entrance to the Sno-Park, but this was indeed the site of some pretty amazing history. As recalled in a great article from 2018 in the Tahoe Magazine by Tim Hauserman:
Fifty years ago this October, the United States Track and Field team went to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City and proceeded to have America’s greatest-ever Summer Games. “I speak for what the experts say now: more gold medals, more world records, more silver medals, more bronze medals, more American records, the greatest team in Olympic history,” 1968 Olympic track coach Payton Jordan famously said when he revisited the site of the Echo Summit track in 2000. The Americans were indeed dominant, winning 24 medals — including 12 golds — and setting six world records during the course of the 1968 Games. Perhaps part of that success can be attributed to where the athletes trained before heading to the high altitude venues of Mexico City — about 15 miles south of South Lake Tahoe at Echo Summit, where the U.S. Men’s Olympic Track & Field Trials were held from Sept. 6-16, 1968.
At 7,300 feet, Echo Summit closely matched the elevation of Mexico City. While training at that altitude was grueling, the athletes fell in love with the unique track setting and the beauty of Lake Tahoe.
For the event, the National Forest Service gave permission for the installation of a temporary all-weather Tartan track that was laid out at the location of what was then Echo Summit Ski Area, with the understanding that the event would have as little impact on the environment as possible.
Author Bob Burns — whose book, “A Track in the Forest: The Creation of a Legendary 1968 Olympic Team,” will be published in October — writes the following about the temporary track: “The Echo Summit Track had hundreds of pines dotting the infield. Runners disappeared from sight on the curves and backstretch. Javelins came flying out of the trees.” Fans would climb onto giant granite boulders among the tall trees, or sit on the slanted hillside to watch the event. There was limited grandstand space, and the middle of the forest atmosphere was very different from the usual venue for track and field events: a stadium in the middle of a city. Bill Toomey, the American gold medalist in the 1968 Olympic decathlon, held such fond memories of his experience at Echo Summit a half-century ago that he moved to Incline Village on Lake Tahoe’s North Shore several years ago.
“Lake Tahoe was a dream,” Toomey said in an interview with Tahoe Magazine. “Making the Olympic team there ingratiated me into the whole environment; you would get lost in the trees and find yourself on the way back.” It was not all fun and games, however. Toomey recalls the 1968 event near Lake Tahoe as the, “roughest trials in the history of trials because of the altitude, especially for distance runners.”
What made this improbable event happen 50 years ago was largely due to the hard work of Walt Little, who served as parks director for the then-3-year-old city of South Lake Tahoe. Little had been a sports writer and was a close friend of U.S. Track and Field’s Jordan. Little’s son also worked at the Echo Summit Ski Area at the time and suggested it to his father as a potential site. The Littles worked to convince the U.S. Olympic Planning Commission to go with Echo Summit, obtained financial support from Harrah’s resort on Tahoe’s South Shore, and instituted a 5 percent hotel tax to provide the $250,000 needed to purchase the aforementioned temporary Tartan track. Trailers went up onsite for some of the athletes to live in, while others stayed in hotels in South Lake Tahoe. Walt Little even arranged part time jobs for some of the athletes to make ends meet.
And when the budget couldn’t pay for athletes’ meals, Little paid for them himself, Toomey recalled. “Walt Little was the driving force to make it happen — he knew what the impact of the trials would be on the community,” said Toomey. “He is the unknown hero of the entire trials.” Inspired by the unique conditions in the forest, the American track and field athletes set four world records on Echo Summit, en route to their dominant medal-winning run in Mexico City.
- Tim Hauserman, Tahoe Magazine, August 2018
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After the 1968 Olympic Trials, the Tartan track at Echo Summit was removed and installed at South Lake Tahoe’s Intermediate School (now South Tahoe Middle School), where it served young athletes until 1992, including hosting South Tahoe High School track meets.
It cost the city of South Lake Tahoe $42,960 to move the track, which became the first Tartan track (surfaced with a synthetic polyurethane made by 3M) in the nation to be located at an intermediate school.
As the decades went by, however, unaccountability and neglect took its toll on the city’s investment. Cracks, an uneven surface, pooling water — and even goose poop — trumped the rich history of the track, and the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association put a stop to STHS home meets for safety reasons, with South Tahoe High hosting its final track meet at STMS on April 4, 1992.
In the years after 1992, Lake Tahoe track and field lovers like Rick Brown, Anthony Davis and Karin Holmes couldn’t stand it any longer.
Davis and Brown originally proposed the idea of fundraising for a new track, and it was through the persistence of Holmes, a lifelong resident and physical education teacher at STMS, that triggered a fundraising landslide in 2007. Former Google software engineer Ray Sidney even led the way with a $250,000 contribution.
The fundraising and community work culminated in April 2008, with the unveiling of a brand-new, nine-lane polyurethane track at the Community Youth Sports Complex at STMS, and on April 19, 2008, South Tahoe High hosted its first track meet in 16 years, since that final event in 1992.
“It’s been a long time coming, and we are finally here,” Anthony Davis told the Tahoe Daily Tribune newspaper before the event “The good thing about this meet is we are able to showcase our kids in the community and maybe bring more kids back into track and field.”
— Source: Tahoe Daily Tribune