Echo Summit, California, and the Josh Daiek Road Gap Jump

West of Lake Tahoe, Route 50 rises to 7,382 feet at Echo Summit, its highest point in the Sierra Nevada. If you look back, you can see the lake far below.

And at this moment, you are driving past the spot where, if you had been there on a certain day in February 2019, you could have seen Josh Daiek turn a backflip over your head. How did he do it? Weather, terrain, and personal daring.

There is almost always snow in the Sierras during the winter, and that February there was enough for Daiek use the snow to fashion a ski jump on the north side of Route 50. There, as you can see in the photo above, a cliff rises high above the road, 90 feet in fact. On the other side, the rocky embankment drops away sharply, but offers some smooth areas for a landing.

Daiek and a friend used snow shovels to build his ski jump in the middle of the night, with lamps strapped to their heads for illumination. It was back 30 feet from the edge of the cliff, so a successful jump would have to cover 150 feet to cross Route 50 and reach the planned landing area. To allow Daiek to gain enough speed for that, they smoothed out a 50-yard approach.

The next morning, as Daiek prepared for the jump, a highway department truck and a highway patrolman stopped in a parking area nearby. Instead of trying to stop him, the drivers just got out and watched. On his first — that’s right, his first — jump, Daiek turned a backflip while he was above Route 50, and while he was upside down he saw a pair of 18-wheeler trucks passing below him.

He landed hard on the downslope, and he fell. Not satisfied with this result, Daiek climbed back up to Route 50, crossed the road, and scrambled back up to his impromptu ski jump ramp. His skis had broken during his first landing, so he borrowed a friend’s skis and jumped again. This time he hit the landing and skied out of it.

Josh Daiek’s road gap jump over Route 50 is one of the most amazing acts of skiing you’ll ever see. “Aw nuts,” you say. “How do you know? You weren’t there.” You’re right, of course, but he wasn’t alone when he jumped. Two friends videoed his exploit, and he wore a camera on his helmet. Do an Internet search for “Josh Daiek road gap,” and you may still be able to see the video of him upside down in midair, high over Route 50.

Sierra Nevada Mountains, California

You must have chains on your car to cross the Sierra Nevada in serious winter snow. Chain installers are ready to help.

See the orange and white stake next to the sign? That helps plow drivers find the side of the road after a heavy snow, and everybody in California hopes for heavy snow in the mountains. Besides being good for skiing, melting snow is an important source of the state’s water during the summer.

Route 50 descends the western slope of the Sierra Nevada.

Placerville California

Placerville (the “A” sound is pronounced as in “hat”) is in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where Route 50 completes its descent from the mountains.

It was founded during the gold rush of 1848. Early in its history it was called Hangtown, because, well, the town officials hung people. There is a story that sometimes the backlog of prospective hangees was so great that the town erected not just one, but two, gallows, so there would be no waiting.

In 1854, when Placerville was incorporated and officially named, it was the third largest town in California.

Hangtown Fry — Placerville, California

These eggs have been scrambled with oysters, bacon, and onions, resulting in a dish called Hangtown Fry. There are competing stories of its origin.

One story, promoted by Placerville, tells of a miner who discovered a rich vein of gold in the mid 1850s. Flush with his new wealth, he came into town and demanded a meal made of the most expensive ingredients he could imagine. At the time Placerville was called “Hangtown,” and so the dish became known as Hangtown Fry.

There is another story, though.

That one tells of a man condemned to hang. Desperate to delay his final event, he requested oysters, bacon, onions, and eggs for his last meal. He thought it would take a long time to come up with those ingredients, especially the oysters.

It’s too bad for the macho reputation of the dish and for the rambunctious, gold-mining image Placerville promotes, that one restaurant serving Hangtown Fry today is called … Buttercup Pantry.

Coloma, California

Gold!

On January 24, 1848, a man named James Marshall discovered gold in what is now the town of Coloma, California. At the time, he wasn’t looking for it.

Marshall was a business partner of John Sutter, who needed lumber to develop extensive land holdings in what is now California. The deal: Sutter would finance the construction of a sawmill, and Marshall would build it.

The original Sutter’s Mill didn’t last long. It was completely washed away by the South Fork of the American River, which flows just to the left of the photo above.

The mill you see here is a reconstruction, built to the original plans. Marshall placed his mill near the river because it relied on water power to drive its saw. Water was diverted from the river to run through the mill race (the ditch in the foreground). Water pressure turned the water wheel visible at the bottom of the building, which in turn operated a saw on the upper level.

Marshall had trouble getting water to flow freely enough to drive the saw, and so his workers kept digging at the mill race. One day, while inspecting that work, Marshall looked down at the water trickling past his feet and, using only his hand, scooped up some flakes of metal.

What he said on that occasion is known: “Boys, by God I believe I’ve found a gold mine!” The boys were skeptical.

They suspected the presence of iron pyrite, or fool’s gold, so they ran tests. The metal flakes were bent, bitten, hammered with a rock, and, finally, soaked in lye.

The verdict: Gold!

The result, according to the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, where the mill is located, was “The largest voluntary mass migration of people in history.”

The park, eight miles north of Placerville and Route 50, also features a majestic statue of James Marshall pointing to the spot where he discovered the gold. In real life, he and Sutter likely felt much less than majestic about the whole thing. They both died in poverty.

Ladybugs

Each year millions of ladybugs are born in California’s Central Valley, between the Sierra Nevada mountains and the sea. They fly up and are carried by air currents into the Sierra foothills. There, they are trapped by ladybug hunters and brought back to the Central Valley for use in agriculture.

Sacramento, California

The capitol building in Sacramento, California, is one of four state capitols on Route 50. (The other three: Annapolis, Maryland; Jefferson City, Missouri; Carson City, Nevada. Not to mention Washington, D.C.)

Sacramento is named for the Sacramento River, which borders it on the west. The river, in turn, was named “Santisimo Sacramento” (most holy sacrament) by a Spanish cavalry officer.

To get to Sacramento, Route 50 comes down from Echo Summit in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which is west of Lake Tahoe at an elevation of 7,382 feet.

Because Sacramento rests at thirteen feet above sea level, the climb to Echo Summit is the longest on Route 50. This is true even though the Rocky Mountains are higher than the Sierras, and Monarch Pass, where Route 50 crosses the continental divide, is at an altitude of 11,312 feet. However, the climb to reach that point begins at Canõn City, Colorado, elevation 5,331 feet. That makes it a climb of ‘only’ 5,981 feet, or about 1,400 feet less than the climb from Sacramento to Echo Pass.