TAHOMA, CA — Although many are familiar with the 1960 Winter Olympics held at Squaw Valley, few know that the 1960 Olympic Nordic events took place 17 miles down the road in Tahoma, Calif., on Lake Tahoe's West Shore.

After the 1960 Winter Games, the Olympic Nordic trails were more or less abandoned, Mother Nature took over and the facility faded into oblivion. Until a few years ago that is, when the vision to restore the trails was conceived.

In 1999, after uncovering a portion of the trails in his Tahoma backyard, retired engineer and local resident David Antonucci began spearheading the effort to restore the Olympic trails and create a year-round public recreation facility in this area. Today, approximately 15 percent or 10 kilometers of the 65-kilometer trails are accessible. The remainder of the trails is expected to be completed by 2005.

To help reinvigorate the community's interest in the trails and to celebrate some historical Olympic firsts, the Olympic Trails Organizing Committee, along with the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association and the West Shore Association, is hosting Olympic Trails History Days. The two-day event, set for Thursday, Jan. 17 and Friday, Jan. 18 at Sugar Pine Point and Granlibakken Resort, located on the West Shore, will feature a reunion of the 1960 Winter Olympic Nordic athletes and officials, a rededication ceremony, Nordic film highlights from the 1960 Games, as well as organized ski tours of the once-hidden cross country tracks.

The 1960 Olympic Nordic Trails are rolling, single-lane parallel nordic tracks that stretch from the area that is now Sugar Pine Point State Park to Homewood Mountain Resort. The trails, located on both private and public land, are considered to be the first cross country ski area in the United States, and were designed by former U.S. Olympian Wendall "Chummy" Broomhall and Dartmouth ski team coach Allison Merrill. Here the first-ever biathlon competition, a 20-kilometer ski and shoot racecourse looping through the terrain of Tahoma and Homewood, Calif., was held.

The Olympic Trails Organizing Committee is a volunteer organization devoted to the restoration of the cross country ski trails of the 1960 Winter Olympics. For more information, click to www.olympictrails.org. To donate funds, Olympic artifacts and memorabilia, please contact Dave Antonucci at 530/525-5410 or by email at dcantonucci@msn.com.

— Posted by Ari Cheren, MountainZone.com Staff